Bar-20 Dairy Farms in Kerman, California, has signed a $15 million contract to install an automated hydroponic feed-growing system designed to save the water typically needed to grow over 800 acres of alfalfa by producing sprouted grain indoors for its thousands of milking cows.
Forever Feed Technologies announced the deal, which calls for two FFT GrowSystems at Bar-20, a dairy that is part of the Shehadey family's group of businesses, according to Forever Feed Technologies. The company says the two systems will produce more than 75 tons of fresh ForeverFeed livestock feed daily while saving more than 95% of the water typically needed to grow over 800 acres of alfalfa. As Dairynews.today reported, this is the second major on-farm GrowSystem feed center Forever Feed Technologies has announced in 2026.
The Bar-20 Feed Center is designed with room to grow. Per the company's release, the design includes capacity to add a third system down the line, which would allow the facility to support more than 7,000 milking cows as part of Bar-20's larger 15,000-animal operation.
A CEO's Validation and a Manager's Three-Year Watch
FFT chief executive and co-founder Jack de Jong framed the contract as proof of concept for a technology his company has spent years refining. “Partnering with Bar-20 Dairy Farms validates the real-world impact of our technology,” de Jong said, according to the company's announcement.
Bar-20 manager Steve Shehadey, who is part of the family that owns the dairy, said he had tracked the technology's progress closely before signing on. “Over the last three years, I have watched Jack and his team develop a reliable, large-scale feed system,” Shehadey said in the same release.
Sprouted Grain Instead of Alfalfa Fields
Forever Feed Technologies builds automated indoor hydroponic systems meant for commercial-scale livestock-feed production, using cultivation methods that run year-round rather than depending on planting seasons. The company says that steady output reduces vulnerability to weather, drought, and supply-chain disruptions compared with conventional field-grown feed.
FFT describes its sprouted-grain product as nutritious and digestible, and the company says its production model cuts expenditures on water, land, and other inputs relative to traditional farming. A separate statement posted on foreverfeed.com says the sprouted-grain approach uses only a small fraction of the water required by field-grown alfalfa. Hydroponic fodder systems broadly can use up to 98 percent less water than growing a comparable amount of calories in a field, though efficiency varies by system.
Bar-20's Existing Clean-Energy Footprint
The feed project adds to a set of sustainability investments Bar-20 has already made. The dairy has methane digesters, and its biogas is used to produce renewable hydrogen transportation fuel, according to Forever Feed Technologies. The operation also added a Microgrid fuel cell system in 2021 in collaboration with California Bioenergy and Bloom Energy.
Shehadey said the new feed technology would further reduce the dairy's water footprint while improving its overall efficiency, per the same account. De Jong, for his part, said Forever Feed Technologies aims to help dairy operations improve productivity, resilience, and sustainability across the board.
Part of a Broader Push Across California Dairies
The Bar-20 deal follows a similar $15 million contract Forever Feed Technologies announced in March 2026 with River Ranch Farms, which the company described at the time as the first commercial deployment of the FFT GrowSystem. That project's FeedCenter is designed to ultimately house three GrowSystems with capacity to feed more than 7,500 milking dairy cows.
Forever Feed Technologies says it was established and financed by farmers, bringing together participants from agriculture and technology, and that it operates out of Hanford, California, and American Fork, Utah. Feed & Grain has reported that River Ranch Farms, Bar 20 Dairy, De Jong Family Farms, and Producers Dairy Products have all joined the company to develop enterprise-scale automated on-farm feed mills, and that a single GrowSystem can deliver as much as 50 tons of freshly sprouted grain each day. The same outlet reported that competing HydroGreen projects have drawn interest from dairies like J & D Sons Dairy, which planned to purchase 24 tons of sprouted grains a day, and Johann Dairy, which planned to buy 10 tons daily — suggesting Bar-20's bet on indoor-grown feed is part of a wider shift taking hold among California's water-conscious dairy operators.
