RAINBOW ORGANIC FARMS CO — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: A vastly under-served community, located in an impoverished, 1,500-acre tract in the city

Description

A vastly under-served community, located in an impoverished, 1,500-acre tract in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, is in dire need of increased accessibility to nutritious food. Most of the buildings are torn down, decayed, and abandoned. There are no grocery stores selling nutritious, local, and fresh foods; it is very much a food desert. However, a great opportunity to enrich the lives of this community has sprung from a forward-thinking, $8.1 billion, "NorthSide Regeneration Plan" which is developing this area through the strategic planning of building 10,000 new homes, along with parks, schools, churches and three major employment centers.Good Natured Family Farms will promote and support this community & #39;s robust regeneration through research funded by the Small Business Research Innovation grant to determine the feasibility of developing a Good Natured Food Campus that will increase the accessibility of local and fresh food to an under-served population, while assisting small to mid-size farms to process and commercialize their meats, dairy and produce.The purpose of establishing the Food Campus is to bring the aggregation and distribution of fresh, local food from small to mid-size farms to the family tables of vulnerable populations, thereby creating more marketing opportunities for the farmers and better nutrition for the at-risk population. The program will also provide educational and job training in food science and nutrition. Good Natured Family Farms has successfully developed and implemented a similiar concept ifor an under-served community in Kansas and now strives to to develop a sister Food Campus in this Missouri community.An overarching goal of the Good Natured Food Campus is to contribute to the improvement of the nation & #39;s nutrition and health, to support local, small and mid-size family farms, stimulate monetary circulation in the local economy, increase commerce and tax revenues, and reduce vulnerability to oil shortages, transportation problems, and large-scale food contamination.