A Fresh Lens on Organic Hydroponics

When you think of hydroponics, what comes to mind? 

For me, it was a little green lettuce dwarfed by a futuristic, sterile space with almost no resemblance nor connection to what you’ll find when you Google the term “organic farming.”

Last summer, my perspective around hydroponics drastically shifted. I was asked by CCOF to visit 3 of the operations they certify which fall under the National Organic Program (NOP)’s hydroponic and container operations purview. I found each of these farms simply filled with beauty, life, hope, and more joy than my previous Google search for “hydroponic” had led me to see.

You can now find these 3 stories on the CCOF blog:

After seeing the largest rooftop farm on the West Coast, 60 gleaming acres of greenhouses in southern Arizona, and the fertile dark rooms where mycelium thrive, I have a new lens for a whole sector of organic agriculture which I gravely misunderstood. I now realize how little (if at all) I’ve contemplated the politics, history, culture, and environmental implications of hydroponics in agriculture today. I loved diving head-first into surprisingly controversial conversations happening in a landscape that I thought I knew inside and out.

I am so honored to have been trusted with these incredible farmers’ stories. Thank you to Bluma Farm, Far West Fungi, and Wholesum Family Farms for trusting me with your stories and voices.