FarmStack
MacChangers 2022-2023 Final Deliverable - S4
Executive Summary
Group Members
Supporting Local Businesses, Arts and Culture Team S4
Mission Statement
"Our passionate and disciplinary team strives to drive innovative solutions that support local businesses, arts, and culture while improving health and wellbeing options within Hamilton. We aim to expand networks and resources for sustainable and affordable food production, empowering our community to thrive."
Description
The problem at hand is the need to expand the networks and resources of urban farming initiatives in Hamilton to support the production of more local and affordable food. This is due to the increasing food insecurity issue in the city, which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, rising unemployment rates, and increasing poverty rates among seniors and children. The problem is also exacerbated by the loss of farmland across Southern Ontario due to urban sprawl and residential development, leading to a need to rethink what types of land can and cannot be used for farming. Urban agriculture offers a long list of benefits to its communities, including promoting positive mental health and green space, agricultural education, and making nutritious produce more accessible. The challenge is to explore how vacant spaces in Hamilton might be repurposed to implement more urban farming initiatives, even with creative and non-traditional methods. The need for such initiatives is also seen in the desires of individuals and organizations such as apartment dwellers and students struggling to access affordable and fresh produce, and business owners wanting to implement urban gardens but facing obstacles.
Our How Might We Question
How might we expand the networks and resources of urban farming initiatives to support the production of more local and affordable food?
Human Centred Design
Human centered design puts people first. We focus on empathy to understand the stakeholders and their goals by putting ourselves in their shoes. Our design focuses on its functionality to its stakeholders and we ensure we use a unique and creative way to solve their problem.
Our Research Findings
SDG Alignment
What are Suatainable Development Goals (SDGs) and why are they important?
Rationale: SDGs are 17 joint goals devised by developing and developed countries in the UN on 1st January 2016. Its importance would be to follow these goals as a "shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future". Their purpose is to improve solutions for each goal and get a desired outcome by 2030 for sustainable development.
SDG: 2 - Zero Hunger
Targets: 2.3, 2.4
Rationale: The goal of Zero Hunger relates to our question as we wish to expand urban farming initiatives to support production of local and affordable food, which in turn will make food more accessible to anyone who needs it. This will surely have a positive impact towards the goal of Zero Hunger. Some related targets include 2.3, which involves doubling small-scale farmer productivity, as well as 2.4, which promotes sustainable farming practices that boost production and productivity. Progress towards these targets could be made by a solution that improves the farmer’s productivity, which could be a consequence of a larger demand for local, affordable food. This can potentially be done by creating and expanding networks that would allow consumers to easily access local foods and allow farmers to easily promote their products to a larger audience.
SDG: 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production
Targets: 12.2, 12.3
Rationale: The goal of responsible consumption and production is related to our question since we wish to increase production of urban farming initiatives and lower the cost of consumption. Targets 12.2, where natural resources such as fertile land are used efficiently, as well 12.3, which is to reduce food losses and post-harvest losses, all deal with increasing food production in a sustainable manner. This can potentially be done by creating and expanding networks that advertise local farmers to allow them a higher income to support their initiatives, which will result in better productivity and efficiency thereby reducing post-harvest losses. Lastly, let people realize the importance of farmer’s work and their difficulties to reduce food waste.
Case Studies and Findings
Below is our primary research findings with citations.
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Revised Questions After Speaking with the Community
How our conversations with community members Adria Cehovin/Jessica Myers have changed our research questions! Swipe to see the change!
Our Timeline
Original How Might We Question
How might we expand the networks and resources of urban farming initiatives to support the production of more local and affordable food?
Brainstorming
This original question was too broad, and we wanted to decide what demographic to focus on. Our experience from researching different questions relating to our original HMWQ, resulted in us concluding that land was the main problem and we thought to find ways we can incentivize private land owners to donate/sell land at a low price. However, our interview with Adria Cehovin, CEO of Bunchberry Connections let us understand that the main issue was regarding resources such as volunteers, finances, water, equipment, etc. Thus, we decided to narrow down our HMWQ to focus on urban organizations as the demographics and how we can help them acquire more resources such as more volunteers and/or government grants.
Our Revised How Might We Question
How might we help urban farming organizations get access to key resources such as volunteers and financial aid/government grants to support the production of more local and affordable food?
First Community Event Feedback + Next Steps
Community Member Three Question Notes:
How can unquantifiable results from urban farming initiatives be presented in a way that incentivizes the ventures to urban landowners skeptical of the profitability of the endeavor?
- There is not any lack of land
What implementation of vertical farming is more suitable for consumers? What about small scale businesses? What about larger scale urban farms?
- Tomato plants grown vertically, harvesting and sorting them
- It makes sense and works in a dense neighborhood
What is the opportunity cost of cultivating organic food instead of non-organic food for farmers regarding loans, income, and food security?
- The Idea of organic is better
- Food deserts in Hamilton, hardly any grocery stores
- Irrigation is a hurdle and manually watering farms
- Summer time is not many volunteers and has to balance time optimally.
- horticulture therapy: helping anxiety
- Government grants are golden, they benefit the farmers and the landowners, providing incentives for both. The issue is that accessibility, as it is difficult to track and know all possible grants available for urban farming.
Final Community Event Feedback
Volunteering portal feedback: - Students must be hypersensitive about information storage. - The idea of giving a single website to everyone (centralized) is well-received. - Having requirements/skillsets on the website per posting is a great idea. - Make more awareness about the number of hours they will be volunteering for. - Issues: Still need some system to log in and confirm they are joining. May need guardians to sign a form first. - Platform could: Share experiences. Allow sharing with others. Allow sharing of videos. - Tiered logins? School logins. - Check out other farmer opportunities from government websites? Regular farmers need access to laborers. Can help food security. Some even offer to pay but don’t know how to advertise. Grant Portal Feedback: - Filter for what kind of charity/organization they are. - Very good idea. - Calander due dates are extremely useful.
Measuring Success
How will you and your team measure the success of your solution should it be implemented?
Measuring the success of a website solution where students can access volunteer postings by urban farming organizations can be done using various metrics. Here are some metrics that my team will consider:
- Website traffic: One of the most basic metrics to measure the success of a website is the number of visitors it receives. We can use website analytics tools to track the number of unique visitors, page views, and the average time spent on the website.
- User behavior: We can also track how users navigate through our website, which pages they visit, which volunteer postings are well-liked, and how long they stay on each page. This can give us insights into how well our website is meeting the needs of our target audience. Additionally, we can pin favorite volunteer postings at the top.
- Feedback: Lastly, we can gather feedback from our target audience to determine how well our website is meeting their needs. We can conduct surveys, focus groups, or user testing to get feedback on the user experience, ease of use, and overall satisfaction with the website.
By tracking these metrics, our team can get a better idea of how well our website solution is performing and make informed decisions about any necessary changes or improvements to ensure its success.
Our Solution Ideas
Include all 2 solution ideas and prototypes here!
Volunteering Portal
Creating a website where students can sign up and sign in to access various opportunities posted by urban farming organizations (registered on the website). Each organization would have its own incentives to attract volunteers, especially high school volunteers as they need it for their community hours.
The following are some incentives:
- Offer incentives for participation, such as community service hours or course credit.
- Provide transportation to and from the urban farm.
- Provide training and education on urban farming and sustainable agriculture practices.
- Create a sense of community and camaraderie among the student volunteers by organizing group activities and events.
- Allow students to take on leadership roles and have a say in the operations of the urban farm.
- Make sure the volunteer work is flexible and can fit into student's schedule.
- Share the impact of their volunteer work to the community and environment.
- Provide feedback and recognition for their efforts.
Urban Farming Grants Website
To increase the funding of urban farming initiatives we could create a website that displays related funding opportunities and important details about them (where to apply, deadlines, conditions). It would search through the internet and find government grants, loans that are applicable to urban farmers. We could also include an additional site to take donations from the general public.
Equitable and Inclusive Considerations
Considerations were made about our solution to make it more equitable and inclusive while exploring the 4 lenses of accessibility; Physical, Communicative, Financial, and Digital.
Project Viability
Volunteering Portal Website Perspective Over the Three Lenses
Urban Farming Grants Website Perspective Over the Three Lenses
Final Solution
Below is our final solution poster, which is an image of our website.
Our final solution poster
Automatically Infinite Horizontal Scroll
Website Link
Our Pitch to Stakeholders
Team S4
Our Experience with MacChangers
As a group, we were impressed by the focus of the MacChangers program on developing professional and transferable skills through workshops on human-centered design, financial viability, prototyping, communication, teamwork, leadership, and problem-solving. These skills are essential not only for our future careers but also for our personal lives.
We also appreciated the opportunity to work in a team of the same discipline (Computer Science) and collaborate with community members to propose innovative solutions. This experience has allowed us to broaden our perspectives and develop empathy and understanding of diverse community needs.
Overall, we believe that MacChangers is an excellent co-curricular program that has provided us with a unique opportunity to learn, grow, and make a positive impact in our community. We are grateful for the experience and look forward to applying the skills and knowledge we have gained to future projects and endeavors.
