Modular Farms Newsletter #5

This year in Brampton the ugly head of winter has reared itself a little earlier than we hoped. On the bright side, it's given us extra motivation to spend more time working within the heavily insulated walls of our Modular Farm. And for good reason, as we have begun donating our weekly harvests to the Daily Bread Food Bank in Etobicoke. 

Since November 23rd, the Daily Bread team has been working tirelessly to ensure that this year's holiday food drive feeds as many hungry Canadians as possible. To date, they have amassed over 200,000 pounds of food, but they still have a long way to go. Their goal this season is 1.5 million pounds and if we all pitch in a little extra food we have no doubt that they'll get there! 

We'd like to sincerely thank everyone who made the trip to our office last month to participate in our inaugural open house event. It was a pleasure to see such an intelligent and curious group of like-minded individuals interacting and sharing ideas; we hope that you all had as much fun attending the event as we did hosting it. We also made sure to videotape a portion of the event for those who couldn't be there physically, which you can watch by clicking here. 

Back inside the office things are more exciting than ever. For starters, we recently added a new member to our team - Kamil - who has given us a much-needed boost in our engineering efforts. Under his guidance, our first round of Primary Modules will be making their way off the assembly line and into the hands of our customers in early 2017, followed by our Macro and Vestibule Module prototypes. Also, as you can see from the above gif, our Master Farmer Kevin has been skillfully pollinating and nurturing our first generation of office-grown Strawberry and Cherry Tomato plants, which we are excited to announce are getting close to being harvestable!

In addition to hosting clients and friends, we also had the pleasure of welcoming in a class of inquisitive young pupils and teachers from the St. Joan of Arc Secondary School in Mississauga. The students had already been operating their own classroom hydroponic and aquaponic system for a while and we were blown away by their level of understanding and appreciation for Zipgrow technology and our Modular Farm. When the students left that day, our team breathed a sigh of relief knowing that the next generation of Canadian hydroponic farmers are already blossoming, and will be well equipped to face the food scarcity challenges that the future holds for both our country and the rest of the world. 

2016 has been an incredible year of growth for Zipgrow, Modular Farms, Upstart Farmers and the entire hydroponic food industry. More than ever, people have become conscious of the need for sustainable farming practices that are close to home. More importantly, these same people have begun taking it upon themselves to act as a force for change in their own communities. We are proud and grateful to be in a position to empower, educate and support people like you, and we can't wait to see what we can all accomplish together in 2017. 

Happy holidays from all of us here at Modular Farms. We wish you nothing but health, happiness, and success in the new year!