The Living Food initiative is being developed in partnership with One Season Farmers and Harvest Today, combining indoor agriculture technology with a health-centered mission to improve access to fresh food, strengthen local food systems, and support long-term community wellness.

As the world becomes increasingly aware of the link between food choices and overall health, a new generation of students is poised to create major changes in the food industry. Students exposed to education models that embrace growing and valuing fresh produce will ultimately be tomorrow's customers.  

This shift has the potential to fundamentally alter how food companies operate, what products fill store shelves, and how food is marketed to consumers.

The College of Southern Maryland (CSM) will launch its next vertical agriculture course on March 31, offering hands-on training in a fast-growing sector of modern farming.

The controlled environment can accelerate plant growth and increase yields while using less water and fewer pesticides.

Summer Street Farm grows fresh vegetables year-round to help provide local food security, and employees with diverse abilities say they feel good about contributing. The CBC's Yuan Wang took a tour of the farm.

Here's the thing about Summer Street Farm in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia: it started with people who just wanted to do something impactful around food.

Jackson Elementary School students cracked open their first Hydroponic Flex Farm Tuesday to educate kids and feed those in need.

It is a machine that uses nutrient-rich water to grow plants without soil in a man-made environment.

The video opens with a clear message: “Schools combine hands-on learning of academics paired with life skills.”

It emphasizes that classrooms are becoming more interactive and relevant to daily life, not confined to standard lectures and worksheets.

Fisher River Cree Nation (FRCN), in partnership with ADRA Canada and Growcer Corp., and with additional funding from the Latter-Day Saints, is launching a year-round hydroponic farm early this year to tackle food insecurity in northern Manitoba while promoting a sustainable and resilient local food system.

A new pilot study suggests that engaging in indoor hydroponic gardening can improve mental well-being and quality of life for adults undergoing cancer treatment.

The findings indicate that this accessible form of nature-based intervention offers a practical strategy for reducing depression and boosting emotional functioning in patients.

Green Our Planet, the nation’s largest nonprofit provider of school garden and hydroponics STEM programs announced a major national partnership with Fork Farms today, the Wisconsin-based impact-tech company redefining indoor agriculture. Together, the two organizations will expand access to hydroponic laboratories and hands-on STEM learning for students across the United States.

Penn State Extension will offer a five-week webinar series titled Basics of Hydroponic Production every Wednesday from February 18 through March 18, 2026, from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. EST. This lunchtime series is designed to introduce participants to the core principles of growing vegetables without soil. Key topics include hydroponic systems, lighting, climate control, nutrient and water quality management, insect and disease management, microgreens, and food safety.

At Jacksonville Lighthouse Charter School, students are learning science beyond the textbook by growing plants indoors through a student-led hydroponic program, JR MANRRS Club, or Jr. Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences Club, which also gives back to the community.

The soil-free growing system allows students to cultivate vegetables using water, light and carefully monitored nutrients.

Summer Street is an organization supporting people with diverse abilities and is participant led. This project to start growing local food was years in the making with goals to:
1) Grow fresh local food to eat
2) Create meaningful employment
3) Grow food to give back to the community

Escalante Middle School students are running a warm and flourishing hydroponic indoor oasis for their hand-grown plants and herbs this winter – and their bounty is stocking the school cafeteria and shelves at Durango Natural Foods.

Students at Oilfields High School in Diamond Valley, Alta., are getting their hands dirty learning about vertical farming.

“I enjoy the hands-on experience we get—a hands-on environment where we’re learning how to do stuff that we don’t get to learn everywhere else,” said Taeyo Shipman, a student working on the vertical farm.

In Connecticut’s most populated city, High Ridge Hydroponics has redefined what it means to eat locally.

Over the last six years, this urban hydroponic container farm has become a trusted source of fresh greens for the Fairfield County community—supplying more than 50 restaurants, local farmers’ markets, and a growing network of distributors, schools, and small businesses in the greater Bridgeport area.

Science students at Germantown High School hosted a harvest event on Friday to showcase fresh greens they grew inside their classroom.

The students used an indoor hydroponic farming system to grow several varieties of lettuce, cherry tomatoes, mini cucumbers, snacking peppers and micro greens that they then served up at school lunch on Friday.

The district's food nutrition director, Jill Seefeld, said they built the lab this summer.

Across the Mississippi River on the Wisconsin border, a student at Winona Senior High School in Minnesota is growing up to 200 pounds of lettuce each month for school lunches — right in her school’s cafeteria. 

Sophomore Miriam Jackson is in charge of her school’s Flex Farms, which are hydroponic farms developed by Green Bay company Fork Farms for use in educational environments. Under Jackson’s care, the compact indoor growing systems have turned into a significant food source for more than 800 students at Winona Senior High School.

“They really like it. When we serve our Fork Farms lettuce, the students are actually building more salads,” Jennifer Walters, school nutrition director for the district, told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.”

New research on using controlled environment agriculture (CEA) to grow plants with medicinal properties could lead to production methods that will increase one anti-cancer compound naturally produced by certain species of plants.

The study, led by doctoral student Rebekah Maynard, was designed to identify crops to be used in medical treatments and to develop strategies to increase the concentration of an anti-cancer compound produced by the plants.

Working with Rhuanito Ferrarezi, associate professor of CEA crop physiology, Maynard grew compact crops with a short life cycle—chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla) and parsley (Petroselinum crispum)—in a vertical farming environment. The researchers measured the plants' production of apigenin, a natural anti-inflammatory compound with promising anti-cancer effects.