For many people, going to the grocery store and selecting fresh vegetables is part of their routine. But not everyone has that luxury, and food insecurity is an issue we see in many communities.

One man is trying to help change that.

“We’re actually standing inside a 40-foot shipping container that’s been outfitted as you can see to grow vegetables. It’s hydroponic, so it runs on ... we just supply water, nutrients and lighting and we grow vegetables that way,” said James Paul, executive director of Blacque Acres, a nonprofit organization that was just an idea three years ago, but has become a reality to help address food insecurity. 

“There’s no grocery store here. Urban gardens are around, but they’re seasonal. So this is an opportunity for us to provide fresh produce. They won’t get anything fresher, to the community, in the community, and we can do it year round,” said Paul. 

He can control everything from an app. 

“Temperature in the farm. The dosing, if I needed to boost a dose, there’s a boost button here, we just hit the boost for the dosage here in the farm. We can turn fans on, we can turn lights on,” said Paul.

The goal is to supply fresh vegetables to the community starting the first week of June.

“This brings hope to a community and health to a community that I work in, that I moved here to help,” said Dr. Cynthia Jones, chief medical officer at Mosaic Health, a health center in the Utica area that provides services to underserved patients.

Jones says having Blacque Acres in a community she has been working in for 15 years is vital.

“It’s not all in medication, it’s not all in just seeing me. It’s when you go home, what do you do? So having access to healthy foods that have natural vitamins, natural proteins in them, is something that’s critical,” said Jones.

Jones says the hope is to create a prescription box with fresh vegetables from Blacque Acres.

“Let’s put a food box together of different vegetables with a recipe inside on how to cook them so that they still taste good, can’t just give me some greens and nothing in it. It can’t be full of salt and it can’t be full of fat but how do we do this and come up with a recipe, working with different chefs in the area as well and give this as a prescription,” said Jones.

“The best part for us is giving back to a community,” said Paul.