Growing your own food has loads of benefits.

But in densely populated cities, finding the space for a garden can be a challenge.

But scientists and urban gardeners aren't letting that stop them.

Today, I'm meeting a scientist who's making tomato plants grow as densely as bunches of grapes and checking out a farm in downtown Raleigh that's showing the city how to get food straight from their own backyards.

This is "Hungry Planet."

Let's dig it.

Just a few blocks from downtown Raleigh, there's this spot with blooming dahlias and rows of kale.

This is pretty wild as this 1.3 acre plot used to be a vacant lot, and now it's a place that shows residents where their food comes from.

(speaker) Raleigh City Farm is a nonprofit urban farm that was founded about 12 years ago.

Every city deserves an urban farm-- a place to showcase farmers and farming, a place where people can see where and how their food is grown, and just a beautiful green space.

Green spaces are so important for the planet, and for people, and for plants.

(Niba) The farm has a huge diversity of produce, herbs, and even decorative flowers.

But in 2023, they also had an abundance of one particular fruit-- tomatoes.

(speaker) We did over 50 different varieties of tomatoes.

And we did everything from your classic like, slicer sauce tomatoes, Roma's, grape, cherry.

And we had all different, you know, shapes, sizes, flavors, colors.

(Niba) Tomatoes are part of the nightshade family, which also includes eggplants, and potatoes.

Tomatoes are native to South America, and tens of thousands of years ago, they spread northward to Mesoamerica.

While researchers still don't know where exactly tomatoes were domesticated, they do know that the Aztecs grew the fruit and call it xitomatl.

In the early 16th century, Spanish conquistadors encountered tomatoes for the first time and brought them back to Europe.

In the 1700s, European colonists then brought tomatoes back again to North America, where they later gained the popular status that they have today.

(Maria) So what we're looking at here, these are some of our really beautiful Sungold tomatoes, right here, which is a really reliable grower, super sweet; everyone really loves them.

And this year, what we've started with is, this is called a Roselle tomato, also a very reliable cherry grower.

(Niba) So what is the difference in flavor between these two varieties of tomatoes?

(Maria) My favorite is always Assam gold.

I feel like in terms of sweetness, this is by far the sweetest of the cherry tomatoes that we have.

-(Niba) Okay, cheers.

-Cheers.

Wow, so fresh.

(Maria) We are also excited to grow some dwarf tomatoes as well for the first time on this site.

(Niba) The Dwarf Tomato Project was started in 2005 when tomato enthusiasts began crossing small compact tomato plants with heirloom varieties to create delicious tomatoes that could grow in tiny spaces.

This not only makes the tomatoes more manageable, but it also allows folks with tiny backyards or container gardens to grow way more tomatoes in a small space.

(Maria) These are just two experimental varieties that we have going on here.

That's why you see like such a variation and like the different types of fruit.

This is all one type of variety.

And then these red rose-colored ones are another variety.

(Talyr) If we were to have people on this site, volunteers for education workshops, we can show people that there are varieties of tomatoes, say that you could manage or grow in a smaller space.

(Maria) Anyone can really do this work.

Like, if you have a window-- you know, do you have a windowsill box?

Great, like to start growing some.

(Niba) From planting some sage on a windowsill to growing thousands of plants in a warehouse, city dwellers have been finding creative ways to grow fresh food close to home.

As of 2007, more than half the world's population lives in cities, which means that all these efforts could have a big impact.

Urban agriculture has the potential to reduce food insecurity, bolster local economies, build community, and make cities more environmentally sustainable.

(speaker) Agriculture overall is getting more challenging.

If we can rapidly breed or modify existing crops, like tomato or other types of fruit crops, in order for them to become much more compact, we could probably tap into urban environments to have another layer of agricultural production.

Professor Zachary Lippman works at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

His lab looks at plant genetics, like investigating how tweaking plant genes can make it easier to grow crops in new and different settings.

(Dr. Lippman) We focus on various traits that relate to agriculture, mainly looking at the genes that control the transition to making flowers, fruits, and seeds.

And then now with the power of genome editing as a tool, we can use that to specifically mutate or modify the activity of those genes.

We've demonstrated how you can make plants much more faster flowering and also much more compact.

There are various iterations of genome editing, but the foundational genome editing is this CRISPR Cas9 system, which is a tool that allows you to go into almost any organism, and you can specifically target a specific DNA sequence-- for example, a gene to create a mutation that nature perhaps never got around to creating by chance over time, but now you can specifically create that mutation in a precise way, which not only allows you to study the function of that gene, but if that gene has relevance to agriculture, you can modify that gene to customize its function so that it can now give you an agricultural benefit.

(Niba) CRISPR is a genetic tool that allows scientists to very precisely make changes to an organism's DNA, turning genes on or off or adding or subtracting tiny molecular instructions.

Zach's lab use this tool to create tomato plants that produce dense fruit like a bunch of grapes rather than the more sparse tomato plants they started with.

We and others had found three genes that are involved in preventing flowering from happening too quickly.

With genome editing, you could go into any variety of tomato, and you could target those genes to reduce or eliminate their activities.

You're removing the brakes on the flowering process, so that it happens faster.

And by going after two genes in particular, we're basically removing two layers of brakes.

So you're flowering twice as fast or even faster in some cases.

And then a third gene is a gene that controls the overall architecture of the shoot system.

Mainly it shrinks the shoot system like an accordion, so you have a compactness that is overlaid on top of the accelerated flowering.

Anybody who's ever had a garden, it's one of the most peaceful places to be.

It sort of gives you those moments of peace and enjoyment of seeing food being produced just from a few seeds in the ground, harvesting your own food.

Astronauts--in many ways, one of the biggest challenges of space travel is that emotional side.

And so, growing plants, growing crops, is one of those things that actually is really important for the mental health in the long-term space-travel needs of astronauts as they venture out into the moon, into hopefully Mars.

Growing plants is not just the practical side of having food to eat, but it's also important to make sure that astronauts have that emotional benefit from being able to cultivate plants, whether it's ornamentals or crops.

(Niba) And the same mental health benefits from gardening can benefit us down here on Earth as well.

Studies have shown that spending time in nature can have positive impact on our mental health.

Being surrounded by greenery, especially trees, can lower rates of depression, anxiety, and stress.

Growing up near a natural space has even been shown to help adolescents with cognitive development.

And while those spaces can be hard to come by in the city, places like urban farms can help people connect to nature and the community around them.

I feel that there's a lack of support for a lot of the community.

And I feel like programs like this provide that opportunity to provide what the community needs, as well as build stronger communities and bring people together.

(Lisa) That's the heartbeat or the anchor of our strategy is growing food to feed our community.

And so that happens all year round.

Last year, we harvested 12,000 pounds of food, and about 40% of it is donated.

(Maria) Through a lot of our cultures and our traditions, we're also like very viscerally connected to food.

(Lisa) So I believe our community, any community, has a deep hunger for food and connection.

And urban farms can bring those two together with a beautiful result.

Accessibility provided by the U.S. Department of Education.

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