edralin interviews leaders of the green bronx machine, an impact-driven organization based in the bronx that builds local food systems and empowers students to grow and consume their own healthy foods. crossing paths with the green bronx machine founder at a food sustainability summit in 2017, edralin reconnects with the green bronx machine team four years later to learn how the organization has addressed rising hunger rates and navigated a challenging learning environment, due to the pandemic.

want to learn more? watch her video above, and check out edralin’s story about the green bronx machine.

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special thanks to the planet forward team and heidi estrada for assisting with the filming and production of this video.

specifically, edralin wanted to focus on food insecurity within the context of covid-19. her piece profiled the green bronx machine, a nonprofit organization that seeks to build healthy, equitable, and resilient communities through inspired education, local food systems, and workforce development.

edralin had pitched the topic for her short documentary because she had crossed paths with the founder of the green bronx machine at a conference in milan, italy, years ago and decided to reach out to see how they were handling the covid-19 pandemic in their classrooms.

the process of completing this film took about two months. we had to reshoot a lot because of minor details we would notice after we’d reviewed our footage, so this process required us to pay close attention to detail — and utilize a lot of patience! however, looking back now, we’re glad we took our time with it.

there’s a lot more to creating a documentary than just picking up a camera; creating a documentary is an art form that has a long process, but the final product is worth the effort. 

this topic is important to me because i currently live in syracuse’s 18th ward where the average annal income is about $12,000 a year in in a city where 47% of children live below the poverty line. this means a disproportionate amount of my neighbors’ children are likely the 1 in 5 children that will go hungry at some point during the year. 

in addition i also live in a federally designated food desert, and thus it is difficult for myself, even with access to a vehicle, to get access to fresh fruit and vegetables. having personally dealt with the reality of food insecurity i see the necessity for social justice and hope that some of those who’s lives could be affected by the ideas within this story find them, one way or another, and are able to make their lives just a little bit easier by growing a single seed.

our idea was to share a story about food deserts and the efforts to mitigate them by introducing the program plant a row for the hungry. this podcast illustrates the evolution of a program from its very beginnings to its present, documenting the challenges associated with taking on a task as daunting as feeding the hungry. food deserts are a common problem faced throughout the united states, and this program helps to alleviate the impacts they have on disenfranchised communities. 

lovingly known to locals as jackson hole, the town is home to just over 10,000 hardy people who are willing to endure the area’s rough terrain, volatile mountain climate and other challenges—all of which create problems for feeding its residents and tourists year-round.

that’s where jackson hole vertical harvest comes in: it’s a small vertical farm that is the town’s only consistent source of food.

as an outdoor lover’s dream, tourists from around the world flock to jackson throughout the year to ski on world-class snow, climb the surrounding peaks, raft the snake river, and visit neighboring grand teton and yellowstone national parks. however, many of the area’s allures also act as a double-edged sword:

the scenic mountains? they drive up land prices, limiting the area in the valley usable for building a home. this has become such a problem that the median price for a single-family home in the area has reached a staggering $2.65 million, as estimated in a 2017 report by the casper star tribune.

its blankets of snow? they may be soft enough for a skier to fall in love with, but the unpredictable weather can make travel in and out of jackson difficult — and sometimes impossible.

beyond this, temperate summers have been a major draw for tourists in the area, but this also means that the area’s growing season is a mere four months long.

these factors make the feasibility of large, traditional farms in and around jackson nearly impossible, making locally sourced, organic produce completely absent from residents’ kitchens.

without healthy, fresh produce, jackson local nona yehia decided to make a change for her community by founding jackson hole vertical harvest in 2016. using a vertical form of architecture, jh vertical harvest has transformed a tenth of an acre on the southern side of jackson’s only parking garage into a 13,500 arable square foot garden.

the farm operates using hydroponic agriculture: a form of agriculture that does not use soil, but instead stimulates plant growth via nutrients in a water solution, yielding roughly 100,000 pounds of food over the course of an entire year.

the unique architecture paired with hydroponic agriculture makes fruits and vegetables readily available year-round, which are then distributed to local restaurants, markets, direct to consumers, and even the hospital in town. the university of wyoming is currently testing the farm’s lighting and water efficiency to analyze its carbon footprint, with preliminary tests indicating significantly lower emissions than industrial farming.

beyond the farming techniques and environmental data, jh vertical harvest partnered with cultivate, a nonprofit focused on job placement for people with different abilities, in order to serve the jackson community in a different way: among its staff are more than 20 individuals with varying mental and physical abilities and 18 more people in training.

“jh vertical harvest is not a company focused on food,” said joelle lazzareschi, cultivate’s employment and training director. “the company gives equal weight to the importance of local food production and social impact.”

when asked about the future of jh vertical harvest and their business model, lazzareschi laughed, saying,“we are one step closer to world domination in lancaster, pennsylvania.”

after residents of lancaster reached out to jh vertical harvest for help in building a vertical farm in their own community, they proved that they have “the land, capital, social capacity, and drive to make our model a reality,” lazzareschi said. “we are excited for the opportunity, no matter where it might be.”