SFCC, Ecoponex Partner on Sustainable Farming Agreement

The future of food is coming to Santa Fe. Santa Fe Community College and Ecoponex Systems of New Mexico LLC are partnering to build an innovative new small-scale Renewable Energy Efficient Farming technology at the college. Known as Micro-REEF, it offers a revolutionary new way of local production using renewable energy and recycled food and green waste, water, nutrients and carbon. SFCC President Randy W. Grissom and Ecoponex Chief Executive Officer Benjamin Brant today announced an agreement, pending financing and approval from the State Board of Finance, to launch the partnership on campus this summer.

“We are excited and honored to have the opportunity to develop this precedent-setting project in Santa Fe. It is not by accident that we have chosen this community and formed a partnership with SFCC,” said Brant. “We selected Santa Fe for several reasons: One, we had previously worked with the City and State of New Mexico in the late 1990s, under a different company (Planetec), where we implemented a model water conservation program for city facilities and several state buildings, as well as conducted an energy audit of the entire municipal water system. The second real driving factor was the fact that the college was educating and training students in all of the technologies being used in our REEF system and had developed a national reputation for their efforts. Therefore, it was only natural and fitting that the college and City of Santa Fe be the best location to develop our first REEF facility.”

“The college wants to play an active role in economic development, and partnerships like this one with Ecoponex help us to support that commitment,” said Grissom. “We are always looking for ways to get students more excited about STEM (science, technology, engineering, math), provide them with meaningful internships and increase their critical thinking skills. Working with emerging technologies and innovators like Ecoponex illustrates for students some of the range of opportunities that await them. It makes their education relevant, and that keeps them engaged.”