FarmBox Foods is developing a hydroponic fodder farm that will be sold beginning this year. It will produce roughly 1,000 pounds of fodder per day.
Scott and Melanie Walker have spent the last month helping neighbors recover from a deadly tornado that devastated Cambridge Shores, Kentucky, in December 2021.
Tornado Recovery was needed – and Scott Walker was less than a mile away from his new home in Cambridge Shores, a community near Mayfield, Kentucky, when the local police turned him away.
If the officers hadn’t been there to block traffic coming into town, Scott would have been directly in the path of the deadly twister that passed through the night of Dec. 10. In fact, he’d already dodged three tornadoes in southern Illinois on his way there.
Fate stepped in and saved him, and somehow, his house escaped with only minor damage, but many of his neighbors lost their homes. The devastation was almost incomprehensible. When emergency crews began clearing a path into affected areas, Scott was the 10th car in line, and was stunned by the scale of the damage.
Since then, Scott and his wife, Melanie, did what many others have done and joined an army of volunteers, which included those who’d lost everything, and pitched in where they could. When he returned to his hometown near Chicago, Scott rallied friends and family to donate goods. He brought down two full truckloads of supplies — toiletries, water, diapers, rakes, gloves, granola bars, flashlights, extension cords — and created a GoFundMe campaign for a new playground that literally hit its $4,000 goal as this video was being made. Henry Brothers Company, a general contractor in the Chicago area, donated an SUV full of supplies, and former students of the swim coach for the Lyons Township HS Aquatics program, and their parents, were instrumental in gathering relief supplies. Melanie has spent the last few weeks helping to distribute those supplies throughout the community.
Scott and Melanie, who purchased their home in Cambridge Shores in September, are just one example of the ongoing relief efforts in Kentucky and surrounding states, where 77 people were killed during the December rash of tornadoes. Even though they didn’t know their neighbors yet, Scott and Melanie quickly made friends with them, and they plan to be there for the long haul.
“We love this place even more than when we bought our house because of how people are there for one another,” Scott said.
FarmBox Foods, a Colorado company for which his brothers serve as CEO and Chief Strategy Officer, donated a total of $750 toward the playground, and it’s hopeful that it can work with local, state and federal officials in the future on a solution for food security in disaster areas, which are often cut off from the food supply chain in the wake of a storm. FarmBox Foods builds automated farms inside shipping containers, and those container farms can provide a hyperlocal source of nutritious food. These mobile units and other innovations can help a community get back on its feet a little bit quicker, with healthy food to help power the long recovery ahead.
“It’s going to be a long process for our community. It’s been totally annihilated. Pictures can’t even tell the story,” he said. “We’re going to be here every step of the way.”
Container farming near the consumer can help reduce food waste.
A 2010 assessment by the USDA’s Economic Research Service put food waste at the retail and consumer levels at 31 percent of the food supply, equaling approximately 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food. It’s mind-boggling stats like this that leave us with one burning question: Why?
Given our integrated systems and ability to identify efficiencies in the supply chain, it’s hard to fathom how this has come to be. How can this much food be wasted, when there are so many who struggle for access to nutritious food?
Communities are starting to learn that they can take control of their own food supply. Farming year-round in upcycled shipping containers has vegetables growing right in the community they serve, so instead of lettuce (for example) withering away on a truck or in a distribution center, it’s being put on a plate the day it’s harvested.
Talk about decentralization has ramped up in the face of a global supply chain break that has companies and shoppers scrambling. Those who struggled with access to farm-fresh produce prior to the pandemic are much worse off, and there are few signs that the issues are relenting. Meanwhile, food is being wasted at record levels in American homes and restaurants.
So what can be done to reduce the amount of food waste in America? It’s going to take collaboration, innovation and a new way of thinking about how food is sourced. Grocery stores can take a cue from Natural Grocers, which is now placing vertical hydroponic containers right behind their stores, cutting out transportation altogether.
Now, imagine if five businesses in an underserved community came together to buy a container farm: what would the impact be, and how many generations would be affected by a decrease in food insecurity? What if the city government helped facilitate this venture by revamping its code and permitting system to allow for more container farms? What if grant money could help pay for year-round growing operations in low-income areas?
Slowly but surely, it’s happening. The opportunity for further improvement is there for the taking, and assembling the right partners is key.
The Natural Resources Defense Council is using its national Save the Food campaign to try and instill daily behaviors in consumers to put a dent in food waste. Go to https://www.nrdc.org/food-waste to learn more.
Likewise, the Environmental Protection Agency has planning, storage and prep tips on its website to reduce food waste at home, which saves money, reduces methane emissions from landfills, and lowers one’s carbon footprint. Go to https://www.epa.gov/recycle/reducing-wasted-food-home for more information.
