Food On The Move uses aquaponics in north Tulsa to help end food desert

TULSA, Okla. — Food On The Move, a mobile food initiative, has been working to end food deserts in Tulsa since 2014.

Rusty Rowe, a Programs Manager for Food on the Move, said they have been using aquaponics since March 2022.

“We control the entire environment, we can do year around growing in this system with less water than traditional farming uses,” he said.

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An aquaponic system is a way to grow plants without using any soil to support the root system, making it easier to grow plants indoors.

Food On The Move uses aquaponics in north Tulsa to help end food desert

“Everything in here is controlled, we have an app that runs the computer in here that will tell it when to flood and what temperature to make the pod, we can control the humidity,” said Rowe.

Megan Davis, an Agricultural Manager at Food On The Move, said the team is working hard to harvest fresh greens and vegetables to take to Iron Gate and other places in the community so they can have fresh healthy food.

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“Give them out to members of the community that don’t have access to fresh produce because they’re in a food desert there’s no grocery stores around and this way with the aquaponic system it gives us a really good advantage on growing a large amount of produce in a small space,” said Davis.

Rowe said one of the main goals is to cutout the transportation cost of fresh produce and grow fresh, local food.

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