Freight Farm
Stony Brook University Helps Prepare Next Generation of Farmers by Introducing a Hydroponic ‘Freight Farm’ On Campus
Stony Brook University was the first higher education institution in the United States to launch a Freight Farm on a college campus. The Freight Farm is an all-weather steel constructed freight container converted into an automated hydroponic farm behind Roth Café on the Stony Brook University campus. As part of the SBU Eats dining program, delicious, nutritious, leafy greens such as Bibb lettuce and radishes are grown without sunlight, soil, or pesticides year round. The Freight Farm provides students with the experience of eating the food they grow while enhancing their knowledge of sustainable agriculture, gives them a hands-on learning opportunity outside the classroom, and inspires them to be more sustainable in their lives.
Stony Brook University has a hydroponic Freight Farm – where student farmers can grow crops year-round in an indoor environment. Created in a discarded shipping container converted into a fully operational hydroponic farm known as the Leafy Green Machine, the Freight Farm uses the latest in farm-management technologies such as cloud-synced growth data, live camera feeds and a smartphone app that monitors and controls light levels inside the container anytime, anywhere. Students get hands-on experience planting and harvesting lettuce that SBU Eats uses to feed the student body. Stony Brook University was the first higher education campus to offer students a hydroponic Freight Farm.
- Freight Farms provide students with the experience of eating the food they grow while enhancing their knowledge of sustainable agriculture.
- It offers experiential learning outside of the classroom and prepares students for the future.
- It helps to reinforce our ongoing sustainability efforts and encourage and inspire students to be more sustainable in their own lives.
A harvest occurs six to eight weeks after the initial planting. Crops are herbicide and pesticide free and are not harmful to soil structures through the hydroponic closed environment system. The Leafy Green Machine can produce 800-1,200 heads of fresh lettuce in just a week—the equivalent to the yield of one acre. It uses 90 percent less water than outdoor farming and is sustainable year round.
Freight Farms are insulated, and all the systems including pumps, irrigation, and LED growing lights are digitally controlled. Water containing nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium and other nutrients are pumped from a 330-gallon reservoir into tubes that distribute the mixture over the roots of the plants in the towers.
To learn more about Stony Brook University’s ongoing sustainability efforts go to stonybrook.edu/sustainability.
The Freight Farm grows radishes without soil.2023-2024 Photo Gallery
About Freight Farms
Freight Farms is a Boston-based agriculture startup on a mission to create a more sustainable and connected food system. The flagship product, The Leafy Green Machine is a complete hydroponic growing facility built entirely inside a shipping container with environmental controls and indoor growing technology. The “LGM” allows for immediate growing of a variety of crops regardless of weather conditions resulting in access to year-round local, fresh produce that is always in season.