Narration by Femeika Elliott, Food Justice Activist and Founder of Rooted East Knoxville
Surprisingly often we hear from people, “urban farming isn’t real farming,” or “urban farming shouldn’t be getting all of this recent attention and funding,” and “they don’t produce adequate volumes of food.”
We also witness and hear from people engaging in urban farming how profound and meaningful those food-producing green spaces can be.
Like other land trusts, our work is to protect land. Unlike other land trusts, our work does not focus on accumulating acres, it focuses on creating a positive impact for people and the community.
Black and Brown communities, communities where families' incomes are below the federal poverty threshold, and people without land are very absent from the broad land trust movement and its positive impacts, and urban land conservation is not a major part of land protection in this country. While many natural resources, rural land owners, and open spaces have benefited from conservation, those without land, less wealthy people, and Black and Brown communities often concentrated in urban areas have not. These facts and others are why 25 percent of our current projects are urban farming-focused.
If you are someone who thinks urban farms aren’t real farms, or if you’re someone who is faced with the challenge of advocating on behalf of urban farmers and growers and is looking to be equipped with new ways of sharing and talking about the need and importance of urban agriculture, this article is for you.
Weaving the World Together
Here at The Farmers Land Trust, we are deeply invested in preserving the places in our world where the productive activity of human beings harmoniously meets the abundance of nature. While many of these places are farms in rural landscapes nestled into wildlands, we know it is just as essential to protect and support the farms and community gardens that nestle wild spaces into our bustling urban areas. Urban farming is a long-standing craft that spans the globe, offering innumerable benefits to people and the environment.
Urban farms are diverse ecologically and serve as sanctuaries for wildlife. Communities involved in the farms have greater access to highly nutritious foods, often in areas where food access is a systemic issue. Additionally, the farms themselves are safe spaces for people of color who are passionate about the work of raising food but would be put at risk for racial violence in rural areas. As the USDA continues to take action to rectify years of racial oppression within their offerings and resources, they have established 17 new Urban Service Centers to support the efforts of food producers in cities across the United States.
urban farms foster a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between our food choices, the environment, and our overall well-being.
To create and nurture these spaces in urban settings is a truly special offering to our shared world. Oftentimes these farms and gardens are created by transforming what was once considered undesirable land, abandoned plots, and vacant lots into something that is not only beautiful to behold but is also productive. These acts of service clean up our urban landscapes and weave the natural world deep into the human world, helping to reconnect the living fabric of our fragmented ecological realms, which in turn, creates pockets of wellness that benefit us all.
Access for All
One of the most important contributions of urban farms to the cities that house them is the increase in food sovereignty among urban residents due to direct access to nutritious foods. The United Nations estimates that this year, two-thirds of the global population lives in urban areas. This fact combined with the devastating consequences of “big ag” including the pollution of land and water, excessive tillage and subsequent nutrient loss, deforestation and habitat loss, and a large carbon footprint, reveal just how crucial it is, for the sake of our communities and our planet, to grow as much food as possible where most people live.
Through the efforts of local producers, food justice activists, and entrepreneurs, urban farms provide freshly harvested crops to be made available in locations where grocery stores do not exist. While a common perception of urban farms is that they are luxury or hobby businesses, the reality is much different. In many urban neighborhoods, these growing spaces are a necessity that ensures the well-being of communities that would otherwise lack direct access to nutrient-dense food due to the ongoing and purposeful crisis of food apartheid in urban areas. Their existence allows individuals to participate in a food system they have been shut out of by creating their own local food system.
While a common perception of urban farms is that they are luxury or hobby businesses, the reality is much different. In many urban neighborhoods, these growing spaces are a necessity that ensures the well-being of communities that would otherwise lack direct access to nutrient-dense food due to the ongoing and purposeful crisis of food apartheid in urban areas.
Skill and Knowledge Sharing
It is not only important for the average person to have access to healthy food, but it is also beneficial for that person to understand where their food comes from and how that food is grown. When farms are located within city limits, they become classrooms where urban communities can learn the skills necessary to bring crops from seed to harvest. This includes how to start seeds, how to fertilize and tend living crops, how to manage living soil, how to use food waste to make compost, how to attract beneficial insects and animals, how to use and maintain tools and equipment, how to save seeds and propagate plants, among endless other lessons that can be gleaned from tending land. This informal classroom allows local elders to pass on their years of wisdom and heirloom seeds to the youth and gives children firsthand experiences with the natural world.
Beyond the direct lessons in food production, urban farms are local businesses that create and support skilled jobs. To be a farmer is to master the craft of food cultivation while simultaneously being an accountant, marketing specialist, salesperson, engineer, plumber, mechanic, and product distributor. Farming in the city offers a unique skill set as these farms must also creatively use space to grow as much produce as possible on limited land. This generates a hyper-localized system with less waste and environmental impact than the large swatches of rural land being cultivated for commodities. Crafting a productive urban farm is a master class in resource management, spatial awareness, companion planting, local zoning law, and plant timing.
A Sanctuary for Life
As capitalism guides urban and suburban areas to cater to the sprawl of box stores and food chains, ecological life is lost to paved parking lots and well-lit storefronts. It can be difficult to defend green spaces from the onslaught of urban development that seems to consume all. Urban farms are sanctuaries for life. Because they are often small, specialized farms, they exist as exceptional offerings of biodiversity. They provide refuge for the wildlife that brave the city streets. Their presence creates microclimates that cool things down, clean the air, and sink moisture. They create a place for food waste to be transformed into life-giving soil. Each urban farm is a counterbalance to the ecological burden of civilization and diverse green spaces woven into our cities are a step toward a more prosperous future for human beings on Earth.
A Sanctuary for Community
Not only are urban farms sanctuaries for wildlife, pollinators, and beneficial insects, but they are also sanctuaries for the community. Just like all farms, they can be used as a nurturing gathering place for people called to experience nature. They give human beings a sense of belonging in the natural world and a place for connecting to their neighbors. Through urban farms, seeds of cultural importance to many diasporas are preserved and shared, which is not as common or possible on large production farms. This cross-cultural pollination is a unique gift of urban farms. Cultivated green spaces in the city provide volunteer experiences for people that engage their minds, hearts, and bodies. They create safe spaces for children, women, the LGBTQIA+ community, people of color, and other communities that face displacement, discrimination, and other hardships due to gentrification caused by the steady expansion of commercial enterprise tied to an insatiably lucrative real estate market. A well-tended natural space can inspire community pride, and the peaceful presence of an abundant garden offers many benefits to mental health.
Spreading the Word
Urban farms also serve as powerful platforms for raising awareness about critical environmental and social issues. By showcasing sustainable food production methods and the interconnectedness of our food systems, these farms highlight the impacts of climate change on agriculture and food security. They demonstrate how local, organic farming practices can reduce carbon emissions and protect ecosystems. Additionally, urban farms often host educational programs and workshops, teaching communities about healthy eating habits, the importance of biodiversity, and the benefits of supporting local food economies. Through these initiatives, urban farms foster a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between our food choices, the environment, and our overall well-being.
Unique Challenges
While urban farms provide many benefits to humans and the environment, the challenges faced by urban producers make starting and maintaining urban farms extremely difficult. Like all farmers, access to land is cited as one of the biggest barriers to starting a productive urban farm. Urban land and urban farms are not often the focus of conservation efforts and land trusts. Until recently, urban farms were mostly not recognized by local governments and the USDA as true, working farms. For this reason, services and resources were reserved for production farms in rural areas. This, on top of the USDA’s long history of racial inequity, has made it difficult or even impossible for urban producers to acquire startup funding, secure loans, and take advantage of other government support systems offered to rural farmers.
Additionally, urban farms are often subject to more oversight by local governments. Local zoning laws and the influence of developers and neighbors can make urban farms vulnerable to being disbanded or displaced. Sometimes formerly abandoned land that is cleaned up by urban farmers becomes valuable again and attempts are made to reclaim the land for development, even going as far as exercising eminent domain to take the land. In other circumstances, lease agreements change, and leased land for agriculture gets taken away with no regard for the efforts or improvement of the land. Urban farms exist at the will of local policymakers and the benefits that ripple out from their community building, lot clean-up, and ecological integrity are ignored or undervalued as compared to potential capital gain.
An Essential Synergy
At The Farmers Land Trust, we know that every single farm is important. We understand how the small urban farms of our cities extend our ecological footprints and reconnect us to the life-giving forces of our planet. We acknowledge how these entities are uniquely suited for bringing people closer to one another and the land. We also know that land protection in urban areas and for the people who live in those areas has not attracted much attention from conservation efforts and land trusts. As the Farmland Commons grows, it will include large swatches of rural land and ingeniously crafted urban green spaces. We feel that the food justice movement, with its deep roots in urban communities, is an essential part of fighting the inequity, exclusion, and exploitation alive and well in our globalized food system today.
We also believe that the end of the industrial agriculture complex arrives when communities uplift and support their local small farms and transform their perspectives on the true nature of scarcity and abundance. Bringing the power back into the hands of the local community would release our world from the clutches of consumer capitalism guided by the nefarious gross domestic product metrics that establish overproduction as the norm, while simultaneously limiting access to resources to communities that are systematically oppressed.
urban farms of our cities extend our ecological footprints and reconnect us to the life-giving forces of our planet.
If you have an urban farm and need resources, check out these new initiatives started by the USDA. If your city or urban area has an active land lease program or a land bank, you can contact us to explore ways to advocate and instigate equity and grower land security. If you have unused urban land, manage an urban farm, or are interested in creating equitable land access in your home city, reach out to us today.