This is with reference to the article “Masdar City’s ‘smart garden’ teaches kids basics of homegrown food,” (July 11).

This is a good initiative by Masdar city. The younger generation needs to be kept in touch with nature. In the era of everything being digitized, majority of kids barely know where their food comes from, or where the raw material is sourced. Technology has enabled easy-ness of life, but has also ensured that being the intermediary between the producer and the consumer, the source of origin becomes obscure.

Ask a child where would one procure fruit or wheat flour and the answer would most often be from the mall or from Amazon. Little do they know how the produce reaches Amazon and the mall and what goes into making it happen.

With mobiles and tablets grabbing the attention of kids not just during their online classes but also as entertainment channels, little is done to nurture and nourish our connection with nature as a human species. For, that’s where we came from. And thus, through the HydroArtPod, children will actually be hands-on involved in growing their own produce. Their curiosity will be sparked and it would mean unleashing a future botanist, environmentalist, etc. To add to that, there is no greater happiness than plucking the vegetables and fruits you have taken the effort to grow and putting it on your plate.

More such initiatives should be encouraged, where people pause to be digital nomads and begin to live and see the world for what it really is.

Joyce D
By email