Indoor Farms: Building a Skilled CEA Workforce in American Prisons
March 19, 2025 
Inside AmplifiedAg vertical farming unit
Three years ago, George Carter, CEO and founder of CEA advisory group Skout Strategy, was approached by Impact Justice (IJ), a nonprofit organization seeking to improve the American justice system. The group invited him to join its Growing Justice initiative, with the goal of making fresh, healthy food accessible to incarcerated individuals while creating job opportunities for them upon their release.
Carter’s brother was impacted by the justice system, so the mission hit close to home. Skout Strategy’s first collaborative project with the team would be the installation of an indoor farm at Central Women’s Correctional Facility in Chowchilla, Calif.
“When we toured that prison in central California, it was probably one of the most moving experiences I’ve had,” he says. “I was able to cut out all the noise I usually hear in the [CEA] space. I got to see the joy it brought to these women, knowing they would be able to grow their own food. It gave them a different path.”
Bringing Projects to Life
While building a farm inside the prison was their original vision, Carter and IJ soon realized they needed to pivot due to spatial restrictions. Container farming became plan B, and they started looking for container farm providers, ultimately choosing AmplifiedAg after touring its container farm sites in South Carolina.
With AmplifiedAg on board, IJ and Skout Strategy started working on the site in 2023. But the process hasn’t been easy, and the project is still a work in progress as of March 2025.
“The California prison system is the largest in the world; it’s a behemoth,” Carter says. “They have a lot of structures in place that slow the pace of change, so we’re still working on getting permitted almost three years later. But we’re getting closer.”
In the meantime, Skout Strategy and IJ are continuing their work elsewhere. One project is the creation of an indoor farm inside IJ’s downtown office in Oakland, Calif., where formerly incarcerated individuals can work upon their release. “This project will ultimately serve the same purpose as the California prison,” Carter says.
They’re also putting a container farm outside of the Camille Griffin Graham Correctional Facility in Columbia, S.C. AmplifiedAg started this effort independently five years ago, bringing Skout Strategy and IJ into the mix after getting federal funding in 2023.
Preparing a Skilled CEA Workforce
“We need to develop a workforce that is able to manage and operate these farms,” Carter says. “We all love to talk about the size and scale of these operations, but do we actually have people who know how to run these facilities? In order to build a successful company and one that’s sustainable, you need to have all these pieces.”
In addition to his work in prison systems, Carter is working to partner with school districts in Philadelphia and Los Angeles to build indoor farms inside schools. While the setting may be different, his goal remains the same.
“Working with schools has been a long time in the making, but it makes a lot of sense,” he says. “Building a robust education and CEA workforce development platform is at the core of what we do.”