La Sierra University Students Experiment with Hydroponic Farming in Shipping Container
23 July 2021 | Students at Riverside, California-based La Sierra University are growing produce in a shipping container using hydroponic farming.
Hydroponic farming involves growing plants in nutrient-rich water instead of soil and uses artificial light instead of sunlight.
This form of farming uses dramatically less water than traditional farming, as the water can be reused.
The students are part of the university’s award-winning entrepreneurship-focused Enactus club. The team sees the Freight2Table project as a way to explore water conservation in farming during the California drought.
The insulated container allows for year-round growth of produce.
“If you have a connection to a water system and electricity, you can basically grow produce sustainably and organically, anywhere and anytime,” said La Sierra student Max Proebstle to Spectrum News 1.
“You are using electricity, but we’re getting creative in producing electricity these days, and it uses only a very small fraction of the water that any traditional farming is going to use,” said project director Marvin Payne.