How a CT nonprofit is looking to help bring produce to food deserts
Non Profit Hydroponics | Vincent Gabrielle |
On a sunny, windy day in the Blue Hills neighborhood of Hartford, Luverne Mott looks over her garden from her back porch. Her flowers aren’t in bloom, but her hydroponic farms are sprouting.
“This is my second year,” said Mott, nodding at the pipes and scaffolds in her yard. “So we’ve expanded.”
Mott is a retired teacher who worked in Connecticut public schools for 34 years. She was a culinary arts teacher, primarily teaching high school home economics. She’s passionate about food, where it comes from, how it’s grown and how to eat healthy.
“I was part of the City of Hartford Food Policy Commission,” said Mott. “We were trying to prevent problems with food issues … being familiar with that stuff, this struck my interest.”
When Mott retired several years ago after a hip injury, she was looking for another way to do what she loved. She heard about a local startup nonprofit called Levo International. It provides hydroponics equipment, training and plants to people in and around Hartford to grow food in their backyards or in community farming spaces.
“It’s my way of giving back to the community,” said Mott. “We service the different food banks, and that provides the opportunity to have more vegetables in the community.”
Mott has a pair of hydroponic farms in her backyard. The farms use solar-powered pumps to circulate fertilized water through the roots of her 40 tomato and pepper plants. The tomatoes are the little yellow cherry variety you use in salads.
Mott expects that she’ll grow between 200 and 400 pounds of tomatoes this year and 100 and 200 pounds of peppers.
Local farmers harvest their crops as they ripen and ready and drop them off with Levo. The nonprofit then distributes the produce to local people, including Levo’s farmers, food banks and subscribers to their Community Supported Agriculture program.
“The idea is to connect the suburban buying network to the urban farming network,” said Christian Heiden, founder of Levo International. “People pay upfront for a share of the produce. Most of our new subscribers to the program have never done that before. It’s exciting that we’re creating a market that has not been tapped into.”
So far, Levo has about 30 farmers spread across Hartford. They grow a wide variety of vegetables, including kale, chard, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans and herbs.
Levo preferentially targets people in food deserts in Hartford to be farmers. Each farmer also gets a subscription to the collective harvest as well. Mott will get herbs, lettuce and veggies from her neighbors while they feast on her tomatoes. All of this is supported by paying subscribers from surrounding towns.
By collecting a subscription to the harvest up front, Levo guarantees a buyer for their farmers’ produce, taking some of the risk out of farming. Heiden told CT Insider that the nonprofit pays an “above market rate” for the produce but did not include a specific figure.
Right now, production is in its infancy. Heiden told CT Insider that the top farmer sold about $1,000 worth of produce in Levo’s previous growing season.
Heiden says the goal is to provide sustainable, healthy food for people who otherwise have limited access while also supporting people economically.
“Hydroponics, CSAs, urban farming, co-ops, these are not new concepts,” said Heiden. “But combining them all into this model, as far as we can tell, is a novel approach that has not been done anywhere in the country.”
This is the second year Mott has had a hydroponic setup at her home. Last year, she had a smaller rack tucked into the back corner of her driveway. This year she’s rocking a farm about eight times the size of her plot last year. Heiden explains that Levo helped all their farmers expand their hydroponics this past year. In previous years, most of the food was redistributed amongst the farmers for consumption.
“That’s great from a food security perspective but not in terms of a business model,” said Heiden. “We’re trying to get all of our growers this year to have greater production to ensure that not only do they get fresh produce to eat, but we have a surplus we can sell.”
Levo International also has its own hydroponic greenhouses and “community farms” set up on donated space for urban farmers who don’t have their own backyards. Heiden took CT Insider through a recently set up hydroponic greenhouse that was already full of big tomato plants.
At the same location, Levo is using pumpless “passive” hydroponics under shade cloth to rapidly grow fresh bok choy and lettuce. The pumpless hydroponics are a major part of the “international” part of Levo International. The nonprofit provides these systems as starter setups for urban Haitian farmers.
“We currently support over 500 families with noncirculating hydroponics in Haiti,” said Heiden. He explained that 94 percent of his first-time hydroponics farmers in Haiti had successfully harvested. “The only requirement is that they build a fence” around the hydroponics.
Heiden actually came to the idea of low-cost hydroponics systems as an Eagle Scout final project. Heiden had proposed to his troop that he go to Haiti to build a hydroponics greenhouse for an NGO operating in the country. The troop told Heiden to do something less ambitious. Heiden would eventually build a hydroponic greenhouse in Haiti in 2016 for the Christian charity organization, Many Hands for Haiti.
Levo also partners with local organizations to build and maintain hydroponics. It has a grant to conduct fertilizer research from the Connecticut Department of Agriculture and experimental hydroponics setups at the University of Connecticut. The Northwest Catholic High School Hydroponics Club set up 13 hydroponics racks behind the school. The food the high school grows will also go into a community agriculture program, supporting the local farmers and the food bank.
I don’t think I plan on going anything agricultural,” said Mary Hadad, co-vice president of the hydroponics club. She said that she was inspired by the Jesuit teachings of her high school to help provide for the community. “I think the community that this hydroponics builds, the act (of growing) itself and how it’s helping others are enough.”
As Hadad spoke, a small army of high school students armed with drills assembled hydroponics racks, shouting encouragement to each other. Many had never used power tools before.
“What we’re really doing is creating a whole new approach to the food system,” Heiden said as the volunteers assembled hydroponics frames around him. “We’re already having conversations with people in places like New Haven, Waterbury and Bridgeport about replicating what we’re doing here in Hartford. This technology and approach isn’t going anywhere.”
Heiden hopes the program expands enough that Levo can seriously address food insecurity in Hartford. He believes he can turn the city into a net exporter of produce. Mott hopes she can help inspire her neighbors to join in. She says that now that her plants are growing, her neighbors are coming up to her fence.
“They’re curious about it. They have questions,” Mott said with a smile. “It’s good. We gotta drum up some interest.”
Original Article: https://www.ctpost.com/capitalregion/article/hartford-levo-hydroponics-farming-18099670.php#photo-23857929
