‘Future of urban farming’ – New QC freight farm will grow crops

Ryan Wille looked at the parking lot at the Quad City Botanical Center  in Rock Island and said he sees the future of food. Today, that “future” looks like a 320-square-foot semi-truck freight container. But it will soon become a hydroponics container farm – called a freight farm –  capable of growing thousands of pounds […]

Ryan Wille looked at the parking lot at the Quad City Botanical Center  in Rock Island and said he sees the future of food. Today, that “future” looks like a 320-square-foot semi-truck freight container. But it will soon become a hydroponics container farm – called a freight farm –  capable of growing thousands of pounds of vegetables throughout the year. The climate-controlled environment in the freight farm means those crops will be grown anytime from the dead of winter to the hot, drought months of summer. “I think this is a great opportunity for us. … This is the future of urban farming,” said Mr. Wille, the executive director of the botanical center. Mr. Wille was one of about 30 people attending a news conference on a cloudy, cold Monday afternoon, Dec. 4, in the parking lot to unveil the new hydroponics container farm, which was developed by the Boston-based Freight Farms company.

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That freight farm is located near the corner of Fourth Avenue and 25th Street, and arrived Monday morning in Rock Island. The side of the container has these words printed on it: “This is a FARM. When you hear the word ‘farm,’ pictures of rolling fields, red barns and green equipment likely come to mind. But a farm can take many shapes and sizes. It can be shrouded in metal. … A farm is wherever someone is willing to tend.” This new farm has one big goal –  to assist Tapestry Farms  in growing a lot more food in the QC community to help feed people. Tapestry is the nonprofit organization that helps refugees resettle in the Quad Cities and operates an urban farm system to grow food in the area. If all goes according to plan, Tapestry Farms – which now grows about 6,000 pounds of vegetables a year and donates them to local food banks – will soon be able to double or triple that amount of food grown food thanks to the help of the container farm, said Ann McGlynn, the founder and executive director of Davenport-based Tapestry Farms. “We are hopeful that the first seeds in this hydroponics unit will be planted by Christmas, and the first crop will be ready sometime at the end of February or beginning of March,” she added. “We will start with butterhead lettuce – the easiest thing to grow, and expand from there. We are thankful for our first committed customers, River Bend Food Bank and Genesis Health System’s Foodplex initiative.” In addition to introducing the container farm system, Monday’s event largely centered on thanking the many people and groups that helped make the new farm system possible. Those groups included the Quad City Botanical Center, the City of Rock Island and the John Deere Foundation, which donated $371,000 to support Tapestry Farms’ goal of acquiring the container farm. During Monday’s ceremony, Laura Eberlin, John Deere’s global corporate social responsibility lead, told the crowd that nearly 15,000 people living in Rock Island County and more than 14,000 people in Scott County are struggling to put food on their family’s table.  The situation is made worse as food banks across the region are struggling with a decline in food donations. That’s because many grocery retailers in the area are becoming leaner in their inventory management and making fewer donations to food banks. With food costs increasing, communities need to innovate a new approach to getting food. “Tapestry Farms is leveraging the enormous talents of refugees and their families and pioneering new approaches to food and farming,” Ms. Eberlin added. “The John Deere Foundation was just happy to be able to support a new cutting-edge hydroponics freight farm to strengthen our region’s food system and help end hunger.”  Here are some of the capabilities of the new freight farm, according to the Boston-based  Freight Farms company, which manufactures the freight containers:

• The self-contained freight farm can yield up to 12,000 pounds of produce a year – the equivalent of a 2.4-acre farm.
• One container farm requires approximately 20 to 30 hours of labor per week. One person can comfortably operate two container farms.
• As of last year, there are 600 freight farms operating around the globe, located in 39 countries worldwide.
• The freight farms are capable of growing lettuces, leafy greens, herbs, brassicas, certain root vegetables, microgreens, edible flowers, and many other crops in any location, regardless of exterior climate. To date, Freight Farms has experimented internally with more than 500 different crop varieties.
• Some of the crop yields per container reported by the company include: Lettuce – 990 head of lettuce a week; basil – 124 pounds week; and chives – 45 pounds week.
• Hydroponics farms use up to 99% less water than traditional farming. The shipping container farm uses about five gallons of water per day.
• The container farms can host up to 13,000 plants at one time.

“This has been a project a long time in the making. … the ability to grow year-round, hydroponically, has been our dream from the beginning of Tapestry Farms in 2017,” Ms. McGlynn added. Other people at Monday’s gathering said they were pleased to see Tapestry’s dream come true. Mr. Wille called the freight farm project a life-changing event that is likely to help many people in the community. “This small portion of our parking lot is yours now, and we can’t wait to see what you do with it,” he told Tapestry Farms and its supporters.