Freight container at Yellow Bay grows 'smart crops'

The future of farming, according to Pamela Marks and Wade Young, sits in a refrigerated freight container amid the cherry trees freckling their property near Yellow Bay.

Inside that box, a hydroponic garden grows a variety of lettuces, herbs and other leafy greens without sunlight, soil, chemicals or pests.

The second to enter service in the state, Marks and Young’s Freight Farm was developed by Brad McNamara and Jon Friedman, two innovators from Boston bent on pioneering the agriculture technology industry with their systems designed for “big production in a small footprint.”

Each 40-foot shipping container can sustain 8,000 plants at a time and produce enough food to feed around 200 people a week, the equivalent of a solid planted acre of crops, Young said.

At full capacity, each unit can produce 500 full heads of lettuce, 60 to 100 pounds of “hearty greens” or 35 to 80 pounds of herbs a week, according to the Freight Farms website.

Growers need only get their hands dirty for the planting and harvesting, dropping a single seed into a cork-like seed pod and placing it into a seedling container until the plant grows big enough to be moved into one of the hanging columns to grow to its full size.

The rest, including watering cycles and sunlight hours, can be monitored and controlled remotely via a smart device such as an iPad or smartphone.

“Here, Mother Nature has to cooperate with you,” Young said.

Pumps and filters cycle water from a mountain spring near the property into the unit and then recycle the runoff to be filtered, infused and used again, allowing the system to use less than 5 percent of the water needed for traditional farming methods.

Each plant is fed automatically through the water, which is monitored by a computerized system that measures pH balance and nutrient levels, adding whatever the plants need as they grow and eliminating the need for soil.

A dehumidifier regulates the humidity, an air-conditioning unit regulates the temperature and strands of purple LED lights hang from the ceiling directly in front of each hanging column of crops, simulating sunlight and allowing the plants to grow straight out instead of curving upward.

“It’s one smart machine,” Marks said. “We think that with what’s going on with the climate, indoor [farming] may just be the wave of the future.”

The growth period for the plants mirrors that of traditionally grown crops, and because it is completely self-contained and sustained, Young said, the system can continue producing at a steady rate year-round, regardless of temperature and other outside factors that limit the growth and production of traditional farms.

MARKS SAID they made the jump into freight farming when local groceries — to which they were already delivering wheatgrass and pea sprouts — began requesting more diversity in their crops.

Faced with the decision of having to add on to their home again after having already added on their wheatgrass/sprout room, they began to look into alternative options online.

Their search led them to the Freight Farms website and then to the only other unit in Montana, owned by a Bozeman woman who uses hers to grow specialty lettuce for high-end restaurants.

If chefs and restaurateurs liked the product, Marks said she felt confident they would, too, especially after tasting it themselves.

Marks and Young felt a Freight Farms unit would provide the perfect alternative to a home addition and made an $80,000 investment in their first unit.

The unit arrived this winter and is now up and running with its first batch of leafy greens growing rapidly. Marks and Young currently have arugula, basil, kale, parsley, stevia, wasabi and more growing from their hanging columns, with plans to include a greater variety and number of plants as they get the hang of things.

Marks said the farm will take about two years to pay for itself, but a recent edit to the USDA’s standards for organically grown produce has the potential to expand their market.

A meeting of the National Organic Standards Board in the fall of 2017 decided that as long as hydroponic farmers are certified by a United States Department of Agriculture agent and comply with federal standards, they can label their products as organic, meaning the produce that comes from Marks’ and Young’s freight farm can be sold on the organic market.

Local health-food stores, groceries and other stores in the area have already begun to express an interest in the prospect of buying locally from a source that will deliver a variety of products to them year-round.

Depending on how much demand they have for their “smart crops,” Young said they might consider adding more units in the future.

Marks hopes the Freight Farms unit will eventually provide opportunities for school field trips, interns from the community college, specialty growth for herbal and homeopathic retailers and donations of fresh produce to local food banks and other nonprofits in the future.

“We’re here to make a contribution,” Marks said. “This just allows us to contribute more to this section of the local economy.”

For more information about Freight Farms, visit https://www.freightfarms.com/home/#ready-set-grow.

Mary Cloud Taylor can be reached at 758-4459 or mtaylor@dailyinterlake.com.