The air is fresh with hope and growth in an enclosed corner of a cafeteria at Manhattan's Martin Luther King Jr. High School, where 1,300 square feet are devoted to the cultivation of lush, crisp hydroponic vegetables—lettuce, kale, cilantro, Thai basil, red peppers and more—on rows of shelves reaching to the rafters.
Welcome to an urban farm created to nourish, teach, delight and inspire students as well as benefit food-insecure members of the community. It's a serious venture, yielding 10,000 pounds of produce each year, and one of six such farms in 20 participating schools, which deliver a total of 45,000 pounds of produce annually, feeding 7,500 students. An imminent expansion of the program in New York City and Denver promises to raise those figures to 110,000 pounds of produce a year for 13,000 students.
"It's always the perfect summer day in here," says Katherine Soll, Teens for Food Justice chief executive officer and founder, surveying the cool, clean environment, a pesticide-free realm where ladybugs have been released to eat the aphids, fans whir and full-spectrum growth lights specifically designed for hydroponic farming shine 18 hours a day.
Read more at The Purist.