Urban farmer, Tamara Knott, talks about container farming. Using vertical hydroponic farming, she grows 1.5 acres of fresh vegetables inside her insulated shipping container farm, Bright Greens Canada.
image/source: BC Farms & Food
High-tech freight container farms like Bright Greens, near the city of Victoria, BC, can produce fresh fruit, vegetables, and herbs year-round, using hydroponics and high-efficiency LED grow lights.Plants inside the large metal shipping container grow in a series of vertical towers.
During the growing cycle, environmental sensors inside the farm measure the nutrient levels, temperature, humidity, air flow, and carbon dioxide levels, and send information to a controller to automatically maintain optimum growing conditions.
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Shipping container farms are compact, easily transported by truck or rail, and have a small footprint. This means they can fit into rural or urban settings (provided zoning laws allow). Urban farming in containers such as these can also offer year-round access to fresh produce to restaurants and other urban food businesses.
