By Mauricio Prado Caceres

Oct 13, 2023

At the London Food Bank, food farming is evolving with the addition of a shipping container that will be used to grow veggies all year long. The London and District Construction Association (LDCA) donated a 12-meter container that will be equipped to grow plants in a water-based fertilizer solution rather than in soil. According to the co-director at the Food Bank, Glen Pearson, this project would provide vegetables more consistently and stably for people. 

“We kind of pioneered things around the greenhouse at the beginning of the pandemic, but as we moved along, we learned more about containers and realized they were more productive,” Pearson says. “We hope to have the container ready to use by the end of the year.”

Pearson says the food containers would work 24 seven and are “pretty sustainable and environmentally friendly.” 

“Instead of soil, the container would use a water-based fertilizer. That is just water that is put through it, and the nutrients are put in it,” Pearson says. 

He says that apart from the water-based fertilizer system, the conditions for growing vegetables would be better and more controlled, resulting in much bigger and healthier vegetables.

“What would typically grow on 3 1/2 acres of land can be grown in a container,” Pearson says. 

He adds that they have reached a point where the demand is significantly higher than the supply.

“Food banks across the country are closing,” Pearson says. “Right now, we are dependent on the donation system, on the generosity of citizens and companies and organizations, but even with that, we have reached the point where we can not keep up anymore,” 

He says that Fanshawe and Western have had to stop their food banks lately because of the demand. That is one of the reasons why that demand has gone up, and food prices are going up. 

“Both of those institutions have a significant global student population. And the reason why the London Food Bank itself is swamped with students coming in from Fanshawe is for that very reason,” Pearson says.

Pearson says the best way to beat food insecurity is to have food security, which means affordable food for all.

“The more food that we can produce and bring into London, the cheaper that food will become and the more options people will have,“ Pearson says. “The food containers are just the start.”