This Musk — Elon's brother — looks to revolutionize urban farming

NEW YORK – In sunny California, Elon Musk is upending America's auto and space industries. And here, in a cold, gritty section of Brooklyn, his brother Kimbal has embarked on a project that's just as significant in its own way: Trying to reboot the food system.

The younger Musk is the co-founder of Square Roots, an urban farming incubator with the goal of teaching young people how to farm in cities while preaching the importance of locally sourced, non-processed food.

Having shown its potential during the past two years in the parking lot of a shuttered factory near public housing projects of Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant, Square Roots is ready to branch out. It is looking to set up plots — each the equivalent of 2 acres of farmland — in cities across the U.S. They're hydroponic, which means the crops grow in a nutrient-laced water solution, not soil.

The sites in contention, all of which had to pledge support from local governments and businesses, are in Chicago, Denver, Memphis, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, Tampa, Atlanta, Dallas, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and a second site in New York. Musk and Square Roots CEO Tobias Peggs will narrow the list down to 10 later this year.

Source: usatoday