A pioneering woman in agriculture

Kansas Freedom Farms CEO, Lenny Geist, and freelance writer Anne Amoury are two people who believe Lisette Templin, a professor of health and kinesiology at Texas A&M University (TAMU) in College Station, Texas is a pioneering woman in agriculture today. Associate Professor Templin is the director and founder of the Texas Urban Farm United (TUFU - TAMU) a startup vertical farm she and a couple of students began in 2019. 

As a faculty member overseeing Physical Education, Templin is keenly aware of how food choices and essential daily nutrition are to overall animal and human health.  

She and her students received a small grant from the TAMU public health school to go vertical. Templin has a number of hydroponic growing towers in her new venue she and a few co-workers maintain.  Some of the all-natural forage is donated to the university’s “12th Can” food bank program to alleviate local hunger...clearly one of Templin’s strongest passions.  

Lisette Templin (Photo credits: Texas A&M University)

“Food as medicine must play a more urgent and vital role in the health of our children and the health of our country. Indoor hydroponic farms can play a pivotal role in transitioning people off of medication from chronic diseases as well as strengthen the immune system.

Micro and macronutrient dense food grown locally can effortlessly replace food that is highly inflammatory to the human body while providing the needed phytochemicals that promote health,” she wrote recently. Templin is in the process of applying for grants and financial support in hopes of raising $1 million (USD) to erect a two-story CEA facility that will be home to hydroponic growing operations on the top floor with a kitchen, cafeteria, classrooms, and offices on the ground floor. 

Photo credits: Texas A&M Urban Farm United / The Eagle 

“Hydroponic food is about the impact of delivering maximum nutrient density to the immediate local community. Hydroponic vertical growing technology's innate potential is its ability to eradicate food deserts across our country,” Templin says. Clearly, she’s a Texas trailblazer with tall towers to tend. 

According to Lenny Geist, "we need more like Templin, to improve agriculture and promote environmental stewardship. It behooves the stuffed shirts to follow the determined bunch out on the “north 40” -- the bunch that likes to wear Gucci or Louis Vitton heels just as much as they do Justin or Tony Lama boots." 

"They aren’t afraid of hard work, trying new things, and exploring what’s possible even if it means a setback or two along the way," he adds. "Since they see these as learning opportunities to get better and march forward toward their ultimate objectives having gained greater perspectives. Someday, these movers and shakers or any of their sure-to-follow feminine disciples may just give the old, stodgy stuffed shirts the boot. There are lots of reasons to believe this will be for the best."