Danville, Virginia — In another milestone moment for Newark-based AeroFarms, the world’s leader in indoor vertical farming held a groundbreaking Thursday for a 136,000-square-foot facility in Danville, Virginia, a city of approximately 43,000 people near the North Carolina border in the central part of the state.

AeroFarms officials say the facility, which is scheduled to become operational in the second quarter of 2022, will be the largest and most technologically advanced aeroponic indoor vertical farm in the world. They are calling it a next-generation Model 5 farm.