Casey Houweling awarded with ”Excellence in Agricultural Stewardship and Sustainability Award”
Presented at the 5th Annual VCRCD awards luncheon in Ventura, Monica Houweling, daughter of CEO Casey Houweling was on hand to accept the award on behalf of the company. Past winners of the award include: Harold Edwards, Limoneira Company (2010); Richard Atmore, R.A. Atmore & Sons, Inc. (2011); Craig Underwood, Underwood Family Farms (2012); and Phil McGrath, McGrath Family Farms (2013). Houweling’s CEO Casey Houweling commented “It is an honour to be recognized amongst such a prestigious group of farmers and peers in Ventura County who are committed to investing in our planet and using their resources as efficiently as possible. I believe that working together in the agriculture community, we can continue to innovate and create solutions that are economically feasible but that support our ability to farm with fewer resources.”
A leader in sustainably grown greenhouse tomatoes, Houweling’s efforts in sustainability include a 13.2 Megawatt cogeneration installation for its 125 acre farm in Camarillo, CA. The first of its kind in the United States, the cogeneration technology allows the business to generate power on-site, supply excess electricity to the grid, while capturing traditionally wasted heat and CO2 which are used for growing tomatoes within the greenhouse. The end result is carbon neutral energy and reduced fossil fuel use. Greenhouse growing techniques implemented by Houweling’s also use approximately 1/6th of the water on less than 3 percent of the land that would be required to produce a comparable amount of product of open field grown tomatoes. This also allows further protection of the soil and water table and conserves land use.
The VCRCD award follows other recent honours relating to sustainability, including the 2014 Cool Planet Award (Agricultural Sector), and California Energy Solutions Center (ESC) Partnership Award for Innovative Energy Solutions during the ESC Technology and Market Assessment Forum.
Houweling’s Tomatoes grows year-round, sustainable greenhouse tomatoes on 175 acres in Camarillo, CA, and Delta, BC. In January of 2015, Houweling’s will begin harvesting from their new 28 acre farm in Mona, UT, which will be completely heated by waste energy that is captured from the stack of an adjacent power plant. Led by Casey Houweling and his team, the company is committed to growing a full array of flavourful, sustainably grown, year-round tomatoes.
The Ventura County Resource Conservation District [VCRCD] is a special district of the state and is primarily funded by grants. VCRCD provides assistance to help both rural and urban communities to conserve, protect, and restore natural resources. The organization is a local unit of government and is administered under the provisions of Division 9, of the Public Resource Code, State of California. The VCRCD is one of 99 RCDs in CA and belongs to the California Association of RCDs (CARCD).
More information about VCRCD is available at www.vcrcd.org
For more information:
David Bell
Houweling's Tomatoes
Tel: +1 604.946.0844 ext. 205
Email: david.bell@houwelings.com
www.houwelings.com