Growing SEED

It has been a busy four-plus months since our last post!  We shouldn’t have been surprised that talking more and more about SEED and the automated system with more and more folks generated more and more questions.

What exactly is it? How does it work?  What’s in it? Who can use it?  Among others.

It was difficult to answer some queries simply because there was no assembled package.  But there was also the matter of sharing too much and having an idea appropriated before we even got it off the ground (literally!).  So, we began further developing the SEED project kit so that we could answer some of those questions without losing the more proprietary elements.

The kit, which is run on Arduino, is receiving a lot of interest and we have taken it on the road.  One of the highlights of the last month was an invitation to share SEED at the Food Day LA showcase at Los Angeles City Hall.

“But still,” you ask, “what is SEED?”   SEED is —

TRAINING and ENTREPRENEURSHIP – The future-forward job skills participants learn can be transferred to work in larger food/agriculture technology companies, neighborhood small farms, or their own enterprises, and each participant learns how to install resource-conserving systems that reduce waste and expenses.  Our goal is to provide this training as a key opportunity for traditionally hard-to-employ groups such as youth, veterans or previously incarcerated community members.

STEM EDUCATION and AGRICULTURE TECHNOLOGY – South Los Angeles, like many low-income communities, is often ignored in terms of technology and innovation.  So, we’re working to tap into the agriculture technology and robotics market – an industry projected to grow to $16 billion by 2020.

WORKSHOPS – Our current workshop curriculum educates community members in food security and production topics such as permaculture gardening, food preparation and preservation, health and nutrition and food distribution, along with job training to prepare residents for work in the emerging “green economy.”  STEM sessions focus on: assembly and utilization of low-cost technologies; garden and farm development; explorations of computer coding; soil management; permaculture; and, business development.

FOOD SECURITY and SUSTAINABILITY – SEED engages residents in the citizen science and food system innovation that increases access to fresh produce. Importantly, our participant farmers analyze scientific and engineering processes to understand the complexities of our globe’s food and ecological sustainability challenges.

We know that is still a lot of words — and little visual — but we hope you will stay tuned as we complete development of the growing kit and eventually make it available to the public!   Oh, and if you’d like to see the kit in person, we’ll be at the DTLA Mini Maker Faire December 2nd.

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What Happened?

As it turns out, plenty!!

It may be an understatement to say that it has been a busy and productive year here at home&community. With our OriginalGreen and fiscal sponsorship projects firing on all cylinders, it’s often been dizzying but always exciting. One sneak peak for 2016 we think you’ll dig…we’re bringing some neat, new technology to the farm sites.

We know a lot of friends and supporters follow our activities and many of the news items we post, but it’s still easy to miss some of the news! So, we’ve put together a list of our most popular posts for the past year.  Let’s see…

We became certified to sell at the farmers market AND we sold out of produce on our first outing. The culmination of a months-long process to get our first farm entrepreneur selling has been satisfying, since we’ve been working without the benefit of large donations or funding.

We gave it our best shot at lot takeover with Broadchester Farms (we’re not giving up, just yet!) and even received nice local news coverage (here and here), along with starting urban farm work with Alliance Judy Ivie Burton Tech students, at a donated site next to their high school.

There were posts offering insight into gender and farming.

And we highlighted successes in public housing gardening while continuing to add to our own public housing garden census (nearly 150 strong across the nation!).

We grew peanuts and a great soul food garden at the Ghettostead!

We talked a lot about the benefits of growing food in the city (they go far beyond nutrition), and the fact that 20% of the world’s food is growing in those cities (but what does that mean?), while contemplating growing food without owning land.

We shared lots of science! There was a bit of “we told you so” about the benefits of living near trees.   Not to mention some knowing nods about a 30-year study revealing organic farming outperforming conventional farming in years of drought.

Last and absolutely not least, our farm sites were cleaned, amended and all-around transformed, by the volunteers from GoogleServes.

What will we do next?  Well, there’s even more planned than the sneak peak we gave you about new technology.  You’ll just have to keep up with us in the new year!

Tech Sneak Peak