CHEVIOT, Ohio (WKRC) - An unconventional farm is helping it's westside community in a unique way. o2 Urban Farms uses aquaponics to grow fresh lettuce. It’s produce with a purpose. The farm employs adults with developmental disabilities to assist in germinating, transplanting and harvesting the produce at its Cheviot facility.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity,” Kevin Potts, executive director of the Ken Anderson Alliance, said.
Urban Farms is working in partnership with the Ken Anderson Alliance while utilizing the facility space provided by Vineyard Westside.
The Ken Anderson Alliance creates “live, work and play” opportunities for adults with developmental disabilities. The Ken Anderson Alliances organizes the opportunities for adults to train and work at Urban Farms.
“We pay our employees ten dollars an hour and we provide them a very flexible schedule and we give them the ability to learn the skills here that make them marketable in other industries if they want to go out,” Potts said.
Urban Farms co-founder Mark Ruberg says the goal of helping the community is in its name, o2: oxygen for the community and organic for the planet.
The aquaponics agricultural model is a self-sustaining system. Ruberg says it uses 95-percent less water than traditional farming and produces ten times the amount of food in half the time.
Aquaponics uses fish to create the nutrients on-site for the plants.
“The plants take those nutrients in which essentially filters the water and then we return that water back to the fish tanks,” Ruberg said.
Perhaps most importantly for the mission is that it can be done year-round, regardless of the weather.
“It’s a controlled environment so for adults with disabilities, there’s a lot of things we have to keep in mind,” Potts said. “Here for access to farming and agriculture, this is something where individuals can come in 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We don’t have to worry about the weather outside. It’s all climate controlled. We can provide access to wheelchairs for different levels of racks for harvesting and it gives us a really good environment where we can focus on skills at the pace the individual is able to keep up with so that we can prepare them appropriately.”
Right now, eight different varieties of lettuce are being grown at Urban Farms.
“To me, I can’t go to the grocery store anymore because once you’ve had this,” Ruberg said. “It’s so fresh. It’s grown locally, not in Arizona or California. It’s just you can literally taste the difference.”
Local chefs are taking note. The lettuce has already been used in dishes at Moerlein Lager House, Jeff Ruby’s, Hotel Covington and more.
You can also buy a packaged container of mixed greens at West Side Brewing, Humbert Meats, and Piazza Discepoli wine shop. As of now, you can purchase the salad from a refrigerator at each location for five dollars. It works on an honor system, each person dropping cash into the lockbox. They expect to have Apple Pay running at each location soon.
Ruberg says their goal is for produce sales to keep the lights on at the farm and to keep employing adults through the Ken Anderson Alliance. He’s asking for community support by buying the lettuce.
Urban Farms and the Ken Anderson Alliance both accept donations directly to the non-profits.
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