this is the first time ever, I think, in the state of Indiana where we can grow such scale, such quality, such clean lettuce 12 months out of the year we're growing a plant 365 days a year.

So it's not like a field where it's you have like a down season like that.

this technology will play a huge role in global food production, especially producing high value vegetables, fresh vegetables.

And in urban areas.

according to the Indiana State Department of Agriculture.

Indiana is the ninth largest farming state in the nation, with over 94,000 farmers working nearly 15 million acres of land.

But as climate change and extreme weather events put strain on farms everywhere, what can be done to ensure fresh produce still makes its way to Hoosier tables?

One answer The rapidly growing field of hydroponics Hydroponics is the science and art of growing plants in water, but it's just not pure water.

You have to add a lot of nutrients to water.

And also the very important thing is the water should be enriched with oxygen.

the way hydroponics works is, is we are essentially replacing the ground, the dirt where a normal farmer would cultivate plants, and we're replacing that with water and nutrients.

we use ground water.

We run it through an R.O.

system to clean the water and take out the minerals that we want to take out.

And then we add the nutrients that the plants like a big part of controlled environment agriculture is the fact that we can kind of protect the plants from extreme weather.

Obviously we can't protect from maybe tornadoes or something like that, but we can do our best extreme temperature, we can we can handle that with cooling systems.

big part of it is just being able to grow all year round.

take lettuce, for example.

Nearly all lettuce produced in the United States comes from California and Arizona, namely the San Joaquin, Imperial, and Yuma Valleys.

So if they're in, say, Yuma, Arizona, growing lettuce and it starts to get very warm, unseasonably warm, then they're going to have to use more and more water, which unfortunately, water is a little bit more scarce than it is up here in northwest Indiana.

We've got plenty of water.

as the water is running through this growing system, plant roots absorb the nutrients and water.

But whatever water, nutrients that are not absorbed simply return back to the reservoir and they can be recirculated again.

This is not the case in the natural outdoor field conditions.

The moment you apply water to the soil, there's no way you can retrieve it back.

our research shows that we actually can grow a similar quantity of crops.

But by just using a third of the water compared outside field production.

Jonathan McCullar is the head grower at Pure Green Farms in South Bend, A commercial hydroponics facility that grows and distributes fresh greens throughout the region.

big part of it is just being able to grow all year round.

And that's how you can continuously scale a business like this and continuously push out yield at the door.

we can pack in many, many crops into our greenhouse and keep churning them out, you know, sometimes upwards of 7,000 pounds a day of leafy greens.

the value that we bring is that we can grow it like right near a city center and get it to the consumer pretty quick sometimes within the same day.

we're able to do that because we can control our environment.

We're in a good position locally and we're always trying to get the word out, especially to fellow Hoosiers, that, hey, we can get fresh lettuce that's grown right here in the state of Indiana.

if you look at the Western countries and developing countries, also a huge shift is happening towards population, migrating towards urban areas.

Now we are building cities, but are we building cities such a way that we are also properly planning to produce and provide a lot of fresh quality food to the growing population?

I don't think so.

And so this vertical farming system provides an opportunity to grow food locally in small areas.

Now we can grow for the 20 (or) 30 levels.

What about the environmental toll of hydroponics?

After all, climate controlled high tech greenhouses consume massive amounts of power.

Well, there's no one size fits all answer to that question.

But in Indiana, at least, locally grown leafy greens generate significantly fewer emissions than those made by the trucks and trains that ship products to Hoosiers from across the country.

I don't believe that the hydroponics is going to replace field production, but it is going to support the field production and to achieve that overall goal of producing high quality, fresh, nutritious food and making the food available to everybody in the future.

We can find some unused warehouses and some unused buildings, convert them into crop production facilities.

And using this technology, we can grow food in even in harsh climates, I want people to understand that it's not just about all this tech.

It's also like the know how and understanding like plant science and the physiology of the plant the overall goal is to increase the the health scores in in our state and also in the country.

we believe that this this this particular concept of hydroponics can play a crucial role in the overall health of the community.

the great thing about what we're doing here is we're making fresh, healthy food accessible to people locally.

we just love it when people eat healthy because eating healthy is makes for a better life.

For more stories, go to WFYI.org/AcrossIndiana.