Used shipping containers are cheap and abundant. At any given moment there are roughly 17 million of them in use worldwide. When they reach the end of their voyaging lives, sometimes after only a few uses, they end up in salvage yards or on Craigslist, waiting for someone to repurpose them. My local Craigslist currently has over 300 listings for shipping containers of various sizes ranging in price from about $3,000 to $9,000. The recent craze to repurpose shipping containers into habitable spaces has led to numerous backyard sheds, homes, offices, bars and restaurants. And very recently a new reason for repurposing these steel boxes has sprouted: agriculture.
The State of California produces the lion’s share of all produce consumed in the U.S.—99 percent of artichokes, 89 percent of cauliflower, 90 percent of leaf lettuce, 86 percent of lemons, 88 percent of strawberries, and the list goes on and on. Unless you live under a rock, you know that California is experiencing a severe decade-long-and-counting drought. What you may not know is that 77 percent of all the water used in California is devoted to agriculture. Continuing drought conditions are now taking their toll on California’s ability to produce America’s fruits and veggies.