Wellspring Harvest is the first commercial hydroponic greenhouse in the City of Springfield, located at 121 Pinevale Street in the Indian Orchard neighborhood. The quarter acre (15,120 square foot) greenhouse was completed in April 2018 and started selling lettuce in August 2018. Wellspring Harvest is bringing healthy, locally grown produce to hospitals, schools, businesses, and residents in the surrounding area. The greenhouse will produce an estimated 250,000 plants a year (lettuce, greens, and herbs). Wellspring Harvest helps hospitals, schools, and universities reach their public health goals. Institutional food purchasers are seeking local produce in response to a number of pressures, which is creating an unmet demand for year-round greenhouse production.
Wellspring Harvest addresses a number of social and environmental needs in the region and contributes to economic and ecological well-being. It responds to the need for environmentally sustainable, season-extending food production at a production scale that allows New England to achieve greater food independence despite its short growing season. Greenhouse production in Massachusetts remains small, with only 9 greenhouses in the state in 2007 of the size that Wellspring Harvest is working towards. Total production of greenhouse vegetables and herbs is less than 2% of the state’s agricultural production, while many greens and herbs are only available from farms for 30-50% of the year. Institutional markets can provide stable, large-scale demand which will enable greenhouses to build the capacity to produce at large scales, and therefore at more affordable prices.
The Wellspring urban greenhouse also responds to the urgent need to create entry-level jobs in Springfield and to enable workers to accumulate assets to invest in housing, education, and better health. Wellspring Harvest provides job training and stable employment as well as profit-sharing for low-income Springfield residents who have few opportunities to advance economically. Financial stability and employment are closely correlated with better eating and better health, and so Wellspring’s job creation work is an important complement to increased access to nutritious food in the city.