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In the shadow of Fair Park’s Texas Star, your garden can grow without sunlight.
The nonprofit Restorative Farms calls it Grozilla. This is a hydroponic greenhouse made from two shipping containers.
“This is shallow-water cultivation,” said Restorative Farms grower Angel Giron, explaining how the rows of leafy greens grow without soil. “This is five-star lettuce. So it’s a combination of five different types of lettuce.”
Restorative Farms began as an urban farm in south Dallas to grow healthy vegetables for the community and plant seeds for agricultural career opportunities.
“When you think about traditional farming, large-scale farming, it’s like a tractor in the middle of Kansas,” says Dr. Doric Earle. “We’re not trying to do that.”
Earle is an SMU professor of practice and one of the four founders of Restorative Farms. His focus is on developing agricultural entrepreneurs in underserved communities.
“We need to train people to be entrepreneurs because big companies aren’t going to come into that community and employ them,” Earl said. “So people have to forge their own paths.”
“We’re in what we call a food desert, but we’re also a resource desert,” said Brad Boer, director of partnerships at Restorative Farms. “We have a lot of talent here, but we don’t have the resources to take it to the next level. We hope we can provide that.”
The goal is to create something that can be replicated in urban areas where access to fresh, healthy food is difficult and opportunities are limited.
“Many of us only think of foods like tomatoes and bunches of lettuce as something you can get off the shelf at Sprouts or Kruger,” Boer said. Incorporating tiny seeds into seedlings, plants, and the food your family eats. It’s magic! ”
At Grozillia, Restorative Farms is uniquely thinking about growing fresh produce quickly in the middle of a food desert.
“Basically, it’s just using as much space as possible to grow as much food as possible,” Giron said. “By doing it, you’ll gain the intuitive knowledge and skills to know what your plants need, when they need it, and when to check on it.”
This year, Restorative Farms has a goal of adding 5,700 square feet of greenhouses.
“Our goal there is to create something like a farm in a box,” Boa said. “This should be a catalyst for change in this community.”
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