Indiana inmates grow 100,000 pounds of produce in 3 years

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – State correction officials say Indiana’s prison inmates have grown nearly 100,000 pounds of produce for local food pantries during the last three years.

The Indiana Department of Correction says the gardens have sprouted behind the walls of most of Indiana’s state prisons since 2013.

Inmates have raised more than 99,000 pounds of produce for local food pantries since that effort began. And this year, more than 29,000 pounds of vegetables have been harvested from those plots, with two months still remaining in the fall harvest.

Breanna Trimble is the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility’s community services director. She says food pantries near the southwestern Indiana prison suggested which crops its inmates should grow this year.

She says those inmates planted tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, watermelons and other crops.