A group of Central Wyoming College (CWC) students have repurposed an 8-by-40-foot shipping container to successfully grow delicious vegetables and herbs without soil, sunshine and acres of space in a sustainable way, reports Cowboy State Daily.  These students are enrolled on a Regenerative Small-Scale Farming AAS degree. According to CWC, it is the first of its kind in Wyoming. 

“We’ve been fortunate to be able to bring this kind of technology to the area,” shares local food and agriculture instructor, Ethan Page. “I think this is one of two freight farms in the state, and the only one that’s kind of served, or has like an educational purpose,” he adds. 

The most recent monthly Indoor Ag Conversations webinar hosted by Indoor Ag-Con, held June 3, focused on “The State and Future of Container Farming.”

Container farming is a form of small-scale controlled environment agriculture — i.e. indoor or vertical farming — that is often built inside shipping containers. The units are self-contained, able to be moved to the necessary location and allow for small-scale out-of-season growth of fresh produce.

They are not without their challenges, however. The talk included four panelists from the container farming industry discussing the impacts of Freight Farms and its recent collapse, the challenges of the industry, and where it goes from here.

“This project is about more than just growing food,” said Illinois State University President Aondover Tarhule. “It’s about harnessing the power of technology to reduce our dependence on traditional, resource-demanding agricultural methods. Vertical farming technology can be used to address some of the biggest challenges we face, including food security, environmental responsibility, and sustainability.”

The Vertical Farm uses a repurposed shipping container with an enclosed, controlled environment for growing plants year-round. The 40-foot-by-8-foot (320 square feet) container is designed using a vertical hydroponic growing system with a recirculating nutrient solution and light-emitting diode (LED) lighting system. The Vertical Farm unit will be able to grow 4,600 plants, production equivalent to 1-2 acres of field production, using 95% less water or approximately 5 gallons of water per day.

While the rest of the Wyoming is fast asleep, there’s a secret world in Lander filled with thousands of green and growing things that are all wide awake, bathed in bright LED sunshine. 

The green and growing things are mostly stuff you’d eat in a salad — big Bibb lettuces and crinkly, crunchy kale. But there’s also mounds of emerald-green basil, whose leaves fill the air with the most enchanting aroma whenever a passerby happens to brush the leaves, no matter how gently. 

These green creatures live in a most unlikely space. An 80-by-40-foot shipping container that a casual visitor could easily mistake for a storage unit. But open the doors and an amazing George Jetson-style farm is revealed.

Nour El-Naboulsi, an innovative farmer in Burlington, Vermont, grows tons of fresh produce all winter without using any soil or sunlight, according to Vermont Public Radio. 

How is that possible, you ask? With hydroponics, a well-proven technique for growing plants indoors using nutrient-rich water and specific climate controls. 

That might sound like something only a fancy laboratory can pull off, but El-Naboulsi built a fully operational growing space inside a retrofitted shipping container. 

We’re actively supporting Freight Farms customers to keep growing. We’re working with current and former Freight Farms customers to create immediate and long-term solutions for your farm operations.

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I am a 3rd generation farmer so farming is in my blood. After college, I began working in the agricultural chemical industry in row crops. Here I learned what it takes to feed a nation and the logistics of it all. This is where my journey began but not until 2019 while I was in the Bahamas helping rebuild after Hurricane Dorian that I realized what my path would be.

I have held every kind of sales position imaginable so I knew I was just looking for the right product to put my knowledge, skills, and abilities behind to make it a success. This is when I began looking into hydroponics farming and more specifically Controlled Environment Agriculture(CEA). We are located in Charleston, SC which provides long growing seasons but unfortunately, land close enough to cities to sustain a profitable business is just unaffordable.

Brad Fourby is not your average Pittsburg, Kansas farmer.

While he’s harvested hundreds of heads of lettuce and produce on his farm, he rarely does so under the Kansas sun or on a John Deere tractor.

Instead, this native Californian turned Kansas farmer spends his time growing produce inside his 320 square-foot indoor hydroponic farm, Leafy Green Farms.

But what exactly is hydroponic farming?

In simple terms, hydroponic farming is the process of growing crops with water-based nutrients rather than soil. Instead of planting crops out in a field, hydroponic farming utilizes a controlled environment approach to agriculture, meaning the environment in which the crops are grown is managed to optimize growth and resources in a setting where variables like temperature, humidity, and light can be controlled.

The farm, which officially launched Thursday, will operate out of a converted shipping container outside ISU’s Office of Sustainability on School Street. The 320-square-foot unit is equipped with hydroponic system and LED lighting to grow the equivalent of 1-2 acres of traditional field production with a fraction of the water required to grow up to 4,600 plants.

Taco Tuesdays at Illinois State University are about to get fresher as a new Vertical Farm prepares to grow cilantro for dining services.

Professor of Agriculture David Kopsell gives a tour of ISU's new Vertical Farm. The converted shipping container is expected to produce 50 pounds of cilantro per week for campus dining services.

The morning sun casts long shadows over the fields as farmers swiftly load crates of freshly harvested produce onto a waiting distribution truck. The scent of damp earth and ripened vegetables fills the crisp Minnesota air. A rhythmic chorus of voices calls out orders as hands pass boxes from one to another, each filled with vibrant greens and fragrant herbs. The truck’s reverse alarm beeps steadily, a signal of movement and progress. 

Standing at a distance, Marcus Carpenter watches with quiet satisfaction. His dream, Route1 — born from a time of crisis and a deep-rooted passion for agriculture — has manifested before his eyes. The food will soon be on its way to those who need it most, carrying a message of resilience and empowerment.

Shipping a container farm might not be something most people have experience with, but when you're planning to bring a Freight Farm to your site, it's one of the most important details to understand. The cost of delivering a container farm depends on a variety of factors: where you’re located, how accessible the site is, and even what time of year it is.

While there’s no flat rate for delivery, this guide will walk you through the main drivers of cost, give you ballpark price ranges, and help you plan for a smooth, cost-effective delivery.

Freight Farms are delivered as fully built, production-ready units. That means they’re shipped as a single load on a specialized trailer called a stepdeck, which accommodates the height and weight of the farm. Each farm is delivered one at a time, no shared loads, no cross-country warehouse handoffs, and no typical freight carriers like UPS or FedEx.

Nestled between two train cars-turned-restaurants on the other side of town, Henry Krull walks inside his shipping container farm. He points to a wall that's growing hundreds of bunches of butter lettuce.

Krull is the owner of fresh365, another Kenai Peninsula based hydroponic farm. Just like Edgy Veggie, the farm operates entirely indoors.

fresh365 owner Henry Krull holds a box of lion's mane. The hydroponic farm recently started growing mushrooms alongside its greens and herbs.

“The advantage of growing indoors, in a container like we have, is that we can control the environment," Krull said. "We can grow no matter what’s going on outside. It can be 30 below outside, but it’s always 70 degrees or so inside.”

fresh365 also sees an uptick in direct-to-consumer sales in the winter. Otherwise, most of their sales go to other businesses, like local restaurants.

A wall of lettuce was rolled aside to make way for rows of colorful edible flowers as Selma Davis looked through her hydroponic farm like a librarian confidently sifting through shelves of books.

She picked a piece of bright green arugula. "Give that a try. It is the most unbelievable arugula," Davis said. "It's spicy because it's older."

The bushels of arugula are among dozens of greens grown vertically within a large shipping container dropped by a crane on St. Helena Island farmland. On the inside, the 320-square-foot structure is high tech, using water to produce large yields of pesticide-free greens and vegetables through hydroponics.

Supply chains have always been complex, but recent global events have made them even more unpredictable. Between food safety concerns, disruptions caused by COVID-19, and evolving tariff policies, businesses and organizations that rely on food imports have faced increasing challenges.

These factors highlight why local food production is more important than ever - whether for farmers, schools, hospitals, or businesses looking to create a more stable and reliable food source.

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.

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.

Last April, the Cincinnati Zoo started growing some of the food it needs to feed its animals. Less than a mile from the elephant enclosures and manatee displays, it set up two storage containers equipped with hydroponic systems to cultivate lettuce and kale.

Since then, the zoo has grown more than 8,000 pounds of produce in Avondale — enough to supply the giraffe feeding program.

Sustainability Project Manager Megan O’Keefe says the zoo still ships food in, but growing on-site is helping it be more resilient.

“We’re dipping our toe in the water because there has been supply chain issues, especially with climate change — we're experiencing more droughts on these farms that we get our lettuce from in California, in the Southwest,” O’Keefe said.

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.