Sydney-based Food Ladder revealed its expansion after partnering with IBM to use its artificial intelligence platform, watsonx.
Together they announced plans to install greenhouses in more than 1000 schools by 2030, including educational facilities in regional and rural Australia.
The announcement comes amid growing use of AI technology in education, with a parliamentary inquiry recommending generative AI be made a national priority in the sector with safeguards in place.
The technology will be used to create teacher training for greenhouse installations and for crafting lesson plans around the greenhouses in subjects such as maths and biology, Food Ladder chief executive Kelly McJannett said.
The non-profit organisation operates 43 greenhouses across every Australian state and territory but Kelly said demand from other schools outstripped the organisations’ resources.
“More than 400 schools have called on Food Ladder over the last 12 to 18 months and I’ve been wondering how are we going to meet that demand,” she said.
“This isn’t a gimmicky application of AI. We’ve integrated AI in direct response to demand.”
Food Ladder’s greenhouses are designed to be a place where students can learn how to grow fruit and vegetables, change attitude towards fresh produce and provide food for cooking programs and canteens.
By deploying AI in their roll-out, Kelly said the organisation would no longer need to conduct in-school training and its software could customise lesson plans for curriculums and individual students.
“There can be fear around AI from people who are new adopters and it comes down to what is the point of the technology,” she said.
“In our case, it’s to address food security and to make life easier for teachers.”
With the software, Food Ladder could deliver 100 greenhouse installations in the coming year and more than 1000 by the end of the decade, she said.
While teachers would benefit from software-generated lesson plans, Wellington Public School principal Darryl Thompson said the program had a substantial effect on students at the primary school in western NSW.
“You can’t teach hungry, disengaged kids and we were witnessing that in real time,” he said.
“Participation in the program has seen students lift their attendance rate from 30 per cent to above 90 per cent and we’ve also seen significant growth in literacy and numeracy skills.”
The parliamentary inquiry that recommended prioritising the generative AI roll-out into schools said teachers and students had access to high-quality tools.
But the inquiry noted AI programs used in education should be trained using local and inclusive datasets, with safeguards added to protect minors.
