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“There’s been more visibility of urban agriculture, and that lends itself to elected officials getting excited about making the resources more available and more organized.”
CROSS COUNTRY, urban agriculture organizers are transforming underused and abandoned lots into vibrant green spaces — unexpected farms that THE provide fresh, accessible produce in areas that need
them. They are lifelines to nutritious food and community, but despite the benefits and increasing formalization of this growing movement, organizers often face disabling challenges accessing funding and securing their land. Community gardening is nothing new, but in the past 15 years, offices and programs devoted to urban agriculture have popped up in city governments from Eugene, Oregon, to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to Boston. Shani Fletcher, director of GrowBoston, the city’s office of urban agriculture, tells The Rooted Journal that this movement has been a long time coming: “Advocates of urban agriculture have fought for this kind of formalized support,” which includes providing grantmaking opportunities, funding educational programs, and promoting the creation of green space. “There’s been more visibility of urban agriculture, and that lends itself to elected officials getting excited about making the resources more available and more organized.” Yet, there’s still a long way to go, even in cities that have urban agriculture programs. Ida Lombardozzi, executive director of Our Village Gardens, an urban farm in Portland, Oregon, is frustrated by how hard it is to secure funding to feed the community. “The current society that we live in doesn’t acknowledge that people should have access to food as a human right,” she says. “That’s a philosophy that we have, but it’s challenging to not have that reflected in our funders and the larger institutions that are out there.”
Our Village Gardens, which became a nonprofit in 2021, was founded as part of the Janus Youth Project in 2001 to help reduce gang violence and allow folks in Portland’s New Columbia neighborhood to have a stake in their food. Residents use the garden’s 80 community plots, in part, to grow culturally relevant foods, like collard greens, that are hard to come by in the area. The nonprofit also buys some garden members’ goods for its Village Market, which provides free and low-cost fresh produce to the neighborhood. Its Neighbor to Neighbor program delivers free community supported agriculture (CSA) boxes to 30 households from June through September, and the garden hosts events, like an annual block party and seminars on how to prune trees and shrubs. Of course, the value Our Village Gardens brings to the community comes at a cost. The farm is primarily funded through government grants that are given as reimbursements. “That requires us to have the cash flow available to be able to spend those expenses and then wait to get it back,” Lombardozzi says. “It has been challenging not having a deep endowment. We’re trying to grow our donor base, but we don’t have a lot of unrestricted funding that’s flowing in.” Tracking expenditures and filing paperwork is also an administrative burden that they often don’t have the personnel to tackle.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: OUR VILLAGE GARDENS DEPENDS ENTIRELY ON GOVERNMENT GRANTS AND IS OFTEN BURDENED WITH PAPERWORK. LIFE DO GROW IN CENTRAL PHILADELPHIA STEWARDS A TWO-ACRE SITE. BOSTON FARMS “TURNS VACANT URBAN LAND INTO COLLECTIVE OPPORTUNITY.”
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ISSUE 02
FIGHTING FOR THE RIGHT TO FARM
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