Miniature indoor gardens the size of a cargo container may be the next growing trend for municipalities looking to expand both local business opportunities and help maintain local food security.

Nick Halverson, business development manager for Growcer, an Ottawa-based food production development agency, was the guest speaker for this year’s annual general meeting of the Association d’investissement industriel de Hawkesbury Industrial Investment Association (HIIA). His company began as a proponent for ultra-small-scale indoor produce gardening techniques that help remote communities ensure a continued supply of fresh vegetables and fruit for their residents and has now become an international network of home-based microfarming projects that help support small municipalities, schools, food banks, hospitals, indigenous communities.

“We have over 1000 farms in more than 30 countries,” said Halverson.

The secret to the success of the company’s world-wide projects is designing and providing miniature garden systems using hydroponics contained in a custom-built building about 40-foot-by-40-foot-by-10-foot in size.

“These are designed to grow produce 365 days a year,” said Halverson. “One of these units can grow 700 heads of lettuce every week. These units can last for 30 years.”

The building features an electrical system that makes use of solar power or other sources of power to provide 24-hour lighting to stimulate rapid plant growth, hydroponic nutrient tanks for the plants, and monitoring equipment to maintain the lighting, the nutrient supply, water temperature, and also alert when something interferes with the growing systems.

Growcer will help with setting up an indoor-farming unit wherever a client chooses to set it. The company will provide instruction on how to run the system and advice on what produce works best and also crop-rotation suggestions that will provide a variety of produce for local consumption and/or sales to local markets or larger wholesalers.

“Leafy greens are your hydroponic cash crop,” Halverson said, adding that lettuce, kale and other similar leafy green plants can mature to harvest within a week under the constant stimulus of 24-hour grow lighting conditions. Other potential cash crops like strawberries and peppers take longer to mature but a well-planned farm unit can provide sufficient space for a

variety of crops to ensure the best maximum yield for local needs and commercial sale and multiple units can provide both space for growing produce and also storage space for harvested produce.

The initial setup budget for a single farm unit is about $300,000. Growcer provides a $4000-per-month lease option for clients to help them budget for a farm unit with the goal of owning it outright at the end of the lease.

Halverson’s presentation included examples of farm units leased or purchased by various small municipalities, First Nations groups and others with the goal of providing fresh food for local consumption or selling the harvest to commercial dealers. He noted that one community farm unit project helps support a local food bank by guaranteeing a source of inexpensive fresh vegetables and fruit for low-income and fixed-income people trying to stretch their limited food budget.

He also noted that several school districts have taken on a farm unit project as a means of teaching students about agriculture and business. The produce grown is used as part of the school cafeteria’s supply source or donated to local food assistance programs.

Hawkesbury’s and Russell Township’s mayors attended the HIIA session and both expressed strong interest and enthusiasm about the Growcer farm units program during later interviews.

“It’s very interesting,” said Mayor Mike Tarnowski of Russell Township, adding he was impressed with how a farm unit can help support local food banks.

“Our food bank is more used than ever now,” he said. “I think there’s an opportunity here. Definitely worth exploring.”

Hawkesbury Mayor Robert Lefebvre expressed interest in how a farm unit operation could be an opportunity for school districts to enhance their curriculum in a variety of ways.

“It would be a great community project,” he said, adding that students interested in agriculture would benefit through hands-on learning year-round.

Lefebvre also noted that a school district owned-and-managed farm unit would also provide an opportunity for students to fulfill the mandatory community hours part of their curriculum through harvesting and distributing crops to local food banks.

“It would be a fantastic project,” said Lefebvre. “There’s got to be a way to get it going.”