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📌 TLDR

We made a 48 second explainer video. It's at this Youtube link.

Shoutout to Woody for the NounSounds.xyz loops for the soundtrack.

Requesting 250,000 USDC, to Make Food a Public Good

Food, a basic building block of life, is not treated as a public good. As a result, nearly 1/3 of the global population has insecure access to food. Nouns is an engine for positive sum world-building; making food a public good is core infrastructure for a positive-sum world.

🧑‍🌾 Background & Problem Statement

📝 Map of low-income and low-access areas in the U.S. Source: Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Food access is a multi-faceted issue. Because food has not been treated as a public good, over 2.3 billion people globally, including ~10% of the U.S., are food insecure; meaning they have limited access to stores that offer a variety of healthy and affordable food. This creates severe challenges:

Public Health

• Stunted Childhoods and Learning Disorders: "Longitudinal studies in Canada indicate that hunger is related to poor health outcomes, including a higher risk of depression and suicidal ideation in adolescents, and chronic conditions, particularly asthma. In addition, nutrient deficiencies, such as iron deficiency, are known to impair learning and cause decreased productivity in school-age children, and maternal depressive disorders." - Food insecurity and hunger: A review of the effects on children’s health and behaviour

• Cardiovascular Disease: A study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association included more than 27,000 adults surveyed from 1999 to 2014. Researchers found more cardiovascular disease and higher overall death rates among those reporting food insecurity.

• Obesity: "Highly energy-dense processed foods that are high in saturated fats, sugars, and sodium are consumed more often than micronutrient-dense quality foods. Energy-dense foods may help meet daily caloric requirements, but essential nutrients are missing. Therefore, in many countries, undernutrition and obesity coexist and both can be consequences of food insecurity." - Food insecurity as a risk factor for obesity: A review

Economic Opportunity

• Individuals who live in low-income, low-access neighborhoods tend to deal with employment challenges. This is often due to a lack of economic opportunity in their neigborhood, a lack of positive role models, and interactions with the criminal justice system.

• International farm labor often involves exploitation, where migrant workers face low wages, long hours, and poor living conditions. Their vulnerable, often undocumented status, makes them susceptible to abuse with limited legal protections. This situation raises serious human rights and ethical concerns in the global agricultural industry.

Global Supply Chains

• In the United States, processed foods travel an average of 1,300 miles (~2,100 KM), and fresh produce travels an average of 1,500 miles (~2,400 KM) to get to the local grocery store. - Food Miles: Background and Marketing

• The United Nation's 2021 State of Food and Agriculture report states that in over 45 nations, the closure of a single route could increase food travel times by 20%+

💡 Proposed Solution

🌐 https://thecityfarmers.org/

This initiative is a testament to positive-sum collaboration, funded by a global DAO and realized by a local non-profit, bringing fresh produce to urban areas.

⌛️ 0-18 Month Deliverables

The mightiest of trees began as a seed, and the same is true of the City Farmers. With 250,000 USDC, our team will:

Fundraise for the Future!

We do not plan to ask Nouns for any further funding. Ever. Not that we don't want to continue working together; we just don't need it. There is an outsized amount of capital available to support our work from a multitude of sources. Maybe we could get a Noun for meeting and exceeding expectations upon proposal completion 🤞

The successful implementation of funding from Nouns will give

• the United States Federal Government & State Governments,
• Corporate Responsbility/ Impact professionals,
• Corporate/ Family Foundation directors,
• and high-dollar donors

the confidence to make grants available to our program with the assurance their dollars are being put to good use.

We've gathered a list of 260+ companies with philanthropy budgets, and the person in charge of that budget, to reach out to directly.

Nouns has the advantage of being able to take non-traditional risks and early bets in developing macroeconomic sectors that can yield exponential financial and social impact outcomes; and we think it makes for a great story.

The USDA is making a long term pivot towards Urban AG R&D. This year was the first batch of grants, $12.5 million. By 2030, annual grants could be $100+ million

USDA grants we intend to pursue:

• National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA)
  • Urban, Indoor, and Emerging Agriculture
  • Organic Agriculture Program
  • Sustainable Agriculture Programs
  • Specialty Crop Research Initiative
  • Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI)
  • Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Programs
  • Community Food Projects Competitive Grant Program (CFPCGP)
• Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production Grants
  • UAIP Competitive Grants
• Agricultural Marketing Service
  • Local Food Promotion Program
  • Farmers Market Promotion Program
  • Regional Food System Partnerships
• Natural Resources Conservation Service
  • Conservation Innovation Grants
• Rural Development
  • Value-Added Producer Grants
• Agricultural Research Service
  • Partnerships
  • National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research: Peoria, IL

& other opportunities in the Public Health field, such as Food is Medicine programs.

We're already in conversation with staff from the USDA, the Illinois Farm Bureau, the Greater Chicago Food Depository, the Cook County Department of Public Health, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and other local agencies and partners about our planned work.

Our mindset and vision is longterm. Our medium term financial goal is to raise at least $5 million from corporations and private donors to invest in an endowment and fund the organization's basic operation in perpetuity.

$5M + 5% annual interest = $250,000 operating budget, in perpetuity.

📊 Budget Breakdown

Per the TLDR, our ask is 250,000 USDC to our financial manager's Endaoment smart contract address at 0xCAAfF3b2D946d944016464123547ef38824cA330.

100% of the funds will be held and disbursed from the Public Health Institute of Metropolitan Chicago's bank account as USD fiat.

In order to be as compliant as possible given the U.S. regulatory environment, and our status as a 501c3 non-profit corporation, 100% of our cryto donations are facilited by Endaoment.

Grow Operations - 128,000 USD

• One year warehouse rental + utilities (electricity, water, heat) - 45,000 USD
• 50 Grow Towers - 12,000 USD
• Freya Cultivation R&D Support and Water Nozzles - 20,000 USD
• Seeds, growing medium, nutrients - 10,000 USD
• Plumbing Materials: 10,000 USD
• Plumbing Contractor 5,000 USD
• Transportation: 5,000 USD
• Tech/ Media Equipment - 10,000 USD
• Watering Automation Controller - 5,000 USD
• Seed Starting Station - 5,000 USD
• Water Tanks - 1,000 USD

Marketing & Biz Dev - 50,000 USD

Project Administration - 47,000 USD

10% to PHIMC - 25,000 USD

🏛️ Our Team

🌐 https://thecityfarmers.org/about/

City Farmers

Ian Wylie Hedrick -aka wylin💎. in a previous position, wylin was responsible for the physical conditions and maintenance of 19 school and community gardens across the City of Chicago.

He personally assisted in the growth and distribution of over 5,000 pounds of free, fresh produce to students and adults on Chicago's South & West sides.

He has also been involved in local governance, having spent 18 months on the North Lawndale neighborhood's Community Coordinating Council Economic Development Taskforce, and participating in City Council member's and County Commissioner's town halls. Coinbase flew him to speak to Congress along with 5 other Illinois founders in November, 2023.

As a result of this work, wylin has good relationships with the necessary partners to distribute Nouns Berries into Chicago's food insecure neighborhoods.

(https://wylin.heavens.pictures/urban-ag)

Steve Denenberg -President & Co-Founder, M43 Ventures; -frmr Co-Founder & COO of FarmedHere, a venture-backed 90,000 sq ft indoor urban ag business. Steve has experience operating an urban ag business at scale, and selling products to Whole Foods, Kroger, and other national grocery retailers.

Nick Tanev -Financial Consultant at Venat Capital Strategies -frmr SEC Reporting Consultant at Workvia & frmr Regulatory Examiner at the CBOE. Nick has deep experience navigating the US financial regulatory system, business compliance, and raising capital.

PHIMC

Led by Karen Reitan, PHIMC is a 29 year old non-profit that was incubated in the City of Chicago's Department of Health. PHIMC's CFO, Vivian Funches, has over 25 years of experience in public accounting, including CFO-as-a-service for both for-profit and non-profit businesses.

PHIMC serves as the 501c(3) of record for all our donations, grants, and sponsorships. They play a crucial role in monitoring our financial performance and provide an extra layer of accountability, governance, and compliance to our finances. Checkout their website.

CryptoNovo x akceler8

CryptoNovo brings 7 years of crypto experience and 2 years of Strategic Partnership Development experience from Vayner3. He was instrumental to the execution of Prop #33, the Nouns x Budweiser Super Bowl Ad.

Bob Soljacich and his firm akceler8 bring decades of experience as nationally respected marketing, finance, and management executives. akceler8 previously consulted on the launch, growth, and stabilization of a for-profit organic greenhouse in Jamaica.

Novo x akceler8 are assisting in the design, development, and deployment of the Nouns Berries marketing, go-to-market strategy, & business development plans.

Freya Cultivation Systems

Freya Cultivation Systems is an AgTech developer headquarted in Lithuania, working on increasing greenhouse profitability and solving operational aeroponic challenges.

They are in contact with the Nouns Berries team and are assisting in the design and development of the growing system.

🌟 Opportunity

📝 We have the opportunity today to get ahead of an exponential global trend. Source: Data Bridge Market Research

📝 "In 2022, food spending by U.S. consumers, businesses, and government entities totaled $2.39 trillion" - Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Research & Develop Urban Agriculture

• Kobe University's Graduate School of Agricultural Science in Japan has researched dry-fog aeroponics since 2011. When growing lettuce, this method uses 90-95% less water and 98% less land than traditional agriculture. We can build upon this research to include new crops and refine the method, in partnership with the Illinois Institute of Technology's Institute of Food Safety & Health and the United States Department of Agriculture, who are opening their first ever Urban Ag office in Chicago towards the end of this year and have $9 million of grants we qualify for in 2024.

Bring Ag Carbon Onchain

• We're in conversation with developers focused on web3 interopability for scientific senors to bring agricultural carbon data onchain.

Food as Medicine

• Public health agencies and providers are increasingly recognizing the role of food and nutrition in health outcomes. The Public Health Institute of Metropolitan Chicago has partnered with us and manages our finances. Their deep connections in the pubic health field place us in a strong position to secure grants for this work.

Workforce Development

• PHIMC also has deep connections with the Illinois Department of Justice and a commitment to restorative justice programs. It is our goal to leverage this to create a workorce development program for individuals with criminal records.

Grassroots Community Empowerment

• By refining the methods and educating the people, Nouns stands to empower low-income, low-access neighborhoods to develop into thriving, sustainable communities by directly addressing their core issues: health, local nutritious food, and equitable employment.

Ultimate Proliferation

• Bringing Nouns into the grocery store, refigerator, and people's stomachs makes it a household brand, while living true to the founding principles of positive impact through public goods.

Food should be a public good; Nouns is an engine for the development of public goods.

Access to fresh, nutritionally rich foods is a key determinent of long term mental health and physical wellness. By reframing food as a public good, we have the potential to uplift the whole of society and proliferate the meme through the direct route to people's hearts: their stomachs.

Our mission to make nutrious food a public good may be ambitious, however the impact that success would have across society makes it an obvious bet.

⚖ Why In Chicago?

The City of Chicago is one of the most Urban Agriculture friendly cities in the United States, as seen in the robust initiatives and businesses already operating there.

Policy & Zoning Support

• The Chicago Urban Agriculture Ordinance was adopted in 2011 to formalize urban farming practices in the city, and expanded the allowable use cases to include greenhouses and novel urban agriculture methods. A water connection permit is the only thing required to build a hydroponic greenhouse on vacant land in Chicago.

• $2 Million 2023 Community Growers Program - "to increase availability of healthy food in communities facing food insecurity while developing essential business skills and strategies for urban growers."

• The City of Chicago actively pursues federal funding for local famer's markets, and facilitates a conducive environment for these markets by providing a detailed resource guide for starting farmers markets, hosting scheduled farmers markets, and offering grant opportunities to bolster a resilient local food system.

• The United States Department of Agriculture are opening their first ever Urban Agriculture office in the City of Chicago and pivoting $10s of Millions into Urban AG via their Agricultural Innovation and 2023-2026: Cultivating Scientific Innovation initiatives.

Gotham Greens

Gotham Greens operates two greenhouses in Chicago, with the larger one spanning 100,000 sq. ft. This for-profit in Chicago's Pullman neighborhood provides fresh, locally-grown lettuce and basil to consumers, restaurants, and foodservice customers year-round.

Institute for Food Safety and Health (IFSH)

The Institute for Food Safety and Health is a unique applied food science research consortium. Located in Chicago's Southside, it includes the Illinois Institute of Technology, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and various members of the food industry, collaborating to advance food safety and health.

The Arturo Velasquez Insitute

The AVI Urban Agriculture Program is a City Colleges of Chicago program focused on offering practical, hands-on training in sustainable urban agriculture. This nine-month certificate training program is implemented in partnership with Windy City Harvest, providing students with a mix of classroom, lab, and field experiences at the AVI greenhouse and at WCH farm sites; further enriched by a 14-week paid work experience opportunity.

The Farm on Ogden

The Farm on Ogden is a multi-use facility located in Chicago's Lawndale neighborhood, established to support and foster a healthy urban community by amalgamating food, health, and job opportunities in one setting. This initiative is spearheaded by the Chicago Botanic Garden's urban agriculture program, Windy City Harvest, in collaboration with the Lawndale Christian Health Center.

The Farm on Ogden was funded by a mix of federal/ local government and private funding.

The Plant

The Plant in Chicago is a multifaceted establishment that operates as an indoor vertical farm, a food-business incubator, and a research/education space, housed within an old meat packing factory. This 93,500 square-foot facility, once on the brink of abandonment, was repurposed in 2010, transforming into a sustainable business incubator that now champions economic growth in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.

Growing Home

Growing Home is a distinguished urban agriculture endeavor located in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood, functioning as a USDA-Certified Organic urban farm, workforce development center, and a non-profit social enterprise. Over the past two decades, Growing Home has operated a 1.5-acre farm which initially supplied fresh produce to local restaurants and the broader community, but has recently shifted its focus towards primarily feeding its immediate neighbors, with support from various stakeholders across the city.

Fresh Moves Mobile Market

The Fresh Moves Mobile Market is an innovative initiative in Chicago powered by the Urban Growers Collective, utilizing renovated city buses to deliver fresh produce to various community locations, including schools and health centers. This mobile market addresses food accessibility challenges in Chicago by bringing fresh, locally sourced produce closer to communities, particularly those residing in food deserts or areas with limited access to fresh food.

🗺 10 Year Roadmap

🌐 https://thecityfarmers.org/roadmap/

Year 1:

Get started as seen above, and apply for federal grants. We have the relationships already to secure the grants. The USDA is opening their first ever Urban Agriculture office on the West Side of Chicago; a staff member with 18 years of tenure recommended wylin apply for their ag innovation board.

We need to hire someone who actually knows how to put together a federal grant application, which takes an experienced professional 120-200 hours per grant.

Year 2-4:

Use the grant money to fund research classes at the Institute of Food Safety and Health in Chicago, as well as the college of architecture and engineering at the same school.

The point is to develop a minimum viable product to deploy in the real world.

Year 5-7:

Start building greenhouses in partnership with the City and the Department of Justice to do workforce development training. Our finance manager has deep relationships from past and current projects they’ve sponsored. We have a pilot location in mind next door to a Juvenile Detention Facility in Chicago.

Year 7-10:

Open a for-profit that is owned by the non-profit. Use it to scale the business, and franchise greenhouses to people who have been through the training program. The greenhouses will sell their crops to local grocers and farmers markets.

🔍 DYOR

DM me on X, or Farcaster, or email me at [email protected]

I'm happy to share the 60 second presentation, or a 60 minute deepdive.

This project has been a work in progress for several years. Many thanks to our mentors for guiding and advising us along the way, and encouraging us to pivot when needed.

After a mentor recommended we pursue the 501c3 non-profit model, FoodNouns gave us our founding grant via Prop.House, May 2023. This allowed us to secure a contract which ultimately landed us with our finance partner, PHIMC.

It was connections made at Chicago's Nounish Bitcoin Pizza Day that ultimately formed our Board of Directors.

Shoutout to the Lil Nouns x Gnars for Funding the Lil Gnarly Skate Jam x ETHChicago, September 15-17 2023

January 2023: Submitted the idea to FoodNouns

https://discord.com/channels/983412325589606430/1070050216495030302/1070050216495030302

January 2023: Submitted the idea to Builder DAO via prop house

https://prop.house/builder/dao-incubator-round-2/3403

May 2023: Submitted to Nouncil Discord

https://discord.com/channels/992462546860785778/1112863281598713916/1112863281598713916

May 2023: Won FoodNouns Open Kitchen Round 3

https://prop.house/foodnouns/open-kitchen-rounds-3/5862

We are forever grateful to our founding grantor, the FOODNOUNS.

June 2023: Submitted to Nouns Discourse

https://discourse.nouns.wtf/t/the-city-farmers-seeking-your-feedback/4720

If you are a U.S. based individual or business who would like to make a charitable donation, you may use card or ACH at https://thecityfarmers.org/donate.

Crypto donations can be made via Endaoment.

If you would like to make a large donation by wire tansfer, Charitable Lead Trust, or an Endowment, please contact us directly.

📝 Dive into our website to explore the world we're building. ⌐◨-◨