(wind rumbling) (soft music) (soft music continues) (soft music continues) - [Man] Especially with our short growing season here, it's really cool to explore these new techniques, you know, so we can grow food year round.

- [Man] So much of the United States is inhospitable to growing plants during the winter and so when we bring in controlled environment ag, we can produce a lot of things year round using this technology.

That helps to bridge that seasonality gap where we can supply a community with produce through the winter.

(soft music continues) (upbeat music) - All right, you guys remember wicking strips?

It was like the first week, was it?

Remember what side the top is because you want the top to overlap by about an inch, just about like that.

Hydroponic farming is the use of water with dissolved nutrients in it to grow plants.

So in contrast, obviously soil-based farming where you're putting stuff in the ground and using soil as the medium, we're using a hydroponic grow media, so we seed into a little what we call a grow plug and it's a very spongy kind of material and so that little plug just helps to get things started.

Has that structure for the roots and a little bit of water holding capacity.

- What fascinates me most about growing hydroponically is the fresh produce you can get in the middle of winter in Wyoming.

It's not something that you can get here very easily.

It's not something that just anybody has access to, and being able to provide that for our community is amazing.

(soft music) - Being able to produce year round very consistently has been a big shift in the market.

The cool part about hydroponic produce, especially leafy greens, they're like super tender 'cause they don't get exposed to like the wind and weather and stuff.

- [Jessie] Currently we have a lot of leafy greens, so some lettuces, some kale, some basil, and just for fun we have actually planted peas out there just to see how they do, see if they try to take over the farm with their crazy vining that they do.

(Jessie laughs) I have noticed a big difference in texture.

It was more tender than your typical kale you would grow out in a field.

- It is more tender.

- Yeah.

- Yum.

(man laughing) - [Jessie] And the lettuce is just very soft and buttery.

(soft music) - It's good.

- [Jessie] The technological advancements of this freight farm are pretty astounding.

You just monitor it.

You just kind of make sure it's not going off the rails.

- Every variable that affects plant growth is controlled to some extent within the freight farm.

And then it's daytime in the farm.

So the daytime is when lights are on, when irrigation happens, everything's going on.

- [Jessie] As controlled as this is, there's not even any sunlight in there.

(Jessie chuckles) It's a shipping container and the light is provided by LED panels.

You know, working in greenhouses for years, it's dictated by the sun and this is not.

Years worth of research has been put into what kind of lighting we need to grow plants, what's the best light that they need and then you can adjust its levels depending on what you're growing.

What our main goal is, is educating people on how to do this and so if that takes some trial and error, great.

- [Ethan] I think we're well positioned to be training that next generation of workforce - With farming, I'd like to own my own small farm one day and hydroponic farm just adds like a whole new dimension to all of that.

- It's helping me learn how to grow in a smaller area or the hydroponics way to growing.

- [Ethan] This is a developing industry.

It's something that we're trying to be on the cutting edge of, but it's also about food security.

Being able to produce food for community right next to where we live is pretty critical.

Not to mention the benefits of getting fresh produce into the hands of people that need it.