Freight farms are vertical farms built inside of repurposed shipping containers. They utilize hydroponic farming, in which plants are grown without soil and instead grow inside water-based solutions. The farms can be placed virtually anywhere and grow year-round because of their self-contained climate. The result is a high-yield farm that requires far less space than a traditional garden.

Access to fresh, healthy food is the cornerstone of strong, thriving communities. Yet in Denver’s Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea (GES) neighborhoods, within the 80216 ZIP code, many residents have long faced barriers to affordable, nutritious options and is considered a food desert. To create lasting change, we must think differently about how and where food is grown.

Two container farms on the grounds of Volunteers of America's Upstate New York campus have become a working part of how the organization addresses food insecurity among its clients. Running for two years, the programme supplies leafy greens, beans, root vegetables, and herbs to on-site shelters, a children's centre, and partner organizations in the surrounding community.

Innovation is growing in Manatee County. Southeast High School was chosen by the National STEM Honors Society to receive 1 of 5 hydroponics system valued over $8,000.

In addition to the community gardens, Dr. Bennington is overseeing plans for a hydroponic shipping container farm, first announced in November 2025. The container farm is slated to be located adjacent to the Wellness Center, near the new garden space.

If you drove by the weed-strewn lot in West Aliquippa, you might not give a second thought to the two white shipping containers there. Or if you did, you might think: Storage facilities? Meth labs, maybe?

In Boston Metro South, the local Boys & Girls Club has brought community members, kids and families, big-name donors, and nonprofit leadership together around a container farming program.

The South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC), in partnership with Impact Justice and AmplifiedAg, is set to launch the first vertical farm inside a U.S. prison at the Camille Graham women’s facility in Columbia.

The Beverly Hills Unified School District Board of Education voted in August to approve the two-year pilot program, reinforcing the district’s commitment to innovation, wellness and environmental responsibility.

Fifth-grade students at Madison Elementary are digging into science and sustainability through a year-long indoor gardening and composting STEM project that allows them to grow their own food from start to finish.

The Holmdel Foundation for Educational Excellence (HFEE) held a ceremonial ribbon-cutting to officially open a new Aquaponics Learning Lab at Holmdel High School in Holmdel, New Jersey.

Fresh, locally grown food has long been a priority for the RSU 14 nutrition program. But Maine’s long, harsh winters typically bring the growing season for leafy vegetables to a halt. Now, thanks to the rising popularity of hydroponic gardening, RSU 14 can keep fresh produce growing year-round with a portable, vertical indoor garden system.

The Villages Charter School has integrated a controlled-climate Hydroponic Fodder Farm into its curriculum to modernize agricultural education.

This modular system, designed and manufactured by FarmBox Foods, provides students with direct exposure to high-tech feed production methods.

The draft legislation sets aside 10% of a new local food purchasing program specifically for Tribes to purchase local food and directs agricultural conservation programs to recognize traditional ecological knowledge. The only hurdle is that the passing of the bill might be delayed for more than a year due to political theatre so we wouldn't hold our breath.

Inside a converted shipping container in Westphal, N.S., the Akoma Hydroponic Garden is growing fresh basil and teaching young people about horticulture.

For African Heritage Month, Akoma Holdings and EduHaus partnered together to teach and employ Black Nova Scotians in hydroponic farming.

A hydroponic classroom container farm is a 40-foot shipping container retrofitted with lighting, irrigation systems, nutrient dosing equipment, and environmental sensors to create a fully controlled indoor growing space.

Unlike traditional school gardens, these systems operate year-round and allow students to manage every variable affecting plant growth.

More than a decade ago, two students at the University of Ottawa, Alida Burke and Corey Ellis, were on a school trip to Nunavut when they got a firsthand look at food insecurity.

Two students looked around for a solution, but seeing none, decided to create one themselves. In 2016, they developed a modular, indoor farm in a shipping container. they called their new venture Growcer.

As southern Nevada works to strengthen food security amid an arid climate and limited arable land, University of Nevada, Reno Extension is offering an educational certificate series on indoor vertical farming, or hydroponics, to equip commercial growers, home gardeners, Master Gardener volunteers and educators with research-based expertise in soil-free vegetable farming.