News About Farming in Shipping Containers & Limited Indoor Spaces
USA - MISSISSIPPI: Real Farming Experience Available to Students
Itawamba Agriculture High School’s (IAHS) agriculture program has added a hydroponics unit that lets students grow vegetables indoors without soil.
Heather Carpenter, diversified agriculture science teacher and Future Farmers of America advisor at IAHS, said the unit gives students hands-on experience with a new production style.
Featured Farm: Christians United Outreach Center of Lee County | Sanford, North Carolina
Since 2022, four volunteers have been operating four Flex Farm units as part of the organization’s work to provide food to neighbors in need. By rotating harvests across the farms, the team is able to harvest approximately every two weeks, growing multiple varieties of lettuce along with herbs including cilantro, dill, and basil.
USA - A Farm in Panther Dining Hall? Hydroponic Gardens Grow Fresh Produce at Florida Tech
Babylon Micro-Farms is a company founded at the University of Virginia that specializes in creating and distributing hydroponic systems for growing plants indoors. The farms, as displayed at Florida Tech, used controlled lighting, water and nutrients to grow plants without soil.
USA - MAINE: Castine Hydroponic Farm Donates 100 Percent of its Produce
A containerized hydroponic farm refers to a self-contained growing system, normally built inside a repurposed shipping container. Plants can grow inside these shipping containers without dirt or sunlight. LED grow lights and nutrient-rich water stand in for sunlight and soil, enabling plants to photosynthesize year-round.
USA - How Plant Science is Taking Root in East St. Louis
Tova Feinberg, the founder of Vertigreens, has spent the past five years developing a vertical hydroponic farming startup. Instead of using acres of soil, she grows lettuce on shelves that she stacks to the ceiling in shipping containers.
Arkansas Colleges of Health Education Brings Hands-On Learning to Area Classrooms Through Hydroponic Gardens
The Arkansas Colleges of Health Education Research Institute Health & Wellness Center expanded its hydroponic gardening efforts this summer by equipping area teachers with the tools and knowledge to bring hydroponics directly into their classrooms.
USA - OHIO: Lima Senior Agriculture Students Turn Hydroponic Towers into Fresh Food for the Community
It’s a win-win as Lima City Schools and the West Ohio Food Bank partner to provide fresh produce while addressing food insecurity in the area.
The West Ohio Food Bank used grant dollars to purchase five hydroponic growing towers for the program. Students plant, care for and harvest leafy greens, including lettuce, arugula and collard greens.
CANADA: Growing Mushrooms With AI
Officially founded in Toronto by Christopher Klich and Justin Cheng, the startup joined the University of Waterloo’s Velocity incubator in mid-2023 to scale its AI-driven gourmet mushroom farms in shipping containers.
"The Crop Plan is Determined by the Customer, Not by a Guess We Made Months Earlier"
Harvest London and Crate to Plate are trialling a platform designed to plan crop production from confirmed customer orders instead of forecasts, under a DEFRA-funded ADOPT project led by InnoPhyte Consulting. The deployment runs across Harvest London's Canada Water and Lea Bridge facilities and Crate to Plate's site in Canary Wharf.
Featured Farm: Meadowbrook Garden Club | Spring Valley, California
At Meadowbrook Apartments, growing fresh food is also growing curiosity, confidence, and connection.
Since 2023, the Meadowbrook Garden Club has been growing with a Flex Farm alongside the Heaven’s Windows team.
SOUTH AFRICA - Arable Grow’s Container Farms Reach Spar’s Shelves in the Western Cape
Arable Grow is combining hydroponics, climate-controlled environments and renewable energy to create modular urban farms capable of producing fresh produce closer to where consumers live.
Bonaire Project To Test Containerised CEA Under Local Conditions
A containerised controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) system has been christened ahead of its planned deployment to Bonaire, marking the next stage of a project focused on local food production, resource efficiency and decentralised growing.
The Local Mushroom Farm Behind Your Favorite Restaurant Dishes
The first time I visited KC Sullivan, founder of Two River Gourmet Mushrooms, his entire operation fit inside a retrofitted shipping container tucked behind White Chapel Project in Long Branch.
Is Hydroponic Produce Safer During Foodborne Illness Outbreaks?
Inside a shipping container in downtown Raleigh, there is no soil, rain or sunshine. At Nanue Farms, lettuce grows vertically under LED lights. Water mixed with nutrients drips through panels to the plants’ roots, drains into a holding tank and circulates through the system again.
Why Buying a Pre-Owned Container Farm Beats Buying New
Every prospective container farmer runs into the same wall: the sticker price. A new turnkey hydroponic container farm is a six-figure purchase before you have harvested a single head of lettuce.
Right-Sized, Not One-Size-Fits-All: AmplifiedAg’s CEO on Serving Research and Commercial CEA Together
AmplifiedAg CEO David Flynn doesn’t see institutional and commercial agriculture as competing priorities — he sees them as two inputs into the same platform. The institutional side alone ranges from USDA research labs to compliant farm programs inside correctional facilities, part of the company’s Growing Justice initiative.
Hancock Health Expands Food is Medicine Program With Hydroponic Garden at Wellness Center
By locating the container within the footprint of Hancock Health’s medical fitness campus, the health system is creating a new model for integrating fresh food access into preventive health, chronic disease management and wellness education.