Alum brings urban farming to Clark University

Freight Farms co-founder and Clark alum Brad McNamara stands in the Leafy Green Machine

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By Sam Bonacci

The journey of Worcester-founded and now Boston-based Freight Farms has come full-circle -- Clark University is bringing one of the fully-contained farms to its campus.

On Jan. 15, Clark University received delivery of a Freight Farm -- a retrofitted shipping container housing a fully functional hydroponic farm known as the Leafy Green Machine. The farm is the brain-child of Freight Farms co-founder and Clark alum Brad McNamara who received a dual M.B.A. and M.S. degree in 2013.

McNamara incubated and launched Freight Farms at Clark while he was still a student. While Freight Farms returned to Worcester in November, at the Worcester State University campus, returning to Clark is a “dream come true” for McNamara.

“I’m super excited to be back on campus,” McNamara said in a release from Clark. “Three blocks away is where (co-founder) Jon and I spent an inordinate amount of time inside a container — building, rebuilding, prototyping, doing it all to make a farm happen. And now the real thing is here, and it’s going to be feeding students at Clark. It’s a dream.”

The 40 ft. shipping container, which is the same model as the one located at Worcester State, will initially be used to grow between 500 and 630 heads of lettuce a week. Eventually, the farm could grow other produce such as kale, cabbage and Swiss chard; and herbs like mint, basil and oregano.

Clark is leasing the Freight Farm for eight months, at which time it will be determined if it is cost-neutral or a savings for the University. Urban farming has been an ongoing initiative in Worcester, with multiple locations serving area farmer's markets and institutions.