As urban population grows, pressure is placed on food production because cities have many mouths to feed, but little room to grow food. In hundreds of low-income neighborhoods across cities in Kenya, nutritious, affordable and healthy food is out of reach. Challenges of limited spaces for food production has become intertwined with increasing incidences of food contamination, food-borne diseases and malnutrition. At the same time,approximately 10,000 tons of food waste is generated everyday across the agri-food supply chain, with over 80% of it not recycled but go wastefully and harmfully to landfills thus becoming powerful contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.
Ukulima Tech developed-a Green City solution-that is changing the way we grow food.First and foremost, collecting tons of food waste from households, restaurants and informal markets turning it into nutrient-rich specialized growing medium that can be used to grow organic food crops. Secondly, fabricating and designing city-gardens enabling urban-residents to grow their own fresh, sustainable produce, harvest on-site thereby improving the health of urban communities.The space-intensive farming seeks to foster a bustling urban market and boosts local food yields. In turn, this saves energy expended on food transportation and distribution while encouraging local supply and demand for healthy and sustainable food across income levels.
The technology can grow on 10 times less land using 10 times less water and less inputs,but still guaranteeing 15 times higher yields.This therefore provides superior nutritional value bringing sustainable food production technology to Kenyan urban environment at a time when food insecurity, poverty and waste are persistent issues. Most importantly, ensuring city-residents are fed in a way that is good for both the human body and the planet in turn saving energy expended on food distribution while encouraging local supply and demand for healthy and sustainable food across income levels. Our initiative optimizes resource use in food production and consumption in order to potentially provide healthy and affordable food all year round whilst meeting dietary needs.
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