I am writing to introduce IronRoost Farms, Inc. — a vertically integrated Central Virginia food company building a regional platform out of the same poultry footprint that has defined Virginia agriculture for generations (Virginia C-Corp, SCC #12012225). Our 2026 pilot has validated the cold-chain, grower-contract, and Mid-Atlantic buyer relationships we will lean on as we expand into controlled-environment leafy greens. I would value a 30-minute introductory call with your office to walk through the project and learn where the Virginia Cooperative Extension can help us plug into the producer resources, facility leads, and program support that already exist in Nottoway County.

The Phase 2 work centers on a hydroponic leafy-greens operation — lettuce, kale, spinach, arugula, and culinary herbs — grown in controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) on the same land base, the same cold chain, and the same buyer relationships the 2026 poultry pilot established. A second-generation piece of the platform is intentional: the litter and organic byproducts from our poultry operation are positioned to feed the nutrient inputs for the hydroponic system, creating a circular-agriculture model that neither the consolidated integrators nor the standalone CEA startups have been able to assemble. The first cohort of growers and facility partners will come from Central Virginia, with Nottoway County a logical anchor for the on-the-ground network.

I would like to ask your office for three specific kinds of help, and to discuss each of them in the call. First, introductions to local producer and grower-network resources — particularly CEA operators in Nottoway and the adjacent counties who could participate as fair-contract growers on terms paralleling the 2026 poultry grower motion. Second, facility leads — greenhouses, vacant CEA infrastructure, agribusiness sites, or co-pack tenants that could shorten the siting timeline for the leafy-greens facility. Third, pointers into the program support stack that already runs through Extension: USDA and VDACS program navigability (including the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program cycle we are tracking for 2027), Beginning Farmer & Rancher Development resources, USDA GAP audit preparation, and the soil-less / hydroponic-specific food-safety SOPs we will need to formalize for the CEA operators under contract.

IronRoost Farms, Inc. is a vertically integrated Virginia C-Corporation (SCC #12012225) headquartered at 2593 Cougar Lane, Locust Grove, Virginia 22508. The company is led by Jean-Pierre Maldonado, sole director and officer. Our model is built around fair-contract production, locally rooted supply, and the recovery of the processing and distribution infrastructure that Virginia’s independent poultry farmers have lost over the last decade. We are not building a single farm; we are building a platform that proves independent food production can compete with consolidated incumbents — protein first, produce second, and a replicable model for other regions next.

The Phase 2 hydroponic expansion is the natural extension of that platform. The same refrigerated distribution channel that moves our birds today moves our greens tomorrow, from the same land base, served by the same cold-chain footprint, and reaching the same Mid-Atlantic buyers — PFG, Saval, Wholesome, institutional accounts, and restaurant-direct customers. The leaf program is not a separate venture; it is the same platform, with a different SKU, built to make the regional food system more resilient rather than more dependent on out-of-state supply.