>> Outside, it's less than 20 degrees,
and inside it remains 65 degrees.
We grow hydroponically inside a shipping container,
and each container we grow up to 3.5 acres of produce.
♪
So what we do is we grow fresh herbs, leafy greens,
and lettuces, and we provide them to the community.
♪
So my name is DeMario Vitalis.
I'm the owner and founder of New Age Provisions Farms.
♪
Basil and thyme is one of our main things that we grow.
In terms of leafy greens, we grow different kinds of kale,
Toscano kale, black magic kale.
And in terms of lettuces, we grow in different varieties,
oakleaf lettuces, butterhead, Alkindus lettuce,
which is in front of us, romaine lettuces.
And one of our best sellers is our lettuce mix,
as a matter of fact.
And customers love that because it's fresh harvested lettuce,
something that you usually don't get
to have access to in your community.
So right now, it's Monday.
We're harvesting for the Tuesday dropoff.
So everything that you get from us
is going to be freshly harvested, less than 24 hours
before it's in your hands.
So what we do is we're able to harvest the leaves
of the lettuce, and we'll provide them into a mix.
It's one of our best selling things
that customers appreciate.
So what we're doing here is harvesting half ounces of basil.
And then what we'll do is we'll put them in --
so we either have half ounce, one ounce or three ounces,
and then once we've packaged it, we will put our label on it.
That represents where it came from.
You know, New Age Provisions Farms, Indiana grown.
So we have to put the specific nitrogen, potassium
and phosphorous, those type of nutrient mixes
inside the water of micro and macro nutrients,
and that's what the plant uses to grow.
Some of the benefits of hydroponic farming are
it allows you to control the level of nutrients
that you are feeding your plants.
You can increase the nutrients
or you can decrease certain nutrients.
♪
Water is huge.
During the summertime, we use even less water.
We have a problem with water overflowing,
which traditional farmers don't have in the summertime,
because I'm saving water.
We use 98% less water than traditional farming.
So as you can see, you know, water is heavily involved
in hydroponic farming.
We even have to fill the water tanks once every ten days.
That's where we store.
Where in the traditional sense, we will be storing our water
and pulling our water from.
So we have a shed back here where we have --
we store our water, 275 gallons of water in each container.
And what we typically do is we connect a hose
to the water tank and feed it inside of the farm here.
As you can see, how cold it is outside,
we are able to break ice off of it,
but inside, it's 65 degrees.
So we have two greeneries.
This one is the first version of the greenery
that came out in 2020.
And this one is an older model,
and it looks kind of different aesthetically.
So let's go inside and see what we got.
♪
This is the seedling table.
This is where we spend a lot of our time growing.
So we're growing fresh lettuces, fresh kale,
and these are seedlings.
So this is how the plants start off.
So you kind of want it to have nice roots on the end of them,
and then once they grow into full seedlings,
then we'll set them into the towers
where they will grow to become full plants.
So this is the rack system.
And so with this, you know, we're able to adjust them here.
And then that will allow us to harvest in this aisle,
or we can adjust it more, and harvest in this aisle.
So they have their pinion system,
their little rolling system on it.
And that's what it is.
You know, at nighttime, what we will do
is we will have these evenly spaced,
kind of get them going,
and then we'll turn the lights on.
♪
For 12 to 16 hours, this will be the kind of light
that the plants will get.
So in a traditional sense, sun shines all types of spectrum,
but in this, we only use blue and red,
because that's what the plants absorb.
So this system is outfitted with special LED lights
that only shine exactly what the plants need.
I started off with shipping container housing,
and then eventually led to shipping container farming.
In Indianapolis, it's much easier
to get shipping container farms off the ground
than it is to get houses off the ground.
I also wanted to have an opportunity to own
a business system, something that I can have
and give to the community.
I wanted to provide my community with fresh herbs,
fresh greens, and the opportunity
to have that provided locally.
The food deserts is something that, you know,
you are just now starting to hear a lot of,
because it's been most publicized,
and it should be as well.
Because it is -- in a sense, it is true.
If you are in a community and you don't have access
to local foods, local fresh meats, local fresh vegetables,
you are in a food desert.
If you have to travel long distance to get access
to that food, you are in a food desert.
So having a container and an operation like this
brings the food closer to the consumer.
It's one way that we have to combat
that becoming a food desert.
Once we are able to either, A, produce our own foods
or have them sourced locally,
by companies like New Age Provisions Farms.