Let's grow. Local.
The problem.
Food quality is getting worse, people are getting sick and fat. The problem is even more visible in the USA, also their lose standards for food are also not helping with this matter. The population in the world is also demanding more food every year and in some predictions, it will top in the year 2080 with a population of 11 billion people. The food production problem will also get a lot bigger when the effects of climate change will disrupt the food production cycle in the biggest food exporting countries.
Some vegetables are traveling weeks before they come to the end user. So they lose most of their nutritional value on the way. We ship so many vegetables from all over the world because the urban cities have no option for producing food locally. This is the problem I strived to solve with my master thesis in product design.
Local food production with aeroponics.
One of the possible solutions for this problem is aeroponics. This method of food productions uses way fewer resources than conventional methods. It also doesn't need any soil just a growing medium for the plant. The roots of the plant are basically in the air and get sprayed with water fog (mixed with nutrients - basic salts). This method also doesn't need any pesticides because the system is closed (no outside threats to the plants). With this optimal growing conditions, plants grow up to 50% faster.
The design.
I chose to design the product to be as small as possible and to enable as many people to grow their on vegetables at home. The goal was also to protect the plants from small kids and pets or any other threats in the modern apartment (roombas, robots,...) The funcionality of aeroponics enables a capsulary system that help the end user and is very easy to use. The user inserts the capsule in the dedicated space in the product (16 per product) after that the areopinic fog will deliver water and nutrituons to the plant. The top LED light is delivering a 18h light cycle for the plants for optimal condition.
