“As I progressed through life and my career, my constant headaches turned into migraines and my excessively dry skin turned into eczema. I ended up in the ER multiple times because of my migraines. I even made doctors pump me with Demerol, just so I could get pain relief,” explains Aamar Khwaja, our CEO and Founder, as he recalls his constant battle with poor health.
Aamar struggled for years with strange symptoms in his body, until one day during a big move to Toronto he decided he needed something to change. He wanted vibrancy and longevity. And this was the push to discover the root of his underlying problems.
As he started to study his own health in depth, Aamar discovered, “I was missing essential minerals in my diet. So, I started taking mineral supplements. My migraines and eczema disappeared!”
Minerals were the answer to Aamar’s problems. But why?
Aamar started to ponder the same question, asking himself late at night, “Why does my body need these minerals? Where do we get these sources of minerals? People usually don’t take minerals directly, don’t they come from our food? If minerals come from food, then clearly I’m not receiving the proper sources of food.”
After taking a deep dive into how our food is grown and processed, he learned something that shocked him:
Our modern day agribusiness system causes food to lose their vitality, nutrient density, and quantification.
Spurred by his discovery, Aamar was on a mission: bringing back the “new organic.” And within days— revitalized by a new vision for health and wellness— Aamar left his Wall Street job Modgarden was born.
Solving a Problem of the World
Aamar remembers, “I left Wall Street because I wanted to give back to the world. I needed to solve a major problem. My spiritual values, my personal values, and family values are rooted in service to humanity.”
Aamar found his problem: Food and disease.
Aamar explained, “My own experience helped me make the connection that poor food leads to disease. I naturally wanted to solve the problem with nutrient-dense food to impact the high disease rates humans are experiencing.”
But if you’ve ever walked into a Whole Foods or even gone to your local farmers market, you know that high-quality, locally-grown, nutritious food isn’t necessarily “affordable.”
In fact, low-income communities are disproportionately affected by dietary-related diseases and don’t have access to nutrient-dense food sources. Even more, many people often struggle with deciding to pay for rent, or to put food on the table—a world none of us want to live in.
To help those that need it most, Aamar realized that good food needs to be equitable and cost-effective for all. In other words, it needs to be affordable for underserved communities.
Taking Matters Into Our Own Hands
Aspiring to help to cure food and disease, Aamr looked into making his vision a reality.
He started working with the United Nations and NGO, to only realize, “that bureaucracy and politics” made it difficult for action to take place.
“The only way to solve the problem was to do it myself,” states Aamar.
How does someone provide pure food for people who cannot afford it?
The majority of people who cannot afford pure food are living in cities. There needed to be a solution for people living in cities who do not have access to farms.
Instead of operating at a larger scale, Aamar decided that he wanted to design a solution for people’s homes. He would empower people to grow food themselves.
Why?
One hundred years ago, we lived in agricultural societies, a society surrounded by farms or communities formed around farms. Without grocery stores, food was consumed from farm to table.
Now, city communities are no longer involved in food production. Think to yourself, when is the last time you’ve seen a farm? Do you know where the closest farm is to you?
Farming has been taken out of our hands and commercialized, where large corporations have profit incentives to grow food cheaply and quickly.
modgarden is trying to shift that paradigm, “What we’re working towards is democratizing farming into the hands of the people again. That way we can empower people to have control over their food.”
Assembling the Stable!
Aamar knew his vision needed a well thought out plan backed up with the perfect team to make the dream a reality. Not realizing how difficult it would be to fly solo, Aamar sought out those who knew how to design and build Aamar’s vision:
Founder and CEO
Wall Street veteran in debt and equity markets. On a mission to make a difference for the planet.
Sid Apaya
COO
CPG Marketing executive and General Manager. Experience in turnarounds, scaling businesses, and new product launches.
CMO
Nurtured startups to scale from zero people to a hundred people. Worked in food, health, and education sectors for the past 20 years.
Agriculture
Hands-on expert in agriculture and horticulture. International best-selling author.
Operations
Experienced in growing and scaling operations for a $100 Bn portfolio of funds. Launched a thriving digital marketplace connecting food entrepreneurs.
In addition to the team, Aamar has sought out an advisory board that includes the co-founder of Earth Day, Alan Tratner, and Dalhousie University. With the collided brainpower, the modgarden team is bringing tinyFarms into your home.
Bringing tinyFarms to Your Home
The majority of people on earth live in megacity and metropolis environments, with populations only continuing to increase. the amount of people continuing to increase in these environments.
With more people migrating to cities, we are getting our food from farther and farther away. from further and further away. As our food takes longer to get onto our plate, the more susceptible it is to losing its nutritional value and becoming compromised. Living far from real farms, our food is susceptible to becoming compromised—multiple hands touch our food in transit, and methods of storage and processing before the food lands on our plate are often questionable.
Though there are no farmlands in LA, Chicago, or even Toronto, we believe that we can bring farming back to the individual. As a result make our food a healthy and nutritious antidote to disease.
Drawing on his principles that the earth is already beautiful and perfect, Aamar states, “nature has already been established in farming. I want to bring that into the home as a beautiful piece of appliance.”
The Future is Blooming
What does modgarden hope to accomplish in the future?
modgarden is on a mission to provide accessible food for everyone on the planet in an affordable way, but it’s not just about available food—it’s about pure food, the most sterile food in the most accessible and affordable way, even more inexpensive than a farm.
Aamar states, “I want a tinyFarm in every home. Our model will stay true to traditional farming, meaning soil-based biological methods, or the organic way.” When you think about organic, the definition of organic has been watered down and often compromised. It doesn’t mean anything anymore. At modgarden, we’re trying to bring the real organic back into organic.
Organic is supposed to be biological.
What is biological? We’re trying to reeducate people back into farming again. At modgarden, our vision is to have modern farming be the centerpiece to people’s existence, and to do that, we need to have a tinyFarm in every home.
Aamar plans to lead in the indoor farming industry, and believes that a community will be built around tinyFarm, for instance, “We see people trading their mint for kale, their parsley for basil, all grown in their apartment buildings or urban living set ups.” Aamar explained that the possibilities are endless with tinyFarm.
Healing our Planet
The bottom line is our planet and people are sick.
The way we grow and consume food is only a small part of the overall problem, but the big picture shows us that any future enterprise needs to balance profit, people, and the earth.
This trio can not be mutually exclusive because if we sacrifice any one for the other the enterprise won’t have longevity or it will harm its community.
At modgarden, we want to make sure that we’re balancing all three while being a good and socially beneficial corporation that is cause-driven and working harmoniously. Above anything else, the primary mission at modgarden is that we are feeding our planet and bringing back the new organic.
As a solution to bring back the new organic, modgarden is out in front and inviting everyday people to join the opportunity. Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook for updates on modgarden and our tinyFarm appliance.
We look forward to our growth and hope you decided to join us on this journey.