Our conversation with Erica Hernandez from the Cornell Hydroponics research lab was an extremely interesting way to learn about this up and coming agricultural practice that is allowing people all over the world enjoy locally grown crops out of season! It was absolutely fascinating to learn about the several techniques used in hydroponics and how they differ in their results and implementations. I had heard of this technique prior to the cafe but I had never actually known it was used on such a wide scale as it is currently being used. For example, I could not believe we were able to harvest 150 pounds of lettuce that came purely from a single greenhouse at Cornell and was grown within the span of 23 days! This cafe with Erica Hernandez changed the notion that I had of greenhouses and hydroponics from being areas where one could grow enough to hardly provide enough for themselves to something that I now see is competing with large traditional farming practices.

I was particularly interested in the economic aspect of this new method of farming. If made cost effective enough, this will surely grow to be a large staple of local economies in areas where faming was previously restricted to summer seasons only and replace many cities’ reliances on the importation of produce during the winter. This is fascinating as it can create a truly rich agricultural local culture in different cities and towns across the world as smaller greenhouse and hydroponic farms popup in places that could not before. This is a new frontier that provides many exciting possibilities we will surely see develop within the coming decade in terms of how and where we eat from.