Mark O'Farrell and his company Hungry Mother Organics have been committed to organic farming, local produce and water sustainability for years. And he's taking an ambitious move to expand his small operation in Minden, to a farm site in Dayton. It has 200 acres of land, three ponds and plenty of water. They've recently reseeded some of the fields there with crops they hope to use as bio-fuels to power their plan. It's 30,000 square feet of greenhouse space to grow produce. And they've developed a water recycling system that uses pond water to water plants and then is filtered back into the fish ponds for the tilapia they are growing as well.
"What we need to do," O'Farrell says, "is be able to grow produce out of season to replace all the stuff we import from around the world and from California. We can do that with sustainable farming techniques to produce those crops right here in Nevada."
Trevor Birba is handling the business end of things. He says the plan is all inclusive.
"Our goal really is to build the greenhouses and then fuel them with solar energy and with crops we're growing as bio-fuels. We're experimenting with what will work best for pellets."
The system is something Jake O'Farrell has been working on for years.
"We've learned a lot every step of the way," he says. "We've improved the filters and the system and we're ready now to expand it to this bigger project."
Once it's fully operational they expect to produce 30,000 pounds of tilapia annually and several hundred thousand pounds of produce and berries. They say the crops will be flexible as they see what works best for the system overall.
They hope to have the greenhouses up and ready in late January.
