March 16, 2026, 4:30 p.m. ET
For most of the nation, it’s difficult to get fresh, locally grown produce year-round. Thanks to smart greenhouses — which use monitoring and control systems to optimize growing conditions for plants — that will change.
Gotham Greens, for example, a New York-based company, started 15 years ago as a small rooftop greenhouse in Brooklyn. Years later they built the first commercial-scale greenhouse farm integrated into a supermarket on the rooftop of a Brooklyn Whole Foods. Today, it’s one of the largest lettuce producers in North America. The sustainable, technologically advanced greenhouses across America also reduce food miles. That means a longer shelf life for their 10 varieties of leafy greens and herbs.
“Since more than 90 % of domestically grown leafy greens come from California and Arizona, by the time they reach other cities like New York, Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta, the produce has lost quality, taste, nutritional value and shelf life,” says Gotham Greens CEO Viraj Puri. “Our packaged salads typically offer three weeks of shelf life while lettuce from California and Arizona typically has less than a week before it goes out of date.”
Efficient and sustainable
Not only is controlled environment farming (also called controlled environment agriculture, or CEA) good for consumers and farmers, but it is also good for the planet. Gotham Greens’ greenhouse farming technology, for example, transforms land that otherwise would be unusable for agriculture. And they can pump out approximately 30 times more leafy greens per acre of land than conventional open-field farming. That’s not all: This method of farming uses up to 90 % less water and 97 % less land than conventional farming.
Because their smart greenhouses create ideal conditions for leafy greens and herbs to thrive, they grow a year-round supply of fresh produce always in season, regardless of the weather. Instead of soil, crops are grown hydroponically without herbicides or pesticides. The company’s annual production capacity has reached approximately 100 million heads of lettuce per year, and their products are available in more than 6,500 grocery stores across the country.
According to the SNS Insider, smart greenhouse market size is expected to reach more than $4 billion by 2032.
Consumer expectations are also shifting.
“What used to be a nice-to-have – locally grown, non-GMO and pesticide free – is now seen as the standard by many shoppers,” Puri adds.
Local Bounti, based in Hamilton, Montana, has a similar momentum to Gotham Greens. With smart greenhouse farms across the nation, they service major retailers including Walmart, Sam’s Club, Kroger, Albertsons, Target, HEB and Brookshire’s with leafy greens and living herbs. It’s all thanks to their patented Stack & Flow Technology, which combines vertical farming and greenhouse cultivation.
Seedlings thrive under LED lighting and precise climate control. Once plants mature, they head to the greenhouse environment where they soak up natural sunlight and gain nutrients through hydroponic systems sans soil. Meanwhile, computer vision and AI analyze plant growth and environmental data, and sensors monitor temperature, humidity and nutrient delivery.
“Three years ago, conversations with major retailers were exploratory,” says Kathleen Valiasek, president and CEO of Local Bounti. “Today, they’re active strategic discussions about long-term supply partnerships.”
Valiasek says that as climate volatility increases and consumers demand locally grown, sustainable produce, CEA is becoming essential infrastructure – not emerging technology.
Case in point: The global indoor farming market is projected to reach nearly $90 billion by 2030, according to Grand View Research.
Non-traditional farms
Boston-based Freight Farms’ non-traditional approach to farming comes in the form of innovative container farms, which can be set up anywhere, including parking lots and other unused urban land.
“Where the smart technology comes in is in automating the maintenance and tedious operational tasks like automating your environmental controls, so temperature and humidity is always set, or using software to pre-plan your tasks for the week,” says Alida Burke, CFO and co-founder of Growcer, which owns Freight Farms.
A Freight Farms container costs $3,000 per month. Or, if purchased directly: $180,000. To date, 1,000 container farms have been deployed around the world. Two of those farms were delivered to Jesse Grothe’s doorstep. As the owner of Frisk Fra Boksen, a micro farm in St. Paul, Minnesota, he purchased one in 2020 and the other in 2023. He grows arugula, kale, sorrel, rainbow chard, radishes, beets and 11 varieties of lettuce year-round.
“I wanted to be a part of the local food system,” Grothe says.
Grothe’s only challenge, he says, has been learning a new skill set. “I’m not only a farmer, but I have to be a plant scientist, a plumber, an electrician, a carpenter, etc.,” he says.
But the rewards are measurable. “I am able to generate and distribute 150 to 200 pounds of fresh produce every week, all year long, rain or shine, freeze or thaw.”
