A group of Florida Polytechnic University students are tackling an issue the United Nations has issued some dire predictions about of late -- growing enough food to feed the planet's growing population.

  • Students using organic garden on campus for research
  • Goal is to develop strategies for growing food faster and indoors
  • Some food grown at the garden donated to people living in Eloise

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations predicts the agricultural sector will have a tough time feeding the estimated 9.6 billion people that will inhabit Earth by 2050. Experts estimate overall food production must increase by 70 percent to meet the needs of a population of that size.

Florida Polytechnic’s Sustainability-Renewable Energy Team sees the issue as a very serious one. They have been using their organic garden to research new technologies that they say will eventually help them develop a strategy for growing food faster, and indoors.

The garden, formally called T.R.A.C. (Technology, Research, Agriculture, and Community), has been in existence since December 2016. Students on campus eat some of the produce the garden produces, and the rest gets donated to a gleaning table for people living in the Eloise community.

"It's great, it's fresh. It's better than eating out of a can,” said Bobby Beavers, one of the homeless people who depends on the gleaning table.

Soon, the students will incorporate technology like sensors and micro computers into the garden, which will allow them to better track factors such as carbon dioxide, sunlight, humidity and the temperature in the environment.

"In my experience, from studying agriculture, the thing that's missing most of all is technology," said Christian Crosser, one of the student researchers. "It's something that's a little bit difficult to implement and to understand."

"Prior to now, it was too expensive to put computers all over farms," he continued. "It was too expensive to put sensors all of over farms. But now, since it's so cheap for all these sensors and all these computers, it can be done,” 

Dr. Nicoleta Hickman, who serves as the Dir. of the Division of Sciences, Arts, and Mathematics at the university, said the plan is to eventually use the data collected to create an enclosed plant factory.

"Use the computers to grow our vegetables," Hickman said. "Once we learn what factors affect the growing process, once we learn how to mitigate those factors with our technology, we can actually build a controlled environment where the plants can grow three, four, five, six times faster."

Hickman said in order for the plant factory to happen, they’d need to secure funding.

While showcasing the garden on campus Thursday, the Winter Haven Rotary Club presented the students with a $2,000 check to help with purchasing the sensors.