Upper Intermediate Videoscript

Life
Page 150 Unit 12: The Farmery

Part 1
0.00–1.00 When I drive around rural North Carolina I see how this land is used for
agriculture, and it makes me think of the complex journey that the food has to take from these
fields to the retail store shelves. It has to be harvested; it has to be packed, transported,
cooled. And at every step there’s massive inventory loss. What if, what if this entire system
could be consolidated into one site? What if you grow and you sell at the same site? What
would that look like?
1.02–1.40 The Farmery is an urban farming market where we use the entire structure to grow
food and the bottom level is used as a retail area where we can sell the food. The Farmery is
created from shipping containers and modular greenhouse components. We have these living
wall panels that we’ve developed that hang off the outside of the shipping containers. We
grow aquaponic crops on those and inside the shipping containers we grow gourmet
mushrooms.
1.41–2.11 My farming methods differ in almost every way from conventional agriculture. For
one thing the plants are grown in expanding clay pebbles instead of using soil. I use basically
a fifty per cent aquaponic, fifty per cent hydroponic nutrient mix. Aquaponics is the
combination of aquaculture – the growing of fish – with hydroponics – which is growing
plants in water-based systems.
2.12–2.28 The crops that we primarily focus on at The Farmery are gourmet mushrooms,
strawberries, herbs, greens, baby greens, salad mixes, lettuces.
Part 2
2.29–2.52 But then, once you’ve grown it on a small space, the question is: what do you do
with it? And that’s really where the magic happens. If you grow it in such a small space to the
point that you can locate a retail element to it, then you’ve created a completely new
experience.
2.53–3.15 Customers can walk in there and cut the crops, harvest it, put it in a little baggy
and they’ll have a story right there – you know, that’s what it is. They’ll have an intimate
connection with their food that they won’t experience anywhere else.
3.16–3.52 We’d like to put a Farmery in every city across America, you know, starting with
regional growth and hopefully expanding into national. I think we have a lot of different
options as far as locating The Farmery. I think two of the most attractive options are: putting
it in urban neighbourhoods, where customers can come in and they can see their food
growing on the walls, they can have this unique experience that’s typically not provided in an
urban area for them.
‘So we grow and sell in the same space is the eventual idea.’ ‘Oh! …’
3.53–4.14 But I think also on the flip side of not just selling to that higher-end middle class
market, I think there’s also an argument for lower-income, urban neighbourhoods as well.
Having them buying food from the area they live in maybe would make them more proud of
themselves. And it’s almost like celebrating their identity, you know.
4.15–5.06 I kept pursuing the Farmery because I believe in it. I’m on a mission to create
something spectacular, something that I think people could be a part of, really. I hope the
Farmery changes the way we look at food, the way we eat food. I hope the Farmery makes us
realize that food is about quality over quantity. I want people to be charmed, I want people to
be charmed by experiencing the ‘Willy Wonka’ of agriculture that is The Farmery. That’s
what I want.