University of Oregon
IN-49: Innovation C

The UO Office of Sustainability launched the Grow Pod initiative in 2018. The Grow Pod consists of a shipping container built out for high-productivity food growth that supports ongoing research, learning, and innovation for sustainable urban food production. The Grow Pod was generously donated to the UO Office of Sustainability by a community member and was delivered to campus in May 2018. In 2018, the University of Oregon Food Studies Program and the Office of Sustainability were awarded a $10,000 applied environmental science seed grant to support start-up costs and first year programming in the Pod. The project was officially announced to the University of Oregon community in an April 2019 Around the O article.

The Pod is outfitted for growing plants with a heating and cooling system, insulation, trays and racks, and state-of-the-art LED lighting system. During the first months of the project, we have focused on testing out growing systems and learning how to operate pod. We also conducted a brief study of the emerging industry of controlled environment agriculture. As part of this study, we collected case studies of existing container farm initiatives and a bibliography of relevant academic studies and contemporary news articles. The bibliography also includes a list of shipping container consulting firms, equipment companies, university initiatives, and social enterprise efforts.

Currently, the Grow Pod supports students through introductory-level curricular and co-curricular programming. In year one, students in UO Community for Environmental Leaders are raising a variety of common garden crops as well as starts they plan to market to the campus community. Now in its second year, the Grow Pod is being used to foster undergraduate student research and to engage and educate interested students in the Environmental Leaders Academic Residential Community (ARC) and the Native American and Indigenous Studies ARC.