Costs, Benefits and Growing Plants in Water

By Andrea Dsouza, 1st year MDP student

 

Hello, my name is Andrea Dsouza. I was born and raised in Bangalore, India. In 2020 I completed an undergraduate degree in Indigenous Studies from the University of British Columbia. My field placement this summer was with Canadian Feed the Children (CFTC).

CFTC is a Canadian charity that works worldwide to ensure that children thrive free from poverty and hunger. In Canada, Bolivia, Ethiopia, and Ghana, CFTC partners with communities to strengthen their capacity to achieve long-term and sustainable change. This is done by supporting innovative food security endeavours, educational campaigns and monitoring and evaluation. What drew me to working with CFTC is that they integrate intersectional analysis into their work.

 

My task this summer was to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of indoor-growing units for CFTC’s partners in Canada. Many of these Indigenous communities are in rural and remote areas of Canada’s north, where the lack of access to sufficient affordable, nutritious food continues to be a critical issue. One possible way of meeting this need is by building hydroponic units in shipping containers. This method of growing does not require any soil, just water to grow a wide variety of leafy greens in communities. It is highly efficient as it uses less time, space, and crop inputs than traditional farming. It allows for year-round growing as all the elements involved in growing are monitored and controlled for optimal outputs.

 

I doubt that my placement would have looked different than it did if it wasn’t a pandemic. I enjoyed the fact that the work I was doing allowed me to work from anywhere! This meant I could head back to Vancouver for the summer and spend some with friends and family. I saw this work as an extension of my first year of university that took place entirely online. Therefore, doing this placement during a pandemic was not too challenging for me. I practised the communication and time management skills that I built during the year during this placement, which made it a success!