Illinois State University has launched its first Vertical Farm, a high-tech, climate-controlled agriculture system housed inside a repurposed shipping container. After years of planning, the farm opened in the spring and is now producing its first crop of leafy greens, with a focus on student learning and sustainable food production.

“This project started five years ago, so to finally have seeds growing and students involved is incredibly rewarding,” said Dr. David Kopsell, a horticulture professor in the Department of Agriculture. “We’re creating an environment where plants can thrive year-round, and where students can explore the future of food.”

A local food pantry is making a difference in the Fox Valley.

St. Joseph's Food Program in Menasha uses their hydroponic systems or Flex Farms to ensure the community has better access to fresh food.

Flex Farms are mobile vertical growing systems that only require 9 square feet of space and a standard electrical outlet for operation. A single Flex Farm can grow 25 pounds of lettuce every 28 days.

St. Joe's Food Pantry has 20 Flex Farms to held feed people in the community.

Researchers have developed a new formula to allow urban farmers to design their own "light recipe"—a combination of different colors of lighting that could help increase crop yields in vertical farms.

The study, conducted at Grow It York, an indoor urban community farm based in a shipping container at SPARK in the city, developed a mathematical model that could help inform urban farmers of how light varies in different areas of a confined space and how to use this information to design better lighting systems.

Through partnerships with Growcer, food banks, and community farms, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) is positioning vertical farming and controlled environment agriculture (CEA) as a strategic solution to climate, skills, and food access challenges.

When The Ottawa Mission, the city's oldest homeless shelter, recently installed two modular vertical farms, it became more than a food relief effort. The project, a partnership between the shelter, agtech firm Growcer, and the Royal Bank of Canada, represented a collaboration that merges philanthropy with infrastructure building.

We all like to think that the fancy gourmet mushrooms advertised on the menu of our favorite restaurant were foraged in the wild by a grey bearded man with a wooden cane, knee-high forester boots, and a feathered fedora. 

In reality, those mushrooms were likely grown on a farm. But when we say mushroom farm it’s sometimes a climate-controlled shipping container sitting in a gravel parking lot somewhere on the outskirts of town. While this doesn’t sound as glamorous as gallivanting around the woods, the mushrooms are just as good.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of Controlled Environment Agriculture operations in the United States more than doubled between 2009 and 2019, from 1,476 to 2,994. As Aliu began to research the motivations behind this growth, he found that the discourse around CEAs was theoretical or promotional in nature–an unhelpful “agricultural techsplaining” approach to an increasingly consequential method in the food system. 

“There was a clear and urgent need for real-world, holistic data, and that was the inspiration for my dissertation,” he says. “I saw the opportunity to, at the very least, foreground and perhaps trailblaze situational and operational approaches to system sustainability in this rapidly evolving sector.”

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Kuwait Financial Centre “Markaz” announces its sponsorship of an innovative educational initiative in partnership with The English School (TES), providing students with hands-on, experiential learning opportunities in sustainable agriculture and its applications through vertical farming inside the school. The sponsorship reflects the ‘building human capacity’ pillar of Markaz’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy by equipping students with future-ready skills, fostering environmental responsibility and developing the knowledge and critical thinking skills needed to confront global challenges through localized solutions.

The initiative offers students the opportunity to explore vertical farming through a school-based facility designed for indoor sustainable agriculture.

Global food systems face significant challenges from climate change, population growth, and deteriorating soil quality, necessitating a 70% increase in food production by 2050. Urban vertical farming, utilizing repurposed shipping containers, offers a sustainable solution that efficiently uses space and resources. These systems produce fresh produce year-round and reduce food waste by minimizing transportation distances.

With innovative practices and renewable energy integration, container farms represent a viable future for agriculture in urban settings, addressing both food security and environmental concerns.

Our global food systems are under siege, with climate change, natural disasters disrupting supply chains, and conflicts affecting agriculture in vulnerable regions.

The Vertical Farm at Illinois State University officially opened May 1, 2025, to serve as an example of sustainable urban agriculture and train and prepare students for careers in agriculture and horticulture specialty crop production. The facility is a joint partnership among the College of Applied Science and Technology, Department of Agriculture, and Office of Sustainability that will serve as a demonstration site for local community groups, schools, and business entrepreneurs.

The Vertical Farm uses a repurposed shipping container with an enclosed, controlled environment to grow 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 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. 

Ottawa-based modular farming startup now has over 600 new customers from 30 different countries on its plate.

Container-based vertical farming company Freight Farms declared bankruptcy in April after 13 years of operation. Three months later, Ottawa-based Growcer CEO Corey Ellis won a bidding battle in a Boston courthouse to acquire the assets of Freight, his company’s American competitor. 

The $2.6-million USD (about $3.6 million CAD) purchase suddenly adds a lot more than container-grown leafy greens to Growcer’s plate. The startup now has about 600 new customers (including municipalities, food banks, and other community food organizations) and farm containers across 30 different countries, as well as use of Freight’s proprietary software.

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.”

A shipping container in the middle of EPIC Campus in Littleton, Colorado, has become an unexpected training ground for the next generation of controlled environment agriculture (CEA) professionals. Inside, high school students grow crops hydroponically from seed to harvest, building technical knowledge and discovering new career paths in a rapidly evolving sector.

The vertical hydroponic farm, built by FarmBox Foods, operates as part of the school's Natural Resources Pathway. Students manage crop production from start to finish, applying lessons in plant physiology, hydroponics, and food safety, while working toward an industry-recognized BASF plant science certification.

Discover how a team at Central Wyoming College is reshaping agriculture using hydroponic technology to grow fresh, local produce—even during harsh winter months.

From LED-lit freight farms to nutrient-rich grow plugs, this innovative method allows for year-round cultivation in some of the most challenging climates.

Join the journey as students and experts work together to advance sustainable farming, train the next generation, and bring fresh greens to communities in need.

This is more than just farming—it's a food revolution.

A coded-gate and long, curved driveway lead to a collection of white shipping containers, several fashioned in a row on the property.

Dillon Dabelgott, the senior manager of cultivation, shows off one of the areas he oversees: A climate controlled pod where medical marijuana is grown. It would be full of cannabis plants, but the latest crops were harvested in the weeks prior. Instead, the container sits mostly empty, with supply outpacing current demand.

Large white buckets of dried cannabis sit in a row on a metal table, each a different strain with names like Black Triangle Kush. They all have their unique differences, from look and smell to their cannabinoid makeup.

With food costs top of mind for many charities, Ottawa company Growcer is partnering with the Ottawa Mission to set up an urban vertical farm to provide fresh leafy greens to the charity’s food program. 

With the goal of addressing food insecurity across Canada, Growcer builds hydroponic modular farms and food storage solutions, which were originally designed for remote communities with harsh weather conditions, said Corey Ellis, CEO and co-founder. 

“We’ve got about 120 (vertical farms) across the country and only one in Ottawa to date,” Ellis told OBJ on Tuesday. 

The farm uses three old shipping containers that have been turned into climate-controlled “pods” each with 168 square feet of growing space.

Each insulated container holds seven racks with shelves for plants, tall racks for vine crops, and six 50-gallon tanks with nutrient solutions filtered by ultraviolet light. A large exhaust fan controls carbon dioxide and humidity levels, while a dehumidifier keeps the air just right.

All the power comes from Canada’s northernmost solar and wind setup.

It includes two six-kilowatt wind turbines, two sheets of solar panels producing 7.32 kilowatts each, lithium-ion battery banks, and a diesel backup generator. This system keeps the farm running all year, even with little sunlight.

National nonprofit organization Impact Justice (IJ) was awarded a $97,000 grant from Power:Ed, the philanthropy of SC Student Loan Corporation, to support Growing Justice, a pilot program in partnership with Amplified Ag, to transform upcycled shipping containers into a fully functional vertical farm behind bars. This first-of-its-kind vertical farm job training program in South Carolina prisons will expand training opportunities, offer new reentry support, and provide fresh produce to the incarcerated residents at Camille Graham Correctional Center, offering transformative potential for incarcerated women and their families across South Carolina.