When a good project goes awry: community re-connecting with an urban farm.

Publication: Urban Anthropology & Studies of Cultural Systems & World Economic Development

Publication Date: 22-MAR-06

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COPYRIGHT 2006 The Institute Inc.

After two years of working on an urban farm and selling at a farmers' market it is time for reflection. The writing of reports to those funding the project has caused me to engage in on-farm and off-farm reflections. The project, "Greensboro Community Farm and City Market Project," which began in the winter of 2002, was designed to provide underserved members of the community an opportunity to raise agricultural products for a downtown farmers market in Greensboro, North Carolina. In addition, the urban community farm and city market was to be a means of integrating a diverse population into a local community and providing an opportunity to facilitate economic development. There was financial and in-kind support from the city and foundations as well as from local businesses, developers, established farmers, and local residents. Conceptually, this community project had great potential.

The spring of 2003 began the first year of farming and growing for home consumption and for a farmers market. The learning curve, on many fronts, carried over into the following year of farming and marketing. In 2004 new challenges were faced, making for an equally demanding year for both the farm and the farmers market participants. Therefore, the project discussed in this paper is based on the implementation of a co-educational learning opportunity among food producers and agriculture advocates who envisioned low-income residents, immigrants and resettled refugees working together on an urban farm and selling their surplus at a newly established farmers market located in the heart of a downtown area serving a diverse economic and ethnic community. The urban community farm was designed to provide residents who had the desire but lacked the resources an opportunity to farm and market, drawing primarily from the established African-American communities and the newly resettled immigrant and refugee communities.

This paper reflects on the various methods and approaches used for farming as well as sharing and marketing the harvest. However, the purpose of this paper is to reexamine the approaches taken over a 2-year period to organize an urban community farm and farmers market, and to learn from what worked well and what did not in this type of civic agriculture. As an outsider and insider evaluating this project, questions beg to be asked. For example, was the farm in the best location, one that would meet the needs of a low-income community? Were sufficient resources made available to minimize risks that were not weather related for the participants? Could low-income households grow their own fresh produce for home consumption? Would there be an interest in growing for market to be added to the household income? Were mechanisms in place so that community relationships could form? What were some of the barriers to making an urban community farm sustainable?

Background

Since the early 21st century there has been a surge in research efforts, publications and advocacy campaigns on combining interests in human health, environmental health as seen in alternative agriculture, and support for local farmers. Much has been written on local agriculture and food systems through direct marketing efforts (farmers markets, Community-Supported Agriculture arrangements [CSAs], u-picks, and roadside stands) (see Andreatta 2000; Andreatta and Wickcliffe 2002; DeLind 1999, 2000, 2002, Henderson and Van En 1999; Goland 2002; Goland and Bauer 2004; and Stephenson and Lev 2004 for further discussion). Additional authors and food advocates have been praising the quality and freshness of local foods as a means of supporting healthy living (Nestle 2002, 2003). Increased interests in the organic food movement among the scientific community also have identified phytonutrient quality (the health promoting, disease-preventing substances abundant in plant foods, e.g., asparagus, blueberries, broccoli, carrots, citrus, kale, and tomatoes) adding interest among health-conscious eaters.

Added to the mix of access to new information and websites are hundreds of new cookbooks that have been added to book stores and 24-hour cable food channels. Each has brought the public closer to food, ethnic cuisines, and the ease and fun of cooking with friends and family. These lists of agriculture, food types, and cooking interests are endless, but are clearly indicative of those who are in a position to make fresh farm produce a regular part of their food intake. In addition, some "neuvo-foodies" are rekindling their relationship with food as well as with their food providers: "their farmer."

The newly forged relationships among food enthusiasts that include "knowing their farmer" is a shared interest knowing where and how garden and farm items are produced. In the past decade there has been a rise in the number of farmers markets and CSA arrangements. CSA arrangements were estimated to be 50 in 1990 and have since grown to more than 1,000 (Robin van En 2006). The 1990s saw a renewed interest in farmers markets in the United States. In 1994 there were 1,755 farmers markets listed with the USDA and by 2004 there were 3,706, a 111% increase in a decade nationwide (USDA 2004). Other ways in which the public has been connecting to farmers is through agrotourism and local farm tours. In each of these examples, however, we are again speaking about members of population who are able to make a food and farm connection for themselves and their families by bringing them to farmers markets or to a farm to meet the farmers.

Nevertheless not all households are able to meet farmers or find themselves at farmers markets. For example, the southeastern part of the United States has the highest rate of food insecurity in the nation. On average 12.4% were food insecure, followed by the west (12.1%), midwest (9.6%) and northeast (9.2%) (Nord et al. 2003). Among the southern states, North Carolina has an average of 12.3% of households reporting food insecurity, placing it above the national average of 11% (Nord et al. 2003). According to the Food Insecurity Institute, North Carolina previously had been ranked 30th with a food insecurity rate of 10% in a study conducted between 1998 and 2000 (Sullivan and Choi 2002). Since 2000, food insecurity rates have increased and North Carolina is now in the top 15 states experiencing the worst rates of food insecurity in the United States (Nord et al. 2003).

Urban households that are economically challenged need not and should not be left out of the discussion on access to fresh produce and farm visits. Low-income households, including newly resettled refugees (2) and immigrants who often are economically challenged, bring with them food traditions and customs as well as a range of food access and food preference issues that need to be part of the new locally driven agrofood systems.

Gardening projects in Atlanta, Berkeley, Maryland and New York City have indicated that community garden plots can generate an income if planted and harvested accordingly. These urban garden projects often operated by local food banks have created an alternative means of obtaining food assistance other than through food stamp programs. Further interest connecting people to farms and gardens is seen in farm-to-school lunch programs and farm-apprentice opportunities.

From the wide range of opportunities amidst enabling a form of reconnecting with farmers, farms and fresh produce it is apparent that a new agrofood movement is upon us, that of civic agriculture. Combining interest in farming, human and environmental health, civic agriculture has been popularized by long-time agriculture and food advocates DeLind (2002) and Lyson (2004). "The term 'civic' agriculture frames a collection of food and farming enterprises that addresses the needs of local growers, consumers, rural economies and communities of place" (DeLind 2002:217). As DeLind points out, civic agriculture both guides and legitimates a diverse and growing body of creative, socioeconomic relationships around food and agriculture: farmers markets, CSAs, co-ops, and community gardens among them (DeLind 2002). As DeLind so eloquently states:

Civic agriculture scans from the ground-up, attending to less standardized, more direct and self-reliant approaches to food production, distribution and consumption. Equally important it also widens the scope of...

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