![\"Vertical](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/DSC_0417_UCT-200x300.jpg\")
The entire system was placed on a small lot next to a brick apartment building \u2013 a space offered up by the property owner who originally wanted to build a community garden in the overgrown space in Hartford\u2019s North End.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe owner of the site just didn\u2019t have the bandwidth and resources to set it up,\u201d says Christian Heiden \u201920 (CAHNR), who notes that a traditional garden can be much more complicated to construct than his lightweight, portable, and efficient hydroponic farm system. \u201cHe had it sitting here, unused, no active development plans on it. We had actually set up systems at his church, so he said, \u2018You guys can use it, if you want to set up on it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cyou guys\u201d are Heiden and his team at Levo International<\/a>, a nonprofit startup he founded when he was 16 years old. Through community engagement and partnerships with local governments and organizations, Levo works within neighborhoods around Connecticut and in different parts of the world to help address food insecurity in creative and environmentally sustainable ways.<\/p>\n Though they have ongoing projects in Haiti, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico, lately they\u2019ve been giving a lot more attention to Connecticut\u2019s capital city \u2013 particularly Hartford\u2019s notorious \u201cfood desert,\u201d where the community has tried unsuccessfully for decades to lure a grocery store into the city and where fresh, healthy, and culturally appropriate food can be expensive if residents are even able to find it at a bodega or corner store.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have the Little Free Pantry over at the corner of Garden and Mather, and we\u2019ve had that since 2021,\u201d says North End resident Joanna Iovino, who works as a project manager for North End Little Pantries<\/a>, a Levo partner. \u201cWe noticed the most popular items are the vegetables. When we put vegetables in there, they go like crazy, because it\u2019s hard to get the fresh vegetables.\u201d<\/p>\n Heiden and Levo hope to help change that, one location at a time, and starting with neighborhoods like Garden Street.<\/p>\n On an overcast day in mid-October, a gathering of nonprofit partners and local officials came together at the new hydroponic micro-farm at 455 Garden Street to celebrate its construction and opening, but also to talk about broader plans for the area.<\/p>\n \u201cOur big initiative is in the North End, which is full of vacant, underutilized, and blighted properties,\u201d says Heiden. \u201cWe can grow on brownfields. We can grow on vacant land that is contaminated, because it\u2019s all above ground. No major remediation required.\u201d<\/p>\n Each Levo system can operate outdoors in Connecticut from about April to November and can sustain upwards of 40 plants at any given time using about 90% less water and significantly less space than traditional agriculture. The system\u2019s production capacity depends on what they choose to grow.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we took and filled it with tomatoes, you\u2019re looking at hundreds of pounds of produce,\u201d Heiden explains. \u201cBut if you assume a four-week cycle with about a half a pound of plant, you\u2019re looking at 20 pounds every couple weeks out of these systems.\u201d<\/p>\n Which is 20 pounds per system that can be distributed through the Little Pantries and through other community partners and CSAs, and also sold to area residents at farmers markets planned for some of the sites.<\/p>\n \u201cGarden Street is really the center point that we see as an opportunity,\u201d says Heiden, but he\u2019s quick to add that the site is not a community garden. \u201cThis is a farm. Our goal is to actually bring people in from the community and pay them to manage these properties and these farms, so creating employment opportunities as well as creating a food source.\u201d<\/p>\n The site is also not the end of Levo\u2019s investment in the North End. In late October, they held a ribbon cutting at the Urban Hope Refuge Church, where a piece of barren 30-square-foot land was transformed into the Secret Roots Neighborhood Farm, just up the road from 455 Garden Street, that the church will manage and maintain.<\/p>\n A third hydroponic site in the neighborhood, conceived and backed by North End Little Pantries, was funded in 2022 through Hartford Decides<\/a>, the city\u2019s participatory budgeting initiative \u2013 the project is awaiting land-use approvals and is planned for construction at the corner of Garden and Mather Streets.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a vision of building the garden there, having people pick their own produce and then also putting it in the Little Free Pantries,\u201d says Iovino. \u201cThe other thing we want to do in that space is also have local farmers come in, and bring their produce, and do a free farmers market where we could issue vouchers to the community and have them purchase food from the farmers, but not only that, have them meet the farmers and get to speak with the farmers and correspond with them.\u201d<\/p>\n It’s grassroots community building, literally growing in barren lots, and their neighbors\u2019 embrace of the efforts is one of the best parts for Heiden and his team.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re constantly interacting,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019re our security. There\u2019s always somebody watching the garden. We had a resident who stopped a couple kids from jumping over the fence. So, they\u2019re invested.<\/p>\n \u201cNot only is it just a nicer thing for them to look at, I\u2019ve also had at least four or five people who have come up and asked what we\u2019re doing. Explained the program, and they asked to be involved. For us, this is an awesome way to really build community and interact with the community, because this is just something that\u2019s very real to the residents of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of food in this neighborhood, but there\u2019s not a lot of food that looks like this,\u201d said Arunan Arulampalam, CEO of the Hartford Land Bank, at the Garden Street event, gesturing toward the pipes of vegetables growing on the site. \u201cAnd so, for all of the children \u2013 and I can tell you, there are many children growing up on this street \u2013 who are going to have access to different food options growing up, for all of the neighbors who are going to be able to think about what they cook that night and what kind of food they incorporate into their meals…it has such a huge impact on the health outcomes of people who live in this neighborhood, and on what is possible in neighborhoods like this.\u201d<\/p>\n Heiden, who is from Bloomfield, began building hydroponic systems as a teenager while working on his Eagle Scout project \u2013 first building a hydroponic greenhouse for his high school and later traveling with his family to build a hydroponic greenhouse for a community in Haiti.<\/p>\n He founded Levo International in his first year at UConn. As an undergraduate in the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources, Heiden studied applied and resource economics and international development, which helped to prepare him for the work he does now. He also took part in an array of entrepreneurial development and support opportunities offered by the Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation<\/a> and the Peter J. Werth Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\""Not](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_1235-300x225.jpg\")
![\"\u201cThere\u2019s](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_1233-300x225.jpg\")