CEA Research at NMSU Focuses on Workforce Development
May 5, 2025 
In 2020, New Mexico State University (NMSU) partnered with Tri-State Generation and Transmission, a regional not-for-profit cooperative power supplier, and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), a national organization focused on energy resilience, to create more local research and workforce development opportunities in CEA. The partnership took form in a 40-foot container farm outside of NMSU’s community college campus in Grants, N.M.–and marked the beginning of NMSU’s CEA program.
“There were emerging areas of interest in container farming,” says Patricia Sullivan, associate dean of outreach and recruitment at NMSU. “The container farm became our primary focus of expanding workforce opportunities.”
Jay Lillywhite, Ph.D., an economics professor and assistant dean at NMSU, leads the project. Students grow kale while studying water use, pH levels, nutrients, and temperature to learn the basics of indoor growing systems. NMSU’s Grants campus hopes to expand workforce opportunities in this sector if there’s a demand for it.
One key consideration: Is container farming economically viable in a sunny, warm-weather climate like New Mexico’s? “Container farms kind of take Mother Nature away,” Dr. Lillywhite says. “That’s a little challenging in our area versus if we were in Alaska.”
But there are certainly benefits that go beyond profitability.
Cibola County, where NMSU is located, is home to several tribal communities and food deserts. “People are driving two or three hours to get to a grocery store,” Dr. Lillywhite says. “In some cases, they’re going to convenience stores just to get the basics. Container farms could be a great opportunity for us. They could be a real game-changer for our state and our region.”
Dr. Lillywhite’s project spurred several others across NMSU, including an engineering-focused effort at its Dona Ana campus. For this project, engineering and ag students came together to build a prototype container farm to research the use of agricultural technologies in the vertical farming sector. The prototype is expected to be completed this spring.
This article is a part of CEAg World’s Industry Report: Vertical Farming. Download the full report here: https://stage.ceagworld.com/industry-reports/.