Barren County High School receives grant funding for new hydroponic farming system

GLASGOW, Ky. (WBKO) - Six schools across Kentucky were awarded grants from the Kentucky Department of Agriculture as part of their ‘Farm to School’ program, allowing each school to install a hydroponic farming system on their campus.

Barren County High School is one of those schools and with the additional grant funding, they hope to install a state-of-the-art system that would allow high school students to supply the district with fresh produce.

Students at Barren County grow house plants and produce with an in-ground garden and two greenhouses, learning the basics of each method. With the incoming hydroponic system, they’ll learn the science of growing produce without soil.

“You can grow more produce in a smaller space, and also in a faster time frame. So, there’s a lot of benefits, and then from the environmental standpoint, there’s very little water usage because the water that’s involved, most of that’s recycled through its own system,” explained Dr. Andy Moore, the high school’s agriculture teacher and FFA advisor.

There are several styles of hydroponic systems, ranging from small modular towers to entire storage containers created for a walk-in facility. The latter is on Dr. Moore’s agenda, though he says the school will need supplemental funding in addition to the KDA grant to make it happen.

“Really, what we’re trying to consider the most right now is, where they have taken storage containers and built what they call a container farm out of those storage containers,” Moore said. “So, in order to do that, we’re probably gonna look into writing some other supplemental grants to really buy the best system that’s on the market.”

Provided that system, Moore hopes to expand on the work that he and the district have done in increasing the agriculture program’s annual produce yield. He hopes that when the system is in place, it will give students the growing capability to provide fresh produce to the entire district.

“We just see a great opportunity that in the future, we may be able to produce a lot of garden fresh produce here on site and distribute that within our schools and our cafeterias and let it be known, you know?” Moore said. “Let our high school students get that recognition for growing that, but also allow those younger students to realize where it came from, so we’re excited about the whole concept.”

Other schools across the commonwealth that received the funding include Graves, Crittenden, Taylor, Union, and Marion counties. Each has varying scales of hydroponic systems on the horizon.