they now form part of the food sovereignty movement, aiming to increase access to producing, consuming, and preserving cultural ties to vegetables and fruits.

while little research exists on the qtbipoc community specifically, separate data shows that 19% of the lgbt population and 16% of the latinx community in washington d.c was experiencing food insecurity in 2019. meanwhile, the average cost of a meal was $4.09, almost a dollar above the national average. the pandemic has only perpetuated existing structural problems, and the qtbipoc community lacks access to resources like food banks. in addition, these communities often experience discrimination, housing insecurity, and malnutrition, affecting their access to produce and consume healthy foods. 

“it’s not that we didn’t exist. it’s that misgendering happens. the cycle of violence promoted in urban agricultural spaces is rampant. we were just mad, and i said let’s do something about it,” niaupari explained. 

plantita power addresses food insecurity by providing resources and knowledge to grow microgreens. these sustainable plants thrive in urban areas and have small production needs, making them accessible for individuals experiencing housing insecurity or fearing discrimination in community gardens.

however, niaupari and the plantita power team face obstacles like access to soil and space. but they are motivated to empower and alleviate the barriers their community endures, so they create innovative ways to distribute seedlings and grow their presence.

––

editor’s note: this short film was produced as part of the planet forward-comcast nbcuniversal sustainable storytelling fellowship. 

borque is president of the jardin communautaire basile-patenaude, a community garden committee which has pioneered a new wave of garden and urban farming projects in the rosemont-la petite-patrie neighborhood of montreal. a number of local residents have taken over the neighborhood’s vacant lots and hidden crevices to creatively congeal eco-friendly and urban living––resulting in the so-called “edible alleyway.” according to borque, the community garden team started the edible alleyway project in 2015 as part of a land rehabilitation project, which utilized a 20,000 square foot vacant lot.

the lane has grown to accommodate a neighborhood chicken coop, over 100 fruit trees, a mushroom garden, and fences plastered with local art. in the alleyway, members of the community interact with nature and harvest fresh produce free of charge, alleviating food insecurity in the area.

rosemont-la petite-patrie is a densely populated neighborhood northeast of downtown montreal, a multi-cultural and vibrant side of the city beginning to take on a new identity. the trendy and growing neighborhood was once a maze of concrete alleyways solely defined by nearby famed attractions, like the jean-talon market or the olympic village. with community projects like the edible alleyway, rosemont-la-petite-patrie is making a new name for itself by growing greener.

the garden committee wanted to revitalize the space for the neighborhood, so they brainstormed projects to beautify the area. they conceived of the alley, separate from the community gardens, as a place where anyone, from any part of the city, can come and walk through.

“the place is both a place of passage and a place of relaxation,” bourque said. “some people take it just as a shortcut while other residents of the neighborhood frequent it. the henhouse is a very popular stopover for families… fruit trees are very popular in the harvest season and we often see people with bowls scooping fruit at the end of summer.”

the transformed space is a point of pride for locals, who clean the space and care about how it looks. it has provided a place for community bonding and understanding. 

“the fact that people from different backgrounds or social classes meet there allows a dialogue that would probably not take place otherwise,” borque said.

green space is vital to urban areas as it provides invaluable physical and mental health benefits to residents with access. yet, these essential spaces can disappear from cities as increased urbanization takes place. it is difficult to quantify how fast green space is sacrificed to urbanization due to a lack of research, but the effects can be felt tangibly. 

in a 2020 article in the journal land, researchers johan colding, Åsa gren and stephan barthel note that the reasons for the loss of green space need to be studied further. yet, one reason for shrinking public land is increased privatization of green areas. according to the article, green space provides “invaluable ecosystem services to humans that are important to plan for in cities.” for example, green space helps absorb carbon dioxide, thus helping to improve air quality, reduce heat and offset a city’s carbon emissions. however, the researchers found “economic motives and urban neoliberal policies are liable explanations behind the loss of public space in many cities.”

borque has noticed a loss of public space happening in his own city. “the original design of towns included public passageways, while in most new projects, these passages are now private,” borque said. “it isolates people––since no common place exists anymore.”

yet, the jardin communautaire basile-patenaude have made a difference in montreal by creating an open space for residents to wander and gather. 

“the idea of ​​focused concrete cities no longer makes sense,” borque said. “the garden and these kind of community projects are an image of this new way of seeing the city. people need to live in their neighborhood and to feel good about it.”

washington d.c. is one such city in the midst of a sustainable transformation. key to the story of d.c.’s food landscape is its legacy of racial oppression and segregation. today, wards 7 and 8 hold a concentrated population of low-income black residents experiencing food insecurity and challenges affording other basic necessities. other types of systemic inequity and oppression are co-contributors to food insecurity, such as a lack of affordable housing, disproportionate travel times for basic commuting and grocery store access, higher rates of unemployment, and less access to financial building resources. dr. sabine o’hara, program director at the university of dc’s causes, concluded that the city’s failure to move away from supply-side solutions has hindered substantive change in these areas, and must be something urban agriculture projects are attentive to as they develop plans for d.c in order to avoid perpetuating harmful systems.

amid increasing policy action supporting urban agriculture, local organizations are rising to specifically ensure that their black communities have access to healthy and fresh produce through innovative methods of farming. dmv urbangreens is a nonprofit production farm located in ward 7 which also runs a mobile planter pilot program in conjunction with dc urbangreens, another urban farm. these transportable planter boxes on wheels enable users to make use of small paved spaces and grow in otherwise impossible locations. their goal is to create a scalable growing model that eventually goes beyond the local community and allows more people to grow food.

for those living in areas without affordable fresh produce options, the opportunity to use the mobile planters offers one way to have a secure source of food. taboris robinson, manager of dmv urbangreens, highlighted the additional goal to shift the culture around food production in the district. he said, “you can kind of put these boxes anywhere, and move them at any time so we’re trying to prove that you know that could be done [anywhere].” his beliefs harken to ideas of black self-reliance seen in scholarship from authors like ashantee reese and historic farms like fannie lou hammer’s freedom farm collective, where black communities took it upon themselves to build networks to care for one another. dmv urbangreens is the latest innovation of self-reliance.

the dmv urbangreens mobile planter boxes also seek to remove middlemen distributors entirely and enable people to grow their own food. black communities have significantly less access to affordable and quality grocery stores making the d.c. food supply chain unreliable for these communities. the mobile planter boxes and garden simultaneously fill the immediate gap in the d.c. food system while providing an alternative to the failing system. in addition to access, the creation of the organization works toward altering the economic landscape to allow the low-income minority community the opportunity to purchase affordable produce. their presence also disrupts consumer purchase patterns, instead of spending money at major chain grocery stores disconnected from the local community, when consumers purchase from mr. robinson they are supporting local business and keeping their money in the community.

the mobile planter boxes are an impressive innovation which are already positively impacting ward 7, but goes beyond just providing food. they offer a vision of a future where d.c. residents aren’t reliant solely on a food system that has failed them. through the scalable model, dmv urbangreens is taking necessary steps toward a just and equitable system for their community and demonstrates that social innovation cannot be separated from technological cultivation innovations. dmv urbangreens is forever changing the food and social landscape of washington d.c.

now let’s take a moment to imagine the potential life cycle of that orange. it goes from a tree, to a grocery store, to your house, where it’s peeled, eaten, and placed in a compost pile. here it sits among some apples, coffee grinds, and yesterday’s newspaper until it’s turned back into the nutrient rich earth it once came from.

the unfortunate truth is that people are contributing their food waste to landfills every day, when the same food could be turned into compost. compost leads to more food, more jobs, a more sustainable future, and less food waste. whether it’s being done in your backyard or at some kind of facility, we’re overlooking a crucial component to reducing our negative environmental impact on the globe.

what’s actually happening in the world of compost

recycling has been a part of the conversation a while, but very seldom is food waste ever discussed. people feel obligated to recycle their plastic, but no one thinks twice about their egg shells. according to the world bank’s 2018 analysis on global waste, ‘food and greens’ accounted for 44% of global waste while plastic accounted for 12%. unfortunately, only 5.5% of this food waste was composted. the u.s. department of agriculture estimates that the united states alone throws out approximately 133 billion pounds of edible food each year. the problem is not how much food we have, but how it is distributed and discarded. 

 currently, many cities offer a green bin used explicitly for yard trimmings. i looked into what this meant in my hometown of los angeles and found a convenient guide that lists: grass/garden clippings, wood, popsicle sticks and chopsticks all as potential contenders for the green bin. fruits and vegetables that haven’t been prepared or consumed in any way were last on the list. this means peelings, seeds, and cores are not permitted, which doesn’t exactly eradicate the problem. the inside of the vegetable is not allowed, but the whole vegetable is? people should be encouraged to eat their food and dispose of the remains, not praised for letting the whole thing rot so it can be placed in the green bin. there is infrastructure for mulch created from our yard trimmings, so why hasn’t the same been done for composting and our food scraps? people are not seeing the monetary benefits that lie within compost.

permaculture’s circular approach

  jonah, owner of the monteverde inn’s ecohotel in costa rica, initially opened my eyes to the world of compost. three years ago, he added a permaculture farm to the hotel in hope of enhancing the establishment’s sustainability. permaculture is a design system that mimics natural processes in nature to create the most efficient and sustainable approach on agriculture. his system works like this: hotel residents dine at the restaurant and what they don’t eat is directly turned into compost that later feeds his garden and produces the fruits and vegetables on the restaurant’s menu, which creates a circular loop of energy that makes the most out of food waste.

compost, a combination of nitrogen and carbon, but more commonly known as: food, poop, and worms, usually scares away the public. this is where the conversation needs to change. as stated by jonah, “people think of themselves as unnatural. they spend their whole lives running away from nature, but the truth is we came from it and we’re going back to it.” compost is the key to food waste reduction.

urban agriculture and accessibility 

the biggest reason people don’t compost is because they don’t have access to a compost bin. emmanuel roux, the owner of the 15th st agrihub in st. petersburg, fl, is in the process of changing that. nine years ago, he began growing crops on a vacated plot of land that is now flourishing. the agrihub is in the process of creating a ‘community compost bin.’ the idea of the bin is to allow community members a space to easily drop off food scraps that will get placed in a bigger compost pile used by the agrihub and community garden owners. this will not only continue the 15th st agrihub’s contribution to urban agriculture and food production, but allow the city members the chance to minimize what they are contributing to landfills.

compost and the everyday civilian 

here’s a list of ways you can make an impact through composting and waste reduction:

– if you’re fortunate enough to have a backyard or space suitable to make your own compost, try it out! as a result, you could grow a garden, share produce with your neighbors, and reduce your ecological footprint. if you need guidance composting classes are a great place to start and many organizations, like the epa, have online step by step directions.

-if you do not have access to your own bin, look into local organizations that offer food scrap drop-off points.

-volunteer at your community garden! if there isn’t one in your area, look into the possibility of creating one yourself.

-eradicate the problem before it happens. so much of the food we buy in grocery stores travels hundreds of miles and sometimes gets thrown away before it makes it to the shelf. growing your own food or supporting your local farmer’s market ensures that the food is grown sustainability and locally

-buying smaller portions of perishable foods and meal planning are both great options to avoid contributing to our global food waste.

the future of the world depends on the future of food. what will you do?

meet free salad

free salad is one small part of this growth. they are a recently formed student organization at the university of wisconsin-madison dedicated to embracing and spreading the hydroponics movement. lucas peterson, the organization’s co-founder, shared his dream of a hydroponics-driven future: “every home could have the technology and knowhow to sustainably grow some of its own food supply.”

hydroponics 101

for those uninitiated, hydroponics is an alternative method of agricultural production that doesn’t rely on soil, and can be done in confined spaces indoors. hydroponics systems facilitate plant growth through a constant flow of nutrient-infused water. plants are commonly suspended in a trough with their roots reaching down into the water flow, gathering as many nutrients as needed. meanwhile, natural sunlight is replaced by led lighting.

the water flow system is what makes a hydroponics project so efficient and effective when compared to traditional soil farming. chief among its benefits is the constant recycling of the nutrient water throughout the system. because of this, farming with hydroponics results in 99% less water use than its soil counterpart. additionally, there’s no fertilizer runoff, representing a tangible improvement over soil farming in regards to the health of waterways.

the increased efficiency of hydroponics farms also leads to considerably higher crop yields and faster growing rates. these benefits, coupled with a decreased spatial requirement compared to soil farming make smaller-scale hydroponics systems ideal for urban agriculture, peterson explained. he continued, “this is sustainable everywhere, and the range of crops you can grow is almost limitless.”

growing a movement

“hydroponics is much more accessible today than the average person realizes.”

peterson and his two co-founders, in collaboration with roughly a dozen other students, are working to spread awareness of hydroponics’ potential through a variety of community education and outreach projects, as well as the development of their own on-campus hydroponics farm. tucked away in a storage area of a campus-associated building, free salad builds, tests and modifies a range of hydroponics systems.

after only two months of development, the current efficiency and size of free salad’s farm is only a fraction of the group’s long term goals, but the results are already tangible. using only donated supplies and a little diy construction, the team has created a functioning farm, and is growing real produce.

free salad will soon begin construction on a second story in their tower garden setup. this style, referred to as vertical farming, capitalizes on the small footprint of hydroponics systems, maximizing the growing potential of limited spaces. once completed, the addition will double the system’s total yield.

“hydroponics is much more accessible today than the average person realizes,” peterson said. he estimated the total cost of the tower garden pictured at roughly $100, including the water pump at the heart of the fixture.

as a part of their community outreach plan, free salad will be distributing tomato plant seedlings in miniaturized hydroponics systems at a community event. peterson and the rest of the group believe that direct public exposure like this will achieve two of their primary goals: broadly increasing awareness of hydroponics itself, and increasing food access. free salad also has plans to work with local schools, introducing hydroponics systems into classrooms and educating younger students about its applications in agriculture.

addressing hunger & nutrition

free salad’s education and outreach efforts come at a critical time, with dane county’s department of public health reporting that 11.8% of people, and 17.5% of children in the county face food insecurity. peterson and others share the belief that hydroponics seems poised to be an answer, or at the very least a part of the solution to pervasive issues like food deserts and insecurity.

the u.s. department of agriculture defines food deserts as areas that lack access to affordable foods that make up a full and healthy diet. this issue disproportionately affects low-income and minority areas where grocery stores are replaced with fast food and convenience stores offering only primarily sugar-filled, processed foods.

hydroponics seems poised to be an answer, or at the very least a part of the solution to pervasive issues like food deserts and insecurity.

while also affecting rural areas, food deserts are especially troublesome in urban areas, where population density is greater. free salad is looking to raise awareness and contribute to the eradication of the more than five local food deserts in the greater madison area.

this issue is not unique to madison either, affecting 23.5 million americans in total as of 2010, many of them residing in urban areas like chicago, new orleans, san francisco, atlanta, and other populous urban areas, according to the usda.

what’s standing in the way?

hydroponics is not without its obstacles and drawbacks. peterson was frank that the future of the technology is highly dependent on a widespread shift to renewable energy sources. the energy costs for large scale growth can be enormous, especially for certain crops like corn and tomatoes. this makes hydroponics operations difficult to scale, and renders their environmental benefit questionable in areas without access to renewable energy.

“the biggest barrier to hydroponics being mainstream is a lack of public awareness,” peterson said. this is why he believes so strongly in the work that free salad, and other groups like it, are doing. growing the hydroponics movement, inspiring others to embrace the technology and help its spread, this is the ultimate goal of free salad, peterson explained.

despite these challenges, peterson is unwavering in his dream of hydroponics’ future: everyday people approaching their local administration for change, creating their own organizations to continue learning, or simply experimenting with growing. he believes that with efforts like free salad’s around the country and globe an inflection point could occur, and a widespread embrace of local foods and sustainable, accessible eating could be on the horizon.

they have everything at whole foods, so much so that i cannot stop myself from buying much more than i need. of course i need my kale salad, walnuts, and stuffed grape leaves, but what about those coconut covered dates for dessert, and a synergy kombucha to top it all off; don’t i need a smoothie from their café in case i’m still hungry when i’m done with all this? the answer is always yes, yet even with all these exotic products at the slightest whim, i hardly stop to wonder where they’ve all come from.

beautiful marketing, organic labeling, and a seemingly local vibes at this national chain function the way they are supposed to, to sell a particular story. the bag of coffee i bought for $12.99 is fair trade, organic, and features a nicely painted picture of a dark-skinned woman with a woven basket on her head; i feel glad that my dollars are going to the local people in a less developed country who picked these coffee beans.

in her book, “from modern production to imagined primitive,” paige west outlines the truth behind this pretty picture. that bag of coffee might have beans from at least five different countries: maybe some from papua new guinea or brazil, or vietnam, columbia, indonesia, perhaps ethiopia. and these workers? they are getting paid 16 cents an hour. a wage, which, according to west makes one bag of coffee worth about $1.40 in papua new guinea. so where does that extra $11.59 cost come from?

of course there’s the impact of the distances these beans have traveled. the umbrella figure for this fact is that our food travels, on average, between 1,500 and 2,500 miles before reaching our plate. while this figure is an oversimplification, being an exaggeration for some foods yet an underestimate for others, it rightly displays the incredible distances that our food travels in order to reach our plates. the carbon footprint is immense. moreover, according to waterfootprint.org, the water footprint is for global coffee consumption is 1.5 times the annual runoff of the rhine river – 110 billion cubic meters of water per year.

why has our food system developed this way if it is unsustainable, inequitable, and economically only profitable to large monopoly organizations? the answer is that it has developed organically according to the capitalist, colonialist model to which it belongs.

but just because something develops organically does not mean it is the best model, and it especially does not mean that it cannot be changed to work within the same system.

in fact, changing the model has the capacity to change the flawed system. that makes it our responsibility to change both.

the company freight farms is doing just that: by providing a scalable, local agricultural solution in the form of the leafy green machine. the leafy green machine features a series of vertical panels that hold hydroponic peat moss growing pods in which lettuce, hearty greens, herbs, flowers, and root vegetables will thrive.

these panels find their home in a re-used shipping container, insulated in order to complement the container’s advanced climate control system, and equipped with blue and red led light strips, using only the light frequencies that the plants need. accordingly, each container uses only about 125 kilowatt-hours per day. it also is highly conservative in its water use: due to the vertical nature of the hydroponic operation, the pods use only about 5 gallons of water per day — 90% less water than traditional farming techniques.

each leafy green machine is capable of producing between 60 and 100 pounds of greens per week and between 35 and 85 pounds of herbs for only 15 to 20 hours of labor per week. this yield is the rough equivalent of one acre’s worth of lettuce in traditional agriculture, according to the company. all of the systems controls are directly available through an app at all hours of the day and from all locations. the enclosed environment of the system protects it from pests and disease, so it produces a nearly perfect yield without the use of pesticides or herbicides.

the containers can be situated in a backyard, on a rooftop, or in a parking lot, offering an “acre in a box” that is accessible to anyone in any location, providing the freshest, most local produce possible.

the containers are in use in 30 different states and nine countries, supplying food to universities, restaurants, and local farmers’ markets.

in fact, nick pagan from clark university said, “on harvest days i deliver the lettuce around 10:30, lunch service starts at 11, so students are getting produce that was harvested just a half an hour ago.”

imagine regularly eating food that had been harvested 30 minutes before you ate it, as opposed to the average of 5-14 days during which your food is transported and stored post harvest. imagine having the choice to eat produce that did not travel 1,500 miles and contribute massive amounts of greenhouse gases in order to reach your plate. image supporting your local economy instead of exporting that extra $11.59 to large, inequitable corporations.

the leafy green machine provides a market solution to our flawed food system, and its success can inspire similar creative thinking and new businesses that will open up this market space and begin shifting the entire system in this sustainable, equitable, and economically beneficial direction.

“wait you can grow quinoa? i thought it came from a factory,” she said.

as axum aptly puts it, we are a farming illiterate society. we are largely disconnected from the cultivation of our food; for many finding a bug in their salad or chunk of dirt on their apple can be apocalyptic to their day. 

however, axum and others at the university of d.c. college of agriculture, urban sustainability, and environmental science (causes) are growing a new generation of students who eagerly want to regain and share this ‘dirty knowledge’ about where our food comes from, and in the process fix the food insecurity issues that stem from this disconnect from agronomy.  

the issue of food security is often framed as a far off problem reserved for developing countries; however, many low-income areas of the u.s. are largely cut-off from access to fresh food. keisha jordan williams, a graduate student and research assistant at causes, is from ward 7 of d.c., where there is access to only two grocery stores with fresh food. unlike others from ward 7, williams spent her childhood in the countryside learning her grandma’s ‘farming science,” which she describes as “you grow, and you eat.”  now, williams is learning the specific scientific processes behind agriculture, so she can teach other people from ward 7 to how to grow, and eat, fresh produce.  

as climate change poses another threat to food insecurity by disrupting our food production; we need new innovators in the realm of farming. 

as a research assistant to dr. matthew richardson, caitlin arlotta is working on a project that looks at the efficiency of growing tropical crops in d.c. they are testing different varieties of sweet potatoes and hibiscus to determine which produces the highest yield and nutrient content. as climate change creates warmer, wetter winters in d.c., the climate is expected to mimic a current tropical climate, so they are hopeful these plants will be more tolerant to those changes.

but how do you put generations of farming knowledge and years of climate agriculture research in a 3-minute video? maybe the goal isn’t to educate people on the science behind agriculture, but to get people interested in the first place. growing food doesn’t have to take place on a 500-acre farm, and teaching people that it is feasible to grow their own food may help bridge the gap between cultivation and consumption.

washington – when his co-workers began asking him for gardening advice, niraj ray did not know that his hobby had just become a calling and an enterprise.

in 2013, ray, who was working at the environmental protection agency, had taken to tending to the small gardens around his office for fun. it wasn’t difficult – he had done it in graduate school. people started asking him for help with their own home gardens. soon, a local elementary school asked for his guidance in helping children build gardens at school, and ray was awarded a $2,000 micro-grant to pursue the project.

teaching the students to take care of gardens, grow plants and eat healthy produce, ray realized that many vacant, unutilized spaces in the city could be converted into community gardens to grow and provide healthy local food. he found himself dedicating more and more of his time to the school and eventually quit his job at the epa to create a bigger network of different sites around the city that could grow food. that network is cultivate the city; today, ray operates 25 gardens that range from schools and sports parks to other vacant lots around the city.

cultivate the city also has 40 people enrolled in its summer community sustained agriculture program, which ends this week. the participants bought into shares of the farms’ produce at the beginning of summer and have been receiving products every week.

“for our csa, we deliver six vegetables, two fruits, one urban and one finished food product. it’s not like one garden has all that growing it, but it’s the combination of the 25 sites and the breadth of what we have at each site that allow us to be able to provide that mixture of stuff,” ray said.

in april 2016, ray also opened h street farms, a 6,500-sq.ft. space he refers to as the “garden center,” a garden located on the rooftop of hardware store w.s. jenks & son. ray rented the space from the hardware store that also had just moved in two months earlier. hearing that the rooftop once had been used as a parking lot was good news: that meant the rooftop could support the heavy weight of greenhouses and aquaponics system.

the rooftop farm now serves as a central storage and retail facility for the 25 sites that cultivate the city operates, and ray also hosts gardening workshops for the public every saturday.

“here, we can create a space where people can come and hang out and just know that there are always plants here. that’s our goal here,” ray said.

at various corners of the garden are also ethnic crops that ray supplies to a local indian restaurant. when he started farming in florida, his father gave him a shoebox full of seeds for indian ethnic crops. his indian grandmother had used and collected the seeds on his grandparents’ farm. after he began planting indian crops and learning about their characteristics, he took his crops to a local indian grocery store and started selling them. after moving to d.c., he found an indian restaurant owner who might want to work with him to source her ingredients locally. had it not been for his supply, ray said, she would have had to import the crops from india or mexico. by buying from him, the restaurant owner was able to reduce costs and dramatically reduce her restaurant’s carbon footprint.

cultivate the city now regularly supplies crops and produce to four restaurants and two grocery stores. last year, it produced 6,500 lbs of crops and produce. this year, the volume has increased threefold, and ray projects the number to continue to grow in the four or five growing seasons within the next year.

“most of our goals now are hitting the numbers,” ray said. the first couple years tended to be more experimental, but cultivate the city has gotten past that. his objective is to monetize and get the greatest function out of all 25 gardens. “we’re not expanding to too many schools, and we want to increase our production per site. we want to be able to better convey that number to future clients and projects.”

slowly, the girl takes out a wooden frame covered in tightly packed hexagons. the frame buzzes with activity.

gabby discafani is the senior beekeeper for gwu’s honey bee lab and apiary. she leads a research team studying colony-collapse disorder (ccd).

the disorder is a deadly condition that causes honeybee colonies to stop functioning. it’s claimed more than 40 percent of the world’s honeybee population.

although the cause of ccd remains unclear, discafani explained that the main factors boil down to the four p’s: pathogens, parasites, pesticides and poor nutrition.

through gw’s apiary, discafani is researching how ccd affects bees in urban and rural environments. one would think she is a biology major, but she’s actually studying classics.

discafani started beekeeping two years ago when she noticed the large amount of bee’s on gw’s campus. she learned about the apiary, thought it was a worthwhile cause and decided to get involved.

i was inspired by discafani’s decision to volunteer with the urban apiary. her efforts as an urban beekeeper are just part of the solution to a larger problem: food security and sustainability.

the plight of the honeybee is cause for concern. honeybees pollinate one third of everything we eat.

if bees go extinct, our food supply will diminish by over 70 percent.

the current outlook is grim.

in late september 2016, the u.s. fish and wildlife service added bees to the endangered-species list for the first time.

we need an army of urban beekeepers to help take the sting out of the declining bee population. although discafani may not be a stormtrooper, she remains optimistic as she fights a battle whose outcome will impact more than just the bee population.

i realized the importance of discafani’s work when i donned the white suit and joined her army that afternoon. watching a half million of the world’s hardest workers, literally busy bees, opened my eyes to the importance of these endangered insects.

take a look around in this 360 video to see what i saw and you’ll never swat at another bee again.