Grower Q&A: What is vertical farming like?
Two growers share their experiences about what it’s like to launch their Growcer farms and grow fresh produce locally.
Meet the Growers
Makenzie Jones is the head grower and greenhouse manager for Mnogin Greenhouse owned by Nipissing First Nation. The three-farm project, what we call a “Farmplex,” launched in June 2023 and grows a variety of the highest quality fresh greens for the community, nearby restaurants, resellers and retailers.
Carey Yeoman is the partnership manager at The Barrett Centre of Innovation in Sustainable Urban Agriculture at Durham College, and oversees the Barrett Centre Ajax Urban Farm. In August 2023, The Centre launched an Osiris Access - which is a Growcer modular farm outfitted for accessibility. Their farm is a hub for fresh produce, education, and community engagement.
The Barrett Centre Ajax Urban Farm is a hub for fresh produce, education, and community engagement.
Q&A
The Osiris Access farm is modified for accessibility.
Q: What is the main goal of your vertical farming project and the reasons you started?
Makenzie: The main reason for our project was to enrich our food sovereignty goals, as well as to diversify our economy in Nipissing First Nation, and lastly, to create jobs for our members.
Carey: Our project got started with a very generous grant from the Barrett Family Foundation, with four goals in mind: to affect policy change, to increase education, to showcase innovation and, of course, to increase food security in our area.
So at the Urban Farm, it's a place of education and community engagement. We thought, ‘What a perfect place to showcase this incredible technology at Growcer,’ and to have school children, high school children, come in and see what potential there is in the future of agriculture. [To see] that jobs in agriculture don’t necessarily mean working in a row and in the hot sun in terrible conditions, [but] that you can apply technology to agriculture and have a bright future that way. [Plus, using technology] which also protects us from all the environmental impacts that we're seeing currently.
Q: And you specifically chose the Osiris Access Farm which opens up the opportunity for even more students. Tell us more.
Carey: That was one of the key things when we were looking at the Growcer unit, was the accessibility of it. Being AODA compliant is incredibly important to Durham College.
We just had a visit from the great people at CLOCA. One of their members uses a wheelchair and bowed out of the initial tour of the farm. He assumed that he would not be able to access all points of the farm, because most of agriculture can be quite exclusionary.
Physically, he did, in fact, come to the farm and was delighted that he got in all parts of the farm tour. We have AODA compliant pathways around the farm to aid in that, but he's able to go into the Growcer unit to tour the rafts and turn around with ease and come down just like any other member of the tour, and I think that inclusivity is incredibly important.
“That was one of the key things when we were looking at the Growcer unit, was the accessibility of it. Being AODA compliant is incredibly important to Durham College. ”
Q: You both celebrated your one-year anniversaries recently. What has been the most exciting milestone of your project?
Makenzie: We had a lot of excitement in our first year: a lot of ups and downs and milestones as well. A big one was the commissioning. It was great to have the Growcer team come up and show us how to do everything in the first three, four days that they were there.
Our first harvest was extremely exciting. It was really surprising to see how fast the plants grow over four weeks. It's literally unbelievable.
We also won two food sovereignty and economic development awards for Northern Ontario, which is a great accomplishment for us.
For myself as the grower and as the manager, I would say that the best part about it so far was finally getting all farms fully operational and selling out every single week. We did that in less than six months. We started the first week of June, and by the end of December to the first week of January, we were selling out all of our produce every single week.
Commissioning week at Mnogin Greenhouse.
Carey: Some of the highlights of this year have been seeing the Growcer farm in full production and the impact that is making on our community.
All of our greens that we produce go to two locations. One is a street donation to the Second Harvest, which facilitates many food banks in our area. The second is through Community Care Durham's mobile food market. It's an incredible initiative by Community Care Durham that sources produce at a subsidized rate from several vendors, including Durham College and the urban farm. They put that farm market experience on the move. So instead of people with accessibility issues coming to markets which can be difficult for transit and a number of physical barriers, the markets go to them in very specified locations, and it moves locations throughout the week, which we thought was incredibly innovative. Being able to support those two sources fully this year has been very exciting.
Increasing the number of students that can work at the farm through a work integrated learning project has been another highlight of the project. The current student, who's now graduated and is a full time employee of the Growcer farm, he's been trialing a couple of different crops inside. He did an experiment with tomatoes and with micro peppers. Following his research, the excitement that it garners from other students, and the possibilities for what we could grow next or expand with Growcer, has definitely been a few highlights of the project.
Durham College welcoming people interested in their urban farming project.
Q: Makenzie, you mentioned you donated to the food bank when the project started, can you touch on what the reaction was to the produce?
Makenzie: So lucky for me, at Nipissing First Nation, we were able to donate it to the food bank. Our food bank lady Jessica would always come pick it up and bring it to a fridge. We were able to fill two full fridges with our produce.
To me, it wasn't a big deal. We were just donating food, just another week at Mnogin. For her, she mentioned it was actually a huge deal for people when they came in. When they came in and they saw the Mnogin produce in the fridge, she said their eyes lit up, and they were excited to get that food. So it makes a big difference for the community, especially for those that are in need of fresh produce that otherwise wouldn't have that.
“Our first harvest was extremely exciting. It was really surprising to see how fast the plants grow over four weeks. It’s literally unbelievable.”
Q: Carey, what was important to you when comparing vendors? Why Growcer?
Carey: Two things are really important to us at Durham College. Obviously, it's education and accessibility.
So the fact that the Growcer farm could be AODA compliant ranked very highly with us. For it to be able to be accessible to students from many different walks of life, many different physical abilities, was also really key.
One of the great parts of the unit that we purchased is that it has an entire anteroom with a glass wall so students can come into this anteroom and take a look at everything being produced without us risking the biosecurity of inside the unit. The students can see people at work. They can see plants being harvested. They can see the rafts being planted out.
It's a massive engagement piece for education. This is really important to us because of our location. We're right in the heart of Ajax, in a very busy residential area with not one but two high schools next door. So through this project and the interest that it garnered, watching it being brought in by a parade, and watching the farm develop, we've been able to successfully launch a dual credit program with one of the high schools that will expand, and hopefully, to both high schools next year.
Children at the high school are able to earn a high school credit as well as a Durham College credit in vegetable propagation at the same time. We've got students who are attending that never believed college was an option for them, now suddenly very interested in agriculture and with the aim of going to college to pursue a career in agriculture. This is mainly because of the interest that we're garnering with this urban farm and this proof of concept with the Growcer.
“Children at the high school are able to earn a high school credit as well as a Durham College credit in vegetable propagation at the same time. We’ve got students who are attending that never believed college was an option for them, now suddenly very interested in agriculture and with the aim of going to college to pursue a career in agriculture.”
The team in front of the farm at the Barrett Centre grand opening.
Q: Carey, do you have experience with other vertical farming vendors?
Carey: We do have some experience with other vertical farming units. There’s inherent disadvantages in working with a company that is not in Canada. Costing is an issue with fluctuating exchange rates. Availability of technological assistance was also very challenging with the other companies.
When we moved over to Growcer, we were wildly impressed with the level of support that we received, the friendliness of everybody who helped, and just the preparedness that Growcer came with in terms of having a product that was ready to deliver and making the policy and planning permission process so much easier.
“When we moved over to Growcer, we were wildly impressed with the level of support that we received, the friendliness of everybody who helped, and just the preparedness that Growcer came with in terms of having a product that was ready to deliver and making the policy and planning permission process so much easier.”
Q: Makenzie, what do you think are the key ingredients for Mnogin Greenhouse’s success?
Makenzie: The most important thing is definitely having passion for what you're doing. I feel like I don't work half the time because I love what I'm doing. I love staying late, doing that little bit of extra to make sure that your project is above and beyond.
Second is teamwork. You need a good team around you. In the farm, I have a guy, Brody Goulet. He's been with us from the start. He had zero background in farming or hydroponics. We've trained him up, and he's comfortable running the farm. He's actually in Nipissing right now running the farm all by himself.
I also have Gen Couchie. She's the business operations manager at Nipissing First Nation. She handles all the finances, the purchasing of the farm, plus organizing with Corey, Alida, and the Growcer team to deliver the farm.
Then we also have Mike Harney. He's a retiree from Nipissing First Nation, but he's the one that spearheaded this whole project. He got the feasibility study done, and he landed funding. This whole project is really here due to Mike, and we still have him working alongside us. He's with the project very closely. He's more of a data guy - he's a data genius, a spreadsheet genius. Whenever I need help, he's there, which is a big help as well.
On the production side, we were able to optimize the farms. We split our farms up into a leafy green farm and a lettuce farm. In our lettuce farm we turn the heat up a little bit, bring the EC down a little bit, and then keep the pH between a 5.6 and 5.8. We pushed [the pH] up around a six sometimes, but that was to optimize the growth.
In our leafy green farms, we have two of them, so we're able to do something called batch harvesting. So in most farms, you have a little bit of downtime, because you have to keep up with maintenance. Without maintenance, your farm falls apart very quickly and plants get sick. The way that we have it set up now is we have zero downtime. We harvest an entire side at a time so that we can do a system flush every time, so our plants are extremely healthy all the time.
Everyone knows funding is very important. The project could have not happened without funding. We had FedNor (Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario) and NOHFC (Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation) help with capital costs. We also got some wage subsidies, especially for Brody when he first started, through some northern Ontario initiatives.
Through the leafy green farms as well, I was able to substitute my wage for three months of our operations. Those little things really keep your farm above ground for the first six months. Those first six months are critical.
Lastly, would be the Growcer's support. Growcer has been phenomenal with us. Any issue that I've encountered with the farm, technologically and literally anything, they've been there for my support. Again, I said that a big thing was getting the farms optimized. I've worked very closely with Michael from Growcer's R&D [team.] He's helped guide me through everything like adjusting our pH levels and plant health. Growcer's team has been there and they've rectified anything that's happened.
“When they came in and they saw the Mnogin produce in the fridge, she said their eyes lit up, and they were excited to get that food. So it makes a big difference for the community, especially for those that are in need of fresh produce that otherwise wouldn’t have that.”
Q: Based on your experience, any advice for others considering their own projects?
Carey: Make sure that you know what the aim of your project is before you get started. Once you get into it, you can be pulled in a thousand different directions. So know what your goal is in mind.
If it is to be profitable, to be servicing grocery stores and restaurants, make sure that you're crunching your numbers appropriately and that you've got those channels in place before.
If it's community engagement, gauge how willing your community is to jump into these projects, and how you can leverage that enthusiasm to further the project.
We've been incredibly fortunate with the support that we have from the Region of Durham, from the town of Ajax, from Durham College and, most importantly, the Barrett Foundation. Taking all that enthusiasm and having a very singular goal in mind of what we were going to execute with this was key to our success.
And don't be afraid to ask for help. The folks at the Growcer are incredibly well prepared if you have a problem. Chances are they've dealt with it before or thought through a solution before you can. So reach out and ask the question, don't try to reinvent the wheel. Their support staff is incredible.
Makenzie: Make sure you get all your ducks in a row before you get going. There's unexpected costs that show up. I'm sure the Growcer team remembers us getting started. It was a little bit of a mess. We had to build on a swamp. So Growcer, through an engineering team, helped us design the way that we were going to hold up our units. Then we moved on to water, which was the next issue. We originally thought we were going to use just the city water. We got that tested and it had pythium and fusarium in it. That's a plant pathogen. It's fine for humans to have, but plants, that's a big no go. So we drilled a well and have two particulate filters, a UV filter, as well as a reverse osmosis system, which was originally out of scope. So what I'm trying to get to here is, when you're budgeting for your site prep, always budget that little bit extra, because you're always going to run into unexpected things.
Another thing with the production, don't jump ahead right away. Like I said before you get really excited. I started my full farm up right away. You want your farm full of stuff, but you need a place for that produce to go. I recommend doing either the left side or the right side first, and then one runway per week works perfectly. That way you have produce to bring out for samples and you can give it away to your community. [With a staggered approach] you don't have an abundance of product that's going to go to waste. You grow on demand. We didn't do that at the start, and that's something that we should have done.
“And don’t be afraid to ask for help. The folks at the Growcer are incredibly well prepared if you have a problem.”
Q: Makenzie, how did you go about approaching restaurants and distributing your produce to them?
Makenzie: People often think that, hey, lettuce is lettuce. When I joined the project, I thought the same thing, that lettuce is lettuce. You're not going to taste the difference. You do. I don't eat other lettuce now.
Going to the restaurants, they see this big price, and it's like, ‘oh, you're price gouging me.’ Until they see the product. Once they see the product, they change their mind and see how little waste it is.
I went in with a sample bag [of produce], and then I also went with another bag for them. I had a five star [lettuce] bag that was for them to try and to use and mix into what they're cooking. I also wanted a bag on the side that I'd throw to them and say, ‘Hey, throw that in your fridge and tell me when it goes bad.’
In three weeks, they'd send me a message and say, your lettuce still isn't bad. And I'm like, ‘I know, keep it in the fridge.’ At week four, at week five, they say, Okay, it's now getting less good. And I'm like, Yes, exactly. So you have five weeks to use it. Same as our spinach. Our spinach has a great shelf life of about three or four weeks.
I talked to them about what their current orders were looking like. Their current bag of spinach – a third of it was garbage by the time it came in. I had a restaurant say that they were going to buy 25 pounds of Romaine, 30 pounds of spinach, 25 pounds of our five star [lettuce.] A month into starting with them, their orders got cut in half. I've already grown all this produce for them, so I thought what am I going to do with it? For me, I could donate it, but I had to go have a chat with them and say, What's going on? Is there something wrong? The response was, we're saving them money because they're not throwing anything out ever, and there's so little waste!
“The response was, we’re saving them money because they’re not throwing anything out ever, and there’s so little waste!”
Q: What’s been the feedback from your community/board/customers to the project?
Carey: The feedback has been incredibly positive from everybody within Durham College. They're really excited that we have this piece of innovation that we can showcase to our students and create new career and learning pathways for them.
The uptake from the schools has been tremendous. We get so many requests to bring their classrooms to see this piece of innovation and how farming isn't necessarily what we think farming is. We receive lots of very positive feedback from the community. We try to host at least three open houses per season so members of our community can come to the farm and see how we grow and learn about our initiatives. They also can buy our produce at the farm gate, which helps to subsidize what we do with outreach. So very, very positive feedback from all areas.
Makenzie: The community has been great. We've had a lot of support. A lot of people are coming out to get the produce, especially at the start when I was giving the produce away to the community, almost on a weekly basis, because we had so much of it.
Everyone loved it, and they just wanted to learn more about it. Unfortunately, we haven't able to have any open houses or anything. We’re also located in a location that makes it a little bit difficult for elders to come to the greenhouse. Our res is split into two big locations, Garden Village and Yellek. To try and fix that, we're looking to get some vending machines.
We're trying to get some cool vending machines to put one in Garden Village, one over in Yellek. Especially if you put it near the band office. There's a lot of employees that we employ, over 200 people at NFN. So that's just going to make it more accessible.
We also have gotten involved with a bi-weekly, monthly food giveaway that the Health Unit does. Stella at the Health Unit always tells me how excited people are to see our produce, and they always talk about how long it lasts.
Lastly, I will touch on one of my customers. Every time I'm in there, he's always telling me how much he believes in our project and understands the background of where it's coming from, which is food sovereignty.
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