MobileFarmer

MobileFarmer is a community-oriented, urban shipping container farm that will yield easily accessible fresh produce. While shipping container farming is currently an option for small-scale farmers and local producers, MobileFarmer would make these systems more available and affordable. Our design uses a combination of hydroponic systems, harvested rainwater and renewable energy to be environmentally conscious and economically favorable. The primary issue we will address is food deserts, which are urban areas with limited access to affordable and nutritious food. Food deserts experience numerous social, economic, and public health issues including poverty, obesity, and diabetes. According to the Food Empowerment Project, over 500,000 Chicago residents, most of which are African-American, live in food deserts.This is a global issue that has been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. As community gardens and urban growing initiatives increase in number, innovative ways to empower communities become progressively important.

Around the world, food insecurity impacts millions of people. In the United States alone, the USDA estimates that there are about 40 million food insecure people. These people often live in food deserts, areas where it is extremely difficult to access enough food to feed every member of their family. Fresh produce, containing vitamins needed to prevent chronic disease, is even more scarce. These food deserts often coincide with low-income areas, where the communities face increased prices to do lack of supply. Overall, the urban poor in America and worldwide lack access to affordable and nutritious food.

Our solution is a shipping container farm that utilizes a combination of two hydroponic systems to grow nutrient-rich food year-round for people in urban areas. Renewable energy systems and rainwater collection will make the up-keep costs manageable and put our container farm in a more affordable category compared to others on the market. By being operated and maintained by people and organizations within the neighborhood, this solution would also help stimulate the local economy. Since it does not take up a lot of space and is environmentally friendly, we believe this solution can be implemented in any urban environment around the world.

Container farming will serve urban food deserts, particularly those with people having low incomes which are often people of color. Our solution will provide them with the necessary vitamins and nutrients to be healthy and avoid life-threatening chronic illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease. Dark leafy greens contain the large majority of nutrients that people living in food deserts are sorely lacking, which is why we have chosen to design our system around those crops.

Maximizing nutritional yield while minimizing the environmental and cost components is a great challenge that the world currently is facing. Millions worldwide are suffering the effects of climate change and the changing food supply chain, further damaging the health of the people. Such problems are pushed upon low-income families and minorities, forcing unjust conditions upon them through the creation of food deserts. Our solution, MobileFarmer, will implement cost-conserving, and environmentally sustainable farms which, in turn, will meet local nutritional needs. MobileFarmer will give resources to struggling communities, resources that are long overdue.

First, we identified something in the world that is an important and wide-spread issue, food deserts (specifically in urban areas). We then considered the limitations to providing solutions to the problem - space, affordability, etc. We then came upon something that seemed promising - container farming. It seemed like a good idea, and some people had already started doing it for similar reasons to our own. We thought that the best thing we could do given that this technology is already out there was to create one that is environmentally sustainable, but as inexpensive as we could make it. The bigger companies already doing this are using very high-tech and expensive lights and sensors to keep their container farms going. We thought that there had to be a better, more efficient way. Hence, MobileFarmer was planned. 

We plan to use hydroponic systems including Kratky and Drip in order to decrease the amount of water usage, increase yield and significantly lengthen the growing season. Hydroponics is a method that has already been implemented by many people around the world. These systems in particular will need less maintenance and less water than some of the more advanced hydroponic systems one may see in large greenhouses. Harvested rainwater will be the main water source in the container farm. Using water that is naturally and readily available reduces our need for city water to almost none. This also allows us to be sustainable in terms of water usage. For the energy needed for MobileFarmer we will place some form of renewable energy harvester, either wind or solar, near the container. This will provide most of the energy needed to keep the farm running. Using renewable energy means that the MobileFarmer can be placed in any location with no need to hook up to the power grid (an expensive process and high monthly cost). Also, energy costs month to month are effectively zero since the owner is producing their own energy. We will also have a generator on site in case the main system fails. If renewable energy is not an option for some reason we will suggest hooking up to the grid instead.

Cropbox and Freight Farms are two major companies already selling shipping containers retrofitted to be greenhouses using hydroponics systems. However, their systems are expensive and consequently not accessible to low-income residents of food desert areas. By using a more simplistic and less automated design, MobileFarmer units cut the cost of construction, maintenance and operation of a shipping container greenhouse. In addition, using renewable energy sources and harvesting rainwater reduces the long-term expenses and carbon footprint. This way, people who truly need shipping container greenhouses can have access to them.

Due to decades of racism and economic inequality, businesses and governments have not invested in infrastructure on the south and west sides of Chicago, predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods. In particular, grocery stores are sorely lacking. As a result, residents of these neighborhoods lack access to affordable and nutritious food, and they consequently develop chronic illnesses later in life. Due to lack of economic opportunity, these residents also receive below-average incomes. This forces many to resort to lives of crime for economic improvement, which further alienates businesses and governments from investing in these neighborhoods. A vicious cycle of neglect and deterioration is created.  

Our goal is to break this vicious cycle by providing shipping container farms to low-income, minority neighborhoods lacking grocery stores. Primarily, this will provide access to affordable and nutritious food to those who have none. In the long run, this will significantly improve the health of these people, preventing life-threatening chronic illnesses. Secondarily, shipping container farms will provide economic opportunity to these areas. MobileFarmer units will be operated by and for residents of these underprivileged neighborhoods. This will reduce poverty from the start and consequently reduce crime as well. In addition, once our initiative succeeds in feeding thousands of food-insecure Chicagoans, other companies and local governments will be more motivated to invest in these neighborhoods as well. Hopefully, this will finally end the vicious cycle of neglect in Chicago. We believe this theory of change can be applied to other cities across America and across the world.

Since our solution is in its concept phase, the amount of people MobileFarmer currently serves is only theoretical. Because the first year of production will be dedicated to prototyping and testing, only one or two MobileFarmer units will be constructed. Crop yields from this phase will serve only 25 to 50 people. However, after mass production, we aim to serve all of Chicago’s food deserts. We hope that in five years, 900,000 Chicago residents, today living in areas lacking grocery stores and healthy food options, will be served by MobileFarmer units.

In the next year, we hope to construct and test a prototype of our design. This will help us determine more accurately how much construction and maintenance of the design will cost. In addition, the effects of seasonal variation on crop yields can be examined more extensively. In this first year, we also plan to forge relationships with non-profit community organizations operating in food desert areas of Chicago. These organizations will help us determine the optimal locations and local partners for our designs.  After the first year, we plan to procure the means to mass production and delivery of our design. In five years, there will be a MobileFarmer unit in at least every food desert area in Chicago. After this is accomplished, we plan to expand to cities nationwide and then globally.

In the first year, it will be difficult to acquire adequate funding for prototyping. Some of the components of the design, such as the AC system, are quite expensive. In addition, we are having trouble determining which method of providing electricity to the unit is more viable, connecting to the electrical grid or using solar and/or wind power. Hydroponics systems require a reliable electrical source to power water pumps, AC, and lights. While renewable power would allow the unit to be placed virtually anywhere, they do not provide electricity continuously unless expensive battery packs are purchased. The more inexpensive and reliable option may be to pay for electrical hookup to the grid. This would, however, restrict where units can be placed. In the next five years, mass production and delivery pose great challenges. This requires extensive investments including purchasing a factory location, hiring full-time employees and a method of delivery. Raising capital for these investments will not be easy. The COVID-19 pandemic will also make the endeavor more difficult. We were hoping to be able to work on this together in person and on campus this upcoming year, but it is seeming like we will be continuing to work over Zoom for the time being. This makes designing and working together harder because nobody can work together in any real way, which puts more burden on some. This should only be a problem for approximately the first six months to a year. 

For initial startup funds, we will apply for research funding from Loyola University of Chicago. To solve our initial technical issues, we will speak to professionals in the field about what the best type of energy source would be for our design, as well as using our resources directly at Loyola. We know that much of the engineering faculty would be willing to help us as much as they can. We also plan on discussing our hydroponics systems with the faculty of the Institute of Environmental Sustainability at Loyola since they operate several hydroponics systems year-round at their facility. To fund mass production and delivery in the next five years, we will use the outside walls of MobileFarmer units as advertising space. This will be enticing to businesses because they are aiding a good cause while are an advertisement opportunity for them. In addition, we will apply for government grants both for agriculture and for renewable energy. In terms of group work with the pandemic we will continue to utilize Zoom technology and screen sharing as best we can and, if we feel comfortable, we can meet in small groups in apartments or outside as the situation improves.

Our solution team currently consists of seven undergraduate students at Loyola University Chicago. As our solution design continues onto the prototype phase, more members may join our team.

All of us are over halfway done with our undergraduate degrees in environmental engineering. Most of us have taken classes that have taught us fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, materials science and environmental topics that have equipped us with valuable knowledge. These subjects have proven to be very useful in designing our solution and solving problems along the way. As freshmen, our program prepared us for the real world by implementing a large design project. This project helped us learn how to navigate large projects systematically, which has aided us in taking on this challenge with a logical approach. In May 2021 six of us will graduate from Loyola with a bachelor's degree in environmental engineering, which means we will be fully prepared to take this project on, having all the fundamental knowledge of these technologies at our disposal.

Our primary source of revenue would either be selling ad space on our shipping containers or partnering with local companies and organizations. We would sell ad space to fund the production of our crops and it would give us the ability to sell them to underprivileged residents at lower prices. Companies would find it beneficial to fund our farms because it gives them a new physical way to market their product/service. We have also considered partnering with organizations and selling the farm to them as a way to increase their revenue. Chicago residents need this service because of the lack of fresh produce found in food deserts. It would provide them with low cost, healthy additions to their diets that would help prevent many illnesses and diseases.

We are applying to Solve with the main intention of learning more about problems that are in the world. The solution that has been created due to this challenge is something tangible and would solve a very serious worldwide issue. If we were selected, Solve could help us with virtually all initial funding for our prototype MobileFarmer container farm. We believe that we can make this happen as long as we are able to procure the necessary initial funding to test our solution.

The reason that we need support for our business model and legal or regulatory matters is because we lack that specific background to be fully capable of doing them. We do not believe it is in our best interest as a potential new business to trust our own instincts when it comes to business and law/regulations. We plan on reaching out to others on the Loyola campus who might be in a major or profession that have the skills and education to help us.

We would like to partner with local organizations that are deeply rooted in the communities which the container farm would serve. We seek to work with partners whose values align with the mission of MobileFarmer and could adequately support us. These organizations could provide space for the container as well as connect us to the communities most in need of produce from the farm. Small producers that are already involved in these organizations could tend to the day-to-day work of the container farm as well as sell the produce. Several Chicago-based urban growing organizations such as the Urban Growers Collective and Chicago Lights have been contacted, and are discussing the capacity in which we could work together that would be most beneficial to both parties.