Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
EAGLE MOUNTAIN — Whether it be hot or cold, pouring rain or dumping snow, crops at Cedar Valley High School continue to grow year-round, without soil or sun.
Cedar Valley High School is the first school in Utah to receive a grow container — an innovative new way to vertically farm indoors, up to 3 acres' worth of produce, using no soil or pesticides and only 5 gallons of water a day. The school held a grand opening for the farm in August.
The grow container, made by Freight Farms, was purchased by the school through a generous donation from Meta Platforms Inc. — the parent company of Facebook — which has a data center in Eagle Mountain. Freight Farms containers can be owned by anyone wanting to use one.
The grow container looks like a storage container on the outside and something futuristic on the inside. The plants — in Cedar Valley's case, lettuce, kale, tomatoes, oregano and red vein sorrel — grow on a vertical sheet where the nutrient-infused water can trickle down from the top. The unit can be controlled through an app on a laptop or phone to change temperature and lighting.
"We're hoping some real magic happens here. We hope to see many more of these Freight Farm units in Eagle Mountain," Eagle Mountain Mayor Tom Westmoreland said.
As opposed to a greenhouse, the grow container offers a different kind of learning for students, said the high school's assistant administrator, Kenyon Christen. Not only does it include students taking agriculture classes, but marketing classes as well.
"Our goal, ideally, would be (that) our agriculture and biology students would do the planting and the harvesting, and then our marketing classes would actually help with the marketing and selling of the product," Christen said.
Not only is it excellent for learning, but Christen said the lettuce can be grown in a way where up to 500 heads of lettuce can be harvested each week. Current plans are to sell the lettuce at the local Eagle Mountain farmer's market and perhaps use some of the produce to feed animals, especially giraffes, at the Utah Hogle Zoo.
The innovation of the grow container has excellent implications for the environment of the crops and the sustainability of the surrounding area.
Typically, for lettuce, "it takes 1,500 miles from farm to plate, whereas with our plant, it's less than 20 miles," Christen said. Not only does this mean fresher produce for Eagle Mountain residents, but also less gas and emissions from transporting the food over 1,000 miles.
Westmoreland pointed out that Eagle Mountain is one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, which means farmland is being taken to build houses. With grow containers like this one, food will continue to be grown locally without worrying about whether there is space for it, Westmoreland said.
Cedar Valley High School student Aleia Downing said, "The farmland in our country is going away because everyone is building houses. So it's really cool to learn about a possible way to help with that and be able to grow food when we don't have land anymore."
Downing and fellow student Emma Corrington said the technology of the container provides learning opportunities that wouldn't be available in a greenhouse because of the technology in the grow container. Not to mention, working in a greenhouse means getting your hands dirty while working in the heat, and the grow container has controlled temperature and no soil.
Corrington has been working on the school-owned grow container while also having one at home. Her family owns a farming business, so having the container helps them grow food to sell and to feed their animals to render healthier meat.
Brian Anderson, a biology teacher at Cedar Valley, said he has shown some of his biology students the farm and had them "get a feel for it," but the students who have really been able to do work in it are a handful of students in the National FFA Organization.
Anderson, Christen and Westmoreland are excited for more students to dive into the workings of the container and learn about the career opportunities they have through modern farming.
To learn more about hydroponic farming, visit Freight Farms' website.
