Ashlie Thomas is research scientist known as The Mocha Gardener who started gardening for healthy produce and medicinal plants at home in Graham, North Carolina, when family members on limited incomes living in a food desert had been diagnosed with health issues like hypertension and Type 2 diabetes. “Imagine having diet requirements that included mostly plant-based food, but your resources are simply not there,” Thomas says. “I didn’t know there was a term for that: food security. There is an increasing population with disease, and food could be the answer.”