Nestled next to the Community of Change Center on Centralia Street in the West End sits an unassuming white freight container.
Inside, the 320-square-foot metal structure houses a drip irrigation hydroponics system that grows 2,500 pounds of produce annually. The plants grow vertically on mobile panels that hang from the ceiling with nutrient-rich water that is plumbed overhead and, with a little help from gravity, drips down the panel to the plants’ roots.
Managed by West End P.O.W.E.R., the freight farm received a Food Justice Fund (FJF) Grassroots Grant to pilot Growing Justice, a system expansion to increase year-round production of fresh vegetables. They’re also hosting educational programming around healthy food, and engaging groups of youth and formerly incarcerated individuals in job training through roles in farm maintenance, harvesting and food distribution…