What Your Bodega Can Do For You
Social Responsibility & Rooftop Farming
Reducing the cost and increasing quality of produce by growing foods locally does not guarantee that the consumer will choose a fresh bag of mixed greens over fried chicken and a bag of gummy bears. What does that mean?
There are 16,500 bodegas in New York feeding thousands of people every day. These bodegas are found in every corner all around the state and have the potential to introduce more nutritious low price foods to their customer. If bodegas were to collaborate with rooftop farmers the cost of produce purchased and transportation of those foods would decrease. Greens like spinach, kale and arugula, loose nutrients quickly during transportation so reducing this time would be key to delivering high quality produce. This is where rooftop farming comes to save the day! Among many things rooftop farming not only means more high quality foods at reasonable prices but it also means greater control over storm water runoffs and sewage overflow.
Danielle Berger, a graduate student from Columbia University identified 32 buildings in Northern Brooklyn with great potential for rooftop agriculture. These buildings are equivalent to 55 acres with the ability to produce 1.2 millions pounds of produce per year.
This sounds great! The different shades of green in map 5 and 6 from Berger’s project illustrate where all those pounds of produce would be coming from. But once we are able to produce those 1.2 million pounds of food and distribute them to hundreds of bodegas in NY as well as restaurants the questions remains — what will be the customers choice?
Education is key! It will take institutions and the development of new programs to educate the population about not only healthy choices but also what to do with the new foods available. At the end of the day it would be fair to predict that the success of rooftop farming depends on the choices of the consumer and the health of the consumer depends on the various resources provided by institutions and those involved in urban agriculture.