Maximizing Yield To Help Address Food Insecurity
Currently, the city of Newark, NJ suffers from severe food scarcity. This is created by critical barriers related to affordability, accessibility, and a lack of trust in the origin of the produce. These factors contribute to Newark being called a “food desert.” The community strongly prefers to buy food from local bodegas (small shops) which remain more trusted.
Our novel project aims to leverage trust in these local bodegas to distribute produce grown by and for the community. We aim to connect local partner schools, urban farming principles, leverage real-time supply chain data, and hope to improve both access and affordability to fresh produce. This is a youth driven model of sustainable agriculture, scalable with a localized economic system with community as a focal point.
Our research centers around gaining an understanding of the crop mix that can be grown most efficiently, aligns with the Newark community’s nutritional needs, and that will be well accepted and utilized. In our research, we are testing environmental conditions and prevention treatments to maximize yield and resilience, while strengthening public trust in the food and supply chain system.
As a co-founder of this first Pingry community partnership related to sustainability, it is a privilege for me to connect my school with the community in partnership with Rutgers University, and for all of us to come together to realize this important vision.
Poster Presentation
Mechanism
Earlier this year, we successfully launched this effort in Pingry’s first collaboration of this kind with Newark-based bodegas. We are now planting crops and collecting data for our localized food ecosystem. We are focused on germination, monitoring soil health across multiple crop types, including cucumbers, tomatoes, and hot peppers. Initial germination rates were promising: cucumbers (37.5%), tomatoes (50%), and hot peppers (22.4%). Losses occurred mainly due to rodent activity, which we countered with a garlic treatment administered to the plants, resulting in very positive outcomes (quantification is expected soon).
Our growth experiment was done utilizing 3 different treatments: 1) compost + school chicken manure, 2) compost + store-bought fish emulsion, and 3) compost + locally sourced cow manure. The control arm in our experiment was compost only. Local school compost was used across all four arms to ensure freshness and quality, and to maintain the same conditions.
The trial is being conducted under identical watering and light conditions to ensure reliable comparisons. We are recording multiple metrics, including sprouting time, plant height, leaf coloration, and yield volume, to determine which treatment supports the healthiest and most productive crops. These metrics will guide our future growth decisions, particularly as we scale up production.
Future Efforts
Now that we have an established baseline data for early planting and treatment tests, we plan to shift our focus to deeper integration of community, supply-chain, and economic metrics.
In the short term, we will continue maintaining our garden beds and expanding our data collection to include customer feedback from bodegas. This will help us refine our crop choices and pricing models to better meet local needs.
In the long term, we aim to create a sustainable and economically viable system where Newark students can grow, monitor, and distribute fresh produce through trusted neighborhood vendors. We also aim to provide education to the youth focused on sustainability, environmental issues pertaining to agriculture, and entrepreneurship.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Dr. Kevin Lyons and his research team at the Department of Supply Chain Management at Rutgers Business School for their invaluable knowledge and guidance throughout this project.
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