The Vertical Farm at Illinois State University will use a repurposed 40 ft. by 8 ft. (320 sq. ft.) shipping container to grow plants, such as basil, cilantro, and parsley, year-round in an enclosed, controlled environment. The Farm uses a vertical hydroponic growing system, which includes recirculated nutrient solution and light-emitting diode (LED) lighting to grow 4,600 plants at full operation. This is the equivalent of 1-2 acres of field production but requires 95% less water at 5 gallons per day.

Students will use the site to train for careers in agriculture and horticulture specialty crop production. It also will serve as a demonstration site for other departments across campus, as well as local community groups, schools and businesses.

Recently I visited the CROPS (Communities Revolutionizing Open Public Spaces) food hub located at 167 S. Tennessee Ave. in Atlantic City. I sat down with Director of Operations Alexis Flack, who has been with CROPS since 2022; and food distribution coordinator Soph Milone, who started as an intern in 2024, and is now working full time for CROPS.

I was familiar with CROPS, but learned so much more about it during my visit and what they have to offer.

CROPS is a nonprofit with a mission “to alleviate food insecurity through empowering healthy, interconnected communities by cultivating fresh produce, ensuring access to nutritional food, providing educational programming and advocating for sustainable food systems and collaborative solutions.”

Controlled environment agriculture enables food production in small, non-traditional spaces, including shipping containers and urban centers. These systems embody the spirit of innovation, merging technology and sustainability to tackle critical global challenges like food security and climate resilience. The UConn team, led by Shuresh Ghimire, associate extension educator for vegetable crops, collaborates closely with Jeremy Whipple, farm manager of Meechooôk Farm, and Marissa Turnbull, director of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation Department of Agriculture.

Rows of lettuce growing in a hydroponic system in a shipping container outside the school district's administration building will help provide students and the community with fresh food year-round.

Students and food service employees plan to harvest 150 to 200 heads of lettuce each week from the water-based system, said Groton Public Schools Food Service Director Ernie Koschmieder.

School, government and Navy officials and students gathered Friday for a ribbon-cutting ceremony and toured the new 40-foot-long shipping container that says WELCOME TO OUR FARM."

St. Anthony Basin Resources Inc. (SABRI) got its start as a social enterprise with a focus on the fishery.

The St. Anthony-based organization was involved in not just fishing but in programs and research and development initiatives, but when SABRI’s fishing quota was reduced, CEO Christopher Mitchelmore knew they had to develop a good diversification strategy if SABRI was to continue to meet its mandate.

“Which is all about expanding the economic base and creating jobs, and doing so in harmony of our rural lifestyle,” he told The Telegram.

Today, Mitchelmore is confident in saying that SABRI has been able to find success in diversification.

It’s done so through real estate, with the construction of 26 housing units that were completed in 2023, and by expanding into transportation with SABRI Transit.

What is unique about AdventHealth Farm compared to other farms? Instead of growing food outdoors or in a greenhouse, AH uses vertical racks inside a shipping container. LED lights provide light adjusted for the optimal mix of red and blue light for the photosynthesis of each plant species being grown. Instead of plants growing horizontally such as in traditional outdoor farms, AH crops are grown vertically on tall, dual-sided towers hanging from the shipping container ceiling in rows, with carefully regulated nutrient water flowing from top to bottom.

Taking delivery today of three more hydroponic growing container farms to add to the two we already have. So grateful for our partnership with Campus Dining.

The Auburn University Transformation Garden is continuing to be transformed by new technology, facilities, new gardens, and amazing faculty, staff and students all working together. hashtag#auburnhorticulture

Thanks to Glenn Loughridge, Desmond R. Layne, Ph.D., Jack Maruna, Daniel Wells and the Team at Auburn for entrusting us with the opportunity to expand capability on campus. Also thanks to Kenneth Mintz, Eric Timmerman and the Team at STEEL LION LLC https://opsteellion.com/ for the first class logistics support in making it happen!

New York City Council Member Rafael Salamanca Jr. presented a $175,000 check to PS 811X: The Academy for Career and Living Skills, in the South Bronx for the school’s new hydroponic classroom.

The check was presented as Salamanca joined students, teachers, parents and faculty at PS 811X for a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the opening of the new hydroponic lab. Also on hand for the ceremony were members of the nonprofit New York Sun Works, which builds state-of-the-art hydroponic classrooms.

Students at the school will use the new lab to learn about and conduct experiments related to hydroponics, which involves growing plants with water-based nutrient solutions instead of soil.

Fork Farms, an innovator in food access technology, is proud to announce a new partnership with HPS LLC, a Delaware not-for-profit limited liability company that works to strengthen communities by helping its members fulfill their missions.

This two-year agreement, effective February 1, 2025, through January 31, 2027, brings @HPS’ member institutions access to sustainable, hyper-local food production. The HPS reference contract number is 1080 and will reflect the most current pricing and availability.

HPS' membership is made up of more than 4,900 organizations in 36 states. Membership includes: hospitals, medical groups, senior living facilities, schools and educational groups, senior nutritional feeding programs, county governments, religious organizations, camps, jails, and more.

It may not look like it, but there is a hydroponic farm within this container! We imagine you have many questions about this mysterious box sitting here. To help we have compiled a list of some questions to assist you.

The project involves using a hydroponic container farm on Governor's Island where the team is making a collaborative effort to grow crops and build relationships within the community.

This project is not only about providing fresh produce to New Yorkers, but also engaging the next generation with agriculture.

Students at Crivitz Middle School are getting their hands dirty in the science department, learning what it takes to grow their own food -- right inside their classroom.

Thanks to a grant from Provident Health Foundation, the science program received an indoor hydroponic system.

Students at Crivitz Middle School are getting their hands dirty in the science department, learning what it takes to grow their own food -- right inside their classroom. (WLUK)

"They get to see how their food is grown and they are involved in that process. Taking the food and giving it directly to cafeteria where the students see it on display," says science teacher Shane Graves.

Paul Karpawich, Program Director for Uplift NH, hosted a presentation and discussion about driving environmental education and problem-based learning in school curriculum across New Hampshire.

Paul shared his organization’s success in working with schools and students to launch and sustain food waste diversion and composting projects and offered networking space to replicate similar projects in your own school.

Last November, the Ohio University Student Senate developed initiatives for two vertical gardens. The project, which aims to enhance student engagement and sustainability at Ohio U, was awarded $5,000. 

The Senate worked to create a project that met engagement and sustainability goals but was also financially viable. Former Environmental Affairs Commissioner Caden Hibbs, worked with the company Just Vertical out of Canada, an indoor hydroponic farming company, and pitched their indoor wall gardens to support Ohio U. 

CENTRAL POINT Ore. - Crater High School utilizes a cutting-edge agricultural project that grows food in ways that challenge traditional farming practices and inspire students to think about sustainability in new ways.

The Freight Farm uses a vertical hydroponic method to cultivate crops like lettuce, basil and cilantro — all without soil.

The plants are nourished by nutrient-rich water, with no more than five gallons of water used per week.

The idea for the Freight Farm originated when agricultural science teachers Kristin Kostman and Jim Miller attended a national conference, where they discovered the concept.

“Our students are involved in every step, planting the seeds, monitoring growth, and harvesting the crops,” Kostman said. “It’s a hands-on, immersive experience that teaches them the possibilities of sustainable, urban farming.”

In addition to its ongoing work with schools, City Greens this year established a partnership with Gro iQ, a company that offers, in part, high-quality sensors that can accurately test hydroponic growth elements such as light, heat and carbon dioxide.

“The sensors that they have are significantly more comprehensive than what we’re already using,” says Levy. “We’re trying to figure out how to be as precise and accurate as possible with our growth cycles, and they’re helping us do that.”

Locally, City Greens has also donated a hydroponic container to the Beverly Hills Fire Department station on Rexford Drive, which uses some of the plants produced therein for their cooking. 

Having a container at the fire station is “a way for people to see the difference between locally grown hydroponic food versus non-hydroponic local food,” says Levy. 

Local organizations and groups supporting City Greens include the city of Beverly Hills, Beverly Hills Education Foundation, We Benefit Children, Beverly Hills Rotary Club and the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles. 

Students at Carter G. Woodson Academy in Lexington show off their lettuce crop. Courtesy of Future Farmers of America Association Agriculture students at the Carter G. Woodson Academy in Lexington have an uncommon opportunity: to grow food that’s served in the school cafeteria and eaten by classmates.

The food — lettuce, mainly — comes from the school’s hydroponic container, part of a program run since 2019 by agriculture teacher Jacob Ball.

It gives students involved in the agricultural program at the academy — an all-male school for students grades six through 12 that offers a rigorous curriculum through the lens of Black history — the opportunity to learn alternatives ways of farming outside of a traditional field.

Near the entrance of a 40-foot container farm installed at New Mexico State University’s Grants campus, dozens of 4-day-old kale plants lined a horizontal nursery bed, sprouting at various lengths in shades of electric green from miniature patches of densely packed soil.

Further inside, instructor Gabriel Garcia flipped a switch. Instantly, red and blue LED lights engulfed the space, illuminating the intricate vertical farming system in a shocking pink glow.

“The lights mimic the sun,” Garcia explained on a July afternoon. “This is where we’ll move the kale when their root structures develop, and they’ll stay here until they reach maturity.”

It’s a farm inside a kitchen.

Carl Lasley harvested basil plants, using scissors to carefully snip the aromatic herb, trimming some and completely harvesting others. The lush, richly green plants were grown in hydroponic trays in a corner of the food serving area at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.

Lasley, food and beverage director at the Darden School for the FLIK Hospitality Group, which operates Darden Dining, harvested the basil from an idea that sprouted at the University and has now returned as a realized product. 

Near the entrance of a 40-foot container farm installed at New Mexico State University’s Grants campus, dozens of 4-day-old kale plants lined a horizontal nursery bed, sprouting at various lengths in shades of electric green from miniature patches of densely packed soil.

Further inside, instructor Gabriel Garcia flipped a switch. Instantly, red and blue LED lights engulfed the space, illuminating the intricate vertical farming system in a shocking pink glow.

“The lights mimic the sun,” Garcia explained on a July afternoon. “This is where we’ll move the kale when their root structures develop, and they’ll stay here until they reach maturity.”

The container farm was one of the first projects shepherded by NMSU’s Center of Excellence in Sustainable Food and Agricultural Systems, housed in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences.

The Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture (HLA) bids a fond farewell to Brittany Weerts, who is concluding her tenure as Hydroponic Research Operations Administrator. Throughout her time at Purdue, Weerts has played a pivotal role in advancing the department’s controlled environment agriculture capabilities.

Petrus Langenhoven, Director of the Purdue Student Farm, reflects on Weerts’ remarkable contribution: “When I learned that a Controlled Environment Ag Facility was coming to the Purdue Student Farm, I knew we had to find someone experienced, self-driven, enthusiastic, passionate, and dedicated to managing the container farms and helping educate the next generation of growers. We were very fortunate to get Brittany Weerts to take on the role.”