Finalist of the Generation Regen Challenge: presented by BMO
Emma Ekua‑Bedua Hudson is the Co-founder and President of Food for Thought Foundation.
In Washington, DC grocers take their business where return on investment (ROI) is high. This creates food deserts, or areas without grocery stores where fresh, affordable produce is difficult to find. Food for Thought creates infrastructure that fills in the grocer gap. They have built a modular vertical farm along with a curriculum that can be deployed in community centers and schools to create a deprivatized produce network, and deploy these farms and the curriculum through a program called Farms for Thought. Farms for Thought has launched four pilots so far, across which 80 students have graduated from the program, and more than 60 families have gained consistent access to fresh produce. Collectively, the sites have distributed over 600 pounds of food into food-insecure communities.
Emma Ekua Hudson is a public health advocate and biomedical engineer leading the vision and execution of Farms for Thought, which she founded in 2020. She holds a B.S. in Public Health and is completing her M.S. in Biomedical Engineering at Boston University, where she researches immune system programming. In her role, she leads design, development, and implementation of the organisation’s proprietary modular vertical farm technology and integrated STEM curriculum.
