Backyard Farms is an agricultural company, based in Madison, Maine, United States, specializing in massive greenhouses to produce vine-ripened tomatoes. [1] It had been owned by Devonshire Investors, a Boston-based branch of Fidelity Investments [2] but was sold in June 2017 to a Canadian produce company, Mastronardi Produce of Ontario. [3]
The company was started in 2004. [1] [4] In 2007, the company's first 25-acre (100,000 m2) greenhouse was built in Madison, Maine, making it the largest building by volume in the state. [1] It covers the area of 20 football fields. The 240,000 plants grow up to 10 feet tall and are projected to yield 1 million tomatoes each week. [5] Their second greenhouse, connected to the first, was built in 2009. The combined area was then 42 acres (170,000 m2). [1] Plants are grown in rock wool and pollinated by bumblebees that are kept inside the greenhouses. [2] Rainwater that sheds off the greenhouse roofs is recycled to supplement the water used to irrigate the plants. [6]
Although the tomatoes originally had been a specialty variety called "Backyard Beauty", they had been replaced with other, undisclosed varieties. [2] There had been plans for the operation to expand to include peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, herbs, and strawberries. [7]