Square Roots Urban Farming
The Future of Food Grows In a Brooklyn Shipping Container
As the sun sets on a hot summer day in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, I find myself a block away from the Marcy Housing Projects, behind the abandoned Pfizer factory, in an empty parking lot. Well, almost empty.
Tucked away in the southwest corner of the lot are ten white shipping containers lying side-by-side. In front of them, an energetic man speaks very enthusiastically about their potential. “These aren’t just any containers, they’re special.” he says. “They have the potential to impact our lives more than the internet has.” More impactful than the internet?!? Yes. And he’s right.
Meet Tobias Peggs, the CEO and Co-founder of Square Roots. He describes his vision for the future of food as “Farm-to-Local”, where Square Roots farmers harvest their crops and personally deliver them to you in the same day. Peggs’ mission is to provide the people with ultra fresh food and to create relationships between farmers and consumers so we know exactly what we're eating.
The first time I watched Food Inc., a documentary about the stranglehold that “Big Food” has on our food production in the US, I thought Farm-to-Local was impossible. Processed food was becoming more prevalent in our diets, industrial farming was shrinking, and it didn’t seem like there was anything that anyone could do to change it.
This is where we meet our unlikely hero, a repurposed shipping container. It’s in its second life as a vertical farm, and is fighting back against “Big Food” in a big way. How? What’s a vertical farm? Read on.
What is a Vertical Farm?
Vertical farming takes the traditional American outdoor farm, turns it on its side, and then, in the same amount of space, grows 272 times more food!* Although this sounds like something from the Jetsons the concept of the vertical farm isn’t new. We’ll talk about the technology in a bit, but first, here’s a brief history lesson.
History of Vertical Farming
The first known drawings of the vertical farm appeared in 1909 and it’s believed that the first vertical farms were built in Armenia in 1951. The idea didn’t really take off until 1999, when Dickson Despommier, a Columbia University professor, challenged his class to feed Manhattan’s entire population using only 13 acres of usable rooftop gardens.
The class projected that current methods for rooftop gardening would feed only 2% of Manhattan’s population. Unsatisfied with these results, Despommier suggested growing plants indoors, vertically. The idea gained momentum and by 2001 the first outline of the modern vertical farm was introduced.
What is Square Roots?
Square Roots is a group of extreme urban farmers that created a massive vertical farm next to where JAY-Z made his money during his formative years. These farmers are using technology from Freight Farms and ZipGrow (more on these later) to put affordable, non-GMO, pesticide free food in your stomach.
How Does It Work?
Square Roots calls its business model ‘Farm-to-Local’, and sends a farmer with fresh local greens directly to your desk. Seriously.
Farmers harvest their greens in the morning, hop on the subway and personally deliver them straight to your office, so you get to meet your farmer and talk to them and learn what you’re eating.
“We want a world where everyone knows their farmer and can trust their food. We want the consumer to know the food that they eat.” -Tobias Peggs, CEO of Square Roots
The farmers deliver these greens in grab-bag sizes (about the size of a bag of chips), which makes for a great snack or a solid base to your lunch salad. They sell for $5 per bag, and have three different subscription plans for recurring deliveries. They can even fulfill custom requests, if you want your farmer to grow something specific for you.
How Does It Taste?
I bought the Shungiku Chrysanthemum and the Nasturtium from farmer Jonny Bernard. The Chrysanthemum was delicious as a snack and had a bold, sweet, satisfying aftertaste that kept me feeling full, but light. The Nasturtium was also exploding with flavor. It’s spicy, like wasabi, but it tastes amazing and I used it to add a kick to my quinoa bowls.
How Do They Do It?
Okay, Okay. My glowing review is over. Let’s talk about the technology and how Square Roots is bringing the farmer’s market to you.
Planting
On these farms, there is no soil. Inside each container are four rows of white vertical towers constructed of coated-PVC piping. These are known as ZipGrow Towers. Each tower houses several seedlings, which are planted into plastic mesh plugs made from recycled water bottles. That’s right. The soil of the future is recycled water bottles.
Watering
The water supply comes from a fire hydrant and nourishes the entire farm. Water mixes through the top of a closed-loop hydroponic system, delivering nutrient-rich water directly to the crop’s roots and recirculating the water throughout the farm. Each 2-acre farm (aka each container) runs on 10 gallons of water per day, which is more efficient than your shower, and uses about 90% less than the traditional farm.
Lighting
Plants require sunlight and a period of darkness for healthy development. The Square Roots farms are illuminated with hanging red and blue LED light strips to mimic daylight. Why red and blue light? According to Peggs, red and blue light grows plants better than white light and using the proper light spectrum can grow biomasses very efficiently and yield the most food by using the fewest resources possible.
To conserve costs, Square Roots does their “daytime” lighting at night. Once nighttime rolls around and everyone turns their lights off and stops watching TV, electricity rates go down, and the lights in the vertical farms go on. Square Roots grows their greens using only 90 kW hours per day, costing $500-$600 per container, per month. This is equal to ninety 100-watt light bulbs operating for ten hours per day.
Currently, electricity comes from the building, but as lighting systems and solar panel technology continue to improve, farms will become more efficient and can eventually be taken off the grid.
Farming
The farms are controlled by an app that allows the farmer to monitor the amount of light, water, and nutrients the plants receive as well as the temperature and humidity of the farm. In this climate controlled environment, Peggs believes that the key bit of intellectual property is the data layer.
Let’s say the best sweet basil that you’ve had in your life was on your honeymoon in Italy in the summer of 2002. These controlled climates open up the possibility for urban farmers to find the light, temperature, humidity, the co2 levels of that particular growing climate, during that particular growing season and replicate that exact crop in Brooklyn, based on historical data records.
“Having that specific environmental data and knowing how it impacts taste, texture and yield. That’s the important part to own!” -Tobias Peggs, CEO of Square Roots
Harvesting
Each 40-ft shipping container produces an annual yield equal to the harvest of 2-acres of outdoor farmland. I met farmers Jonathan Bernard and Erik Groszyk, both are awesome guys, and they said in one week, each container can produce 50–100 pounds of greens, depending on what they’re growing. On any given week, they can harvest 45-55 pounds of spinach/arugula, 55-60 pounds of basil, or over 1,000 heads of lettuce.
Today it is most economical to grow leafy greens and herbs as they have a lower biomass and can grow cost effectively. Heavier vegetables, such as turnips, beets, and carrots have greater biomasses, meaning they require more energy to grow, making it more expensive to harvest.
How Much Does The Farm Cost?
Freight Farms sells one shipping container farm (called the Leafy Green Machine) for $85k and estimates $13k in annual operating costs. Peggs believes that 12 Leafy Green Machines is the optimal number for an urban farm to make financial sense.
“As an individual it’s out of cost.” Peggs says. “You need the space to set up the farm, have it shipped to you, plug it into water, electricity and the internet, and then learn to farm.” But he reminds us that there are people trying to put hydroponic farms in our kitchens. “There are companies trying to make that [in kitchen] experience come to life.”
The Future of Square Roots
Square Roots thinks Farm-to-Local should be the new standard. Right now, they’re focusing on Brooklyn but want to replicate their current model and take it to other cities.
“This is the [Minimum Viable Product]. We’re getting this done to see if it works. And then we’ll optimize the farm as time goes on.” -Tobias Peggs, CEO of Square Roots
Last summer, Square Roots raised $3m in VC funding. This helped build the farm, recruit farmers and get everything up and running. Over the next year, they plan to refine their operations, smooth out the wrinkles and prove the concept, with the goal of expanding to other cities by 2018.
“60 million people go into Starbucks everyday and buy a $5 macchiato. We think we can offer really good produce at a really competitive price.” -Tobias Peggs, CEO of Square Roots
Today, Farm-to-Local no longer seems impossible, it seems inevitable. We’re at the forefront of the food revolution and Square Roots is leading the way.
Want to Join Square Roots?
Square Roots is currently taking applications for Season 2! Volunteer opportunities are also available! For more information you can email Partners@squarerootsgrow.com where you can connect with one the farmers directly or check out squarerootsgrow.com for more information!
*272 times more food is calculated based on 320 sq. footprint of a 40-ft shipping container producing the yield of a a 2-acre (87,120 sq. ft) farm.
Andrew Gatto is a NYC-based UX Strategist & Designer. Feel free to write me or check out my personal site www.andrewgatto.com. Peace and love.
