After 10 years in business, vertical farming company Growcer highlights how a slow-and-steady approach to growth provided stability in a sector that has experienced some turbulence.

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 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.

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.

Ray Fankhauser, sustainability lead at the school, was one of the people behind entering the school for the award.

Fankhauser said that with the level of interest from the students to work the garden, they needed something bigger, so they looked at developing a modular hydroponic farm using Canadian technology called Growcer.

For a decade, Growcer has been working alongside communities across Canada to prove that local, year-round food production is not only possible, it is transformative.

Living in a small, remote community can make it hard to get fresh fruit and vegetables in a pinch. Add to that road closures due to wildfires or storms, making access to grocery stores tough for residents of Anacla and Bamfield.

It also makes bringing in fresh produce equally difficult for the local grocer.

To expand the program, Delaware partnered with Growcer to add a modular vertical farm. The indoor farm can grow fresh produce year-round using less water and land than outdoor farming.

Located near the pantry, it will supply members with freshly harvested lettuces, leafy greens like kale and spinach, and herbs like mint and basil to take home.

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.

Growcer is bringing back Rootcamp, an immersive, in-person training program for hydroponic modular farming.

Having already trained over 100 growers and produced 10 million+ servings of vegetables, Growcer’s bootcamp combines hands-on farm operations with essential business training.

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.

In 2016, Growcer installed its first modular, vertical farm in Churchill, Man., where food security can be precarious. Growcer’s team trained the local community how to operate and maintain the hydroponic farm that is housed inside what looks like a shipping container where plants grow on stacked shelves under LED lights.

Within weeks, the community saw the cost of vegetables plummet by 50 percent simply because the locally grown produce replaced leafy imports.

Growcer is taking a prudent approach to growth and capital, as the Canadian indoor ag company scales up with the help of Mars Discovery District

The state recently awarded the Watertown Schools a grant to run its farm-to-school program, including its Freight Farm.

Watertown Public Schools has received more than $80,000 in state grant funding to continue its farm-to-school efforts, expanding learning opportunities for Watertown’s students while also increasing local food production.

Growcer is taking a prudent approach to growth and capital, as the Canadian indoor ag company scales up with the help of Mars Discovery District

Canada imports as much as 90 per cent of its lettuce, a fact that seems woefully out of step with a Buy Canadian ethos. It’s not just a greens issue — according to tracking from UBC, roughly 60 per cent of the vegetables and 80 per cent of the fruit consumed in the country comes from elsewhere. Most of us are hoping to change this reality: a survey by KPMG in February found that 93 per cent of Canadians prefer locally grown produce.