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ANDERSON — A large-scale “vertical farming” operation is closing and laying off 73 employees in Anderson County as the startup company that owns it collapses and the alternative farming industry faces economic headwinds, including a pullback in federal funding.

The Ohio-based company — 80 Acres Farms — is winding down “after an exhaustive effort to find a way forward,” founder and CEO Mike Zelkind said.

The indoor facility on U.S. 29 just outside the city of Anderson plans to fully close by Aug. 17, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice filed with the state Department of Employment and Workforce earlier this week.

Vertical farming uses indoor facilities to grow mostly leafy greens in stacked rows that don’t require soil or sunlight and don’t have to depend on an expansive farmland footprint, which allows production in urban settings and in climate-challenged regions.

The industry has faced economic headwinds. The facilities are expensive to build and run, requiring significant capital investment upfront and intensive labor and energy costs to substitute natural sunlight and irrigation.

Just earlier this year, 80 Acres announced expansion into more stores and locations to include Walmart, Fresh Market and Harris Teeter — more than 18,000 locations all told. Last August, the company announced a merger with competitor Soli Organic to create one of the nation’s largest vertical farming companies and projected first-year revenues of $200 million.

The industry has a history of tumult as startups failed to become profitable. At the start of this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, citing high delinquency and default rates, paused new federal loan guarantees that are designed to help vertical farming and other “controlled environment agriculture” be attractive to investors.

The pause was extended until at least the end of this year.

In a statement, Zelkind said 80 Acres proved that vertical farming can work at scale and but that “unfortunately, under current circumstances, we could not secure the capital required to continue that work.”

In a WARN notice filed in Ohio alerting workers of layoffs there, 80 Acres wrote that the company was negotiating with a prospective buyer in a deal that it believed would happen and would have provided funding necessary “to continue operations and avoid or postpone the closure.”

However, on the evening of Aug. 2, the party “unexpectedly withdrew from the transaction,” 80 Acres wrote.

“We are deeply grateful to our employees, our retail partners, and the communities that have supported us,” it said. “We have seen vertical farming’s potential up close, and we still believe that this industry is just getting started, and that we have helped plant the seeds for generations of future harvests.”

Tonya Winbush has asked the South Carolina Supreme Court to expedite her appeal in Anderson’s Seat 5 election fight, a case that has displayed an array of civic dramas in which residency, procedure, and political fate all seem to occupy the same cramped room.

Winbush maintains she won the April 7 election over Darryl Thompson, the son of retired longtime Councilwoman Beatrice Thompson, by a roughly two to one margin, only to see the Anderson Municipal Election Commission later undo the result after a residency challenge. Two days after the election, in response to a challenge by Darryl Thompson, the commission decided on April 17 that Winbush had not abandoned her residence at 741 Kings Road and invalidated her election, relying on a paper trail that included a deed, county auditor records, vehicle registrations, utility records, and a driver’s license address, while Winbush pointed to a lease and water-service application tied to 309 Morris Lane in Seat 5.

After a period of waiting, the circuit court held a hearing and then affirmed the commission in a brief July 7 order. In response, Winbush filed a notice of appeal to the S.C. Supreme Court on Wednesday, and in asking to expedite the case, her attorney, Chris Kenney, argued that Seat 5 has been left without representation and asked the court for a fast briefing schedule similar to one used in an earlier election.

The motion casts the case as more than a contest over one council seat; it is also raises the question of how long the voters of Seat 5 will remain in limbo while the courts sort out the matter. Currently, there are eight members of city council with the Seat 5 vacant.

Winbush’s filing asks the Supreme Court to either restore her victory or order a new election, while Kenney says he is hopeful the court will move quickly, given its history of expediting election matters.

This story is developing…