A Finnish company wants miniature vegetable farms to become a familiar sight on city streets
A Finnish startup is hoping to build miniature vegetable farms inside shipping containers to bring locally grown produce to city streets.
Shipping containers are a popular and affordable building material, and now Exsilio Oy believes they are the perfect vessel for ‘the EkoFARMER’.
The EkoFARMER is a 13-metre long shipping container that can be set up where there is a water and electrical supply.
With one glass side and a partly glass roof, as well as temperature controls, it functions as a greenhouse, though Exsilio says it could produce a crop yield three times larger than a traditional greenhouse.
It would allow city workers to grow their own produce, as ‘urban farming’ becomes an increasingly popular phenomenon.
Salads, herbs, edible flowers and medicinal plants could all be grown in one.
The EkoFARMER “is ideal, for example, for restaurants and institutional kitchens wanting to produce their own ingredients. The modules also serve as an excellent option for farmers to replace their traditional greenhouses”, chief executive of Exsilio Thomas Tapio said in a press release.
“Our solution is suitable for associations wanting to earn some extra income, or societies wanting to offer meaningful activities for the unemployed. This is an opportunity to create new micro-enterprises,” he said. The company was now looking for financial backers.
Exsilio estimates that the EkoFARMER could produce ‘up to 50,000 pots of salad a year’ and that one of the containers could cost about €100,000 ($150,000). There would also be the option to rent them.
