BY: ZOE MELNYK
Typically, when you think of a farm you see acres and acres of open fields filled with some kind of wheat or corn and when you see a farmer, it’s generally someone driving a tractor with plaid and overalls with a piece of wheat strategically sticking out of their mouth (for whatever purpose that serves).
On top of what seems to be an endless amount of land, farming also looks like it’s an endless amount of work that may or may not pay off, depending on what Mother Nature brings that year.
The growing demand for food supplies is simply too much for traditional agriculture, and soon, traditional farming will not be able to provide enough food to sustain the increasingly developing population of the world.
One possible solution to the dismal food shortage issue is the idea of freight farming.
Freight farming allows practically anyone to grow fresh produce inside of a standard 40’x8’x9.5’ shipping container.
Brad McNamara and Jon Friedman proposed the idea after realizing that the world needed a more efficient way to grow and receive food.
The idea was originally to create farms on rooftop greenhouses; however, after running into several logistic issues, the two decided to change the scene of farming to shipping containers.
Designs began back in 2010, and now, almost five years later, freight farms have become an extremely profitable and resourceful product across North America.
Brad McNamara and Jon Friedman proposed the idea after realizing that the world needed a more efficient way to grow and receive food
Each container, worth $60,000, is built with vertical towers, allowing the maximal potential of produce to be grown at once. This amounts to 4,500 mature plant sites and 2,500 nursery plant sites.
Containers can be shipped practically anywhere, opening up the agricultural business to major cities and allowing restaurants to grow their very own food, saving the cost of importing goods from other countries.
Not only is this cost efficient for many businesses, freight farms are also essentially self sufficient in comparison to traditional farming and they can be run all year round despite any exterior weather conditions.
Containers can be shipped practically anywhere, opening up the agricultural business to major cities and saving the cost of importing goods from other countries
The crates come equipped with hydroponic systems to give the plants the correct supply of nutrients for growth, automatic watering, ventilation, and high efficiency LED lights that give off the appropriate amount of light for the plants to efficiently develop.
There’s also an app called “Farm Hand” that gives people access to monitor the farms and provide the produce with any extra substances as seen necessary with just the touch of a button.
Basically, you can farm a wide variety of produce anywhere you want with very minimal effort and still grow an exceptional amount of fresh well-developed food.
Freight Farms could change the face of farming while also solving the mass food shortage epidemic.
The crates come equipped with hydroponic systems to give the plants the correct supply of nutrients for growth, automatic watering, ventilation, and high efficiency LED lights
Freight Farms could solve the mass food shortage epidemic
Sources: gotraffic.net, sparkcapital.com, startinggood.org, wabe.org, kqed.org