Shipping containers built for farm and agricultural storage

Gear, feed, and produce on a farm all need somewhere dry, secure, and often cold to sit, and that spot is usually a back plot or a field with no building and no power nearby. Shipping containers answer that with lockable steel storage, refrigerated cold storage, and insulated grow space, delivered and set right where the work happens.

Storage is the weak point on a farm

A working farm covers ground, and that spread is the problem. Between seasons, implements, hand tools, and pumps sit idle and walk off if nothing locks them away. Feed, seed, and fertilizer need to stay dry and off the ground, while sprays and chemicals need their own secure, separate store. Harvested produce, dairy, or cut flowers can spoil within hours with no cold storage on hand. Much of this sits on remote plots with no shed, no slab, and no mains power to plug into, and a barn or cold room built for each need is slow and expensive to put up. A tarp or open lean-to solves none of it: it doesn't lock, doesn't stay watertight, and does nothing for temperature.

Where a container fits in

Built precisely enough to cross oceans, a shipping container holds up just as well parked in a field for years. Three variants between them cover most farm needs. The standard steel box, a dry container, gives equipment, feed, and seed a wind-and-watertight (WWT) store that keeps rain and weather out. A refrigerated container, a reefer, is an insulated box with its own cooling unit, holding a set temperature once it has power. And an insulated greenhouse unit is a container fitted out as a climate-controlled grow space. Every one of the three arrives built and gets set on-site, so the foundation, the framing, and the wait all disappear.

How farms actually use them

The single most common use is storing implements and equipment: a used 30ft container keeps implements, tools, and pumps locked up between seasons. The same kind of WWT box does dry feed and seed storage too, holding stock off the ground and out of the weather, though grain and some feeds still need extra ventilation added, or moisture gets trapped inside.

Cold storage for the harvest comes from the same idea: a dual-temperature 20ft reefer holds two temperature zones at once, and for bigger volumes a used reefer at 40ft adds capacity once it's plugged into 3-phase power or a generator.

Where a controlled grow space is the need, an insulated greenhouse container provides an enclosed unit you can heat, light, and ventilate. For a chemical or tool store kept secure and separate from everything else, a 45ft high cube unit (high cube meaning a foot taller than a standard container) gives the most room of the lot. Any on-farm cold chain runs on reefers, a subject covered in depth in our cold storage refrigerated containers page.

Questions farms ask

How is a reefer powered out in a field?

Running a refrigerated container takes 3-phase power. Without mains supply on the plot, a diesel generator or genset sized to the unit does the job instead. We can advise on a given reefer's draw so you can match the right genset, though the power hookup itself is arranged apart from the container order.

Can a container sit on an unimproved field?

Yes, with the ground prepared first. The unit sets down on level, firm, compacted ground, with no slab needed. Timber or concrete pads go under the four corners on soft, wet, or sloped ground to keep the unit level and the doors square. Site access and clearance get checked before delivery so the truck can reach the spot.

What does delivery to the farm look like?

A tilt-bed (roll-off) truck does the job: the bed tilts and the container slides off at ground level, with no crane or forklift needed for most units. What the truck needs is a straight, obstacle-free run to position and unload. Heavier units, like a loaded reefer, may call for a crane, so flag both the unit and the access when requesting a quote. This is general guidance, since site conditions vary.

Get a free quote

Every unit ships inspected and graded, priced in one free, itemized quote covering the container plus delivery, with no hidden fees. To get there, tell us what needs storing, whether it has to stay cold, and a note on the plot — ground, access, and whether power is already on-site. Our storage solutions consulting matches the right container and cold-storage setup to your operation, while container delivery handles the tilt-bed drop to the field. Request a free quote to get started.