Food & Secure Jobs

Inspiration

Our project was inspired by our love of good food, concern for the environment and wish for all people to have access to abundant, high quality, nutritious food.

What it does

The scalable We Grow Green Hub provides a rapidly deployed growing system to generate food quickly for communities; an algae growth system to produce a soil amendment for farmers to increase crop yield while improving the soil; and a local food distribution, education, training, and job center.

Our integrated platform produces purified water to grow an algae-based soil amendment in photobioreactors. This soil amendment product is harvested and used for growing fruits, vegetables, grains and all crops. The yield of the crops is at least 30% higher with no chemical or synthetic fertilizer inputs. Our platform integrates with aquaponics to grow fruits and vegetables along with fish.

The Center of the Hub acts as a food distribution point and offers job training and opportunities for the community to learn about food, cooking, gardening and other skills.

How we built it

We started with the cleanest, purest water possible from our nanobubble water purification system. Once we had purified water, we designed a growth system that can be installed in any type building or greenhouse. If it is in a warehouse or building, we use LED light for photosynthesis. We have integrated other systems to further increase the algae production along with an organic nutrient. Our small algae plant produces enough product for 4,000 hectares. The algae farm has no limitations in scaling up.

The aquaponics systems benefits from our purified water and algae. The aquaponic system can be scaled from a small teaching system to a large-scale commercial system capable of producing thousands of pounds of fish and produce annually.

Challenges we ran into

The primary challenges are financial resources and identification of communities to install the systems. We are looking for communities with individuals who would not only benefit from the food produced, but that have people who would be great operational partners, Agricultural Entrepreneurs.

There will certainly be additional challenges for development of data management; knowledge of legal requirements in different countries; logistics and shipping; market development; and contracts. It is our plan to develop a traceability system for consumers so they can know where and how the produce they buy has been grown and to learn how much of a positive impact eating foods that have been grown with We Grow Green has made on the environment.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are so excited to share the benefits of this product resulting in the tremendous increase in yield of crops and improvement of the soil. We have been able to develop relationships with farmers and nonprofits who can distribute excess food to low resource communities. We are teaching people about eating nutritious food and how it impacts their health. We are proud of the high tech jobs that we are able to create.

What we learned

We are learning every day. Our greatest learning has been in working within communities to have them identify their needs and being able to adapt our projects accordingly.

What's next for Food & Secure Jobs

We hope to work with people across the globe to increase the food supply while improving the soil and providing good quality high tech jobs. We know that nutritious food and a healthy environment will help ensure a healthy population. It is our plan to develop a traceability system for consumers so they can know where and how the produce they buy has been grown and to learn how much of a positive impact eating foods that have been grown with We Grow Green has made on the environment.