Sustainable Food Laboratory

by Jessica Wurwarg

Low-income urban areas in the U.S. have poor food access, high rates of obesity, diabetes and asthma, high unemployment levels, and populations with low levels of education and little or no job training. Grassroots urban agriculture projects provide important, if small scale, relief for all of these issues.

Rates of obesity and diabetes are rising rapidly in low-income areas due in part to lack of access to healthy food. Some cities and states address food poverty and access issues with food policy councils that look at physical food access and public food procurement. Urban planning and economic development programs can improve physical food access with flexible zoning, and policies encouraging healthy food markets in underserved areas. Current public food procurement practices leave much room for improvement in the quality of food that governments serve in schools, hospitals, prisons and shelters and food policy councils can work to create requirements for more sustainable food in the public sector’s food contracts

While some progress is being made at the government level, much food access progress is being made at a grassroots level, through urban agriculture projects, community supported agriculture, farmers markets and food co-ops. Urban agriculture projects in the Northeastern US illuminate current food access issues and recent urban history. They address not only food access issues, but also many of the other social injustices plaguing low-income urban neighborhoods. On a small scale urban agriculture projects are an important element of sustainable community development.

Background

As a result of white flight in the post-War years, low-income urban neighborhoods became increasingly poor. As tenants struggled to pay rent, landlords let their buildings deteriorate, until they realized that they could collect a lot more money from insurance if their buildings burned down than they could from their struggling tenants and so rather rapidly in the 1970s huge swaths of central Brooklyn, the South Bronx, South Boston and other poor neighborhoods in big cities burned down leaving thousands of vacant lots, people with no place to go, and neighborhoods that were increasingly depressed and crime-ridden.

Eventually, many of these lots became city-owned and in some cases began to be used by the community as gardens. In a few cases, small non-profit community groups began using vacant city owned land to grow food in more formal urban agriculture projects. Three examples of urban agriculture programs in the Northeast stand out as exemplary models of sustainable community development. Each of these programs use environmentally sustainable farming methods, employ and train local youth, make locally grown healthy food available to the community, and create safe and active public spaces on land that was vacant and derelict.

UCC Market, photo by Sarita Daftary

East NY Farms! East NY, Brooklyn, NY

East NY Farms! is a coalition of neighborhood community gardens and a farmers market. The neighborhood is very low-income, was severely devasted in the 70s and has poor food access. The coalition runs the UCC Community Garden that employs local youth and grows organic food, which it sells to the community at the weekly farmers market. In 2004 the UCC sold nearly $4000 of food. East NY has also established a food policy council, through which they are creating a local food co-op to increase food access.

East NY Farms! market and the UCC community garden are on city owned land and were in danger of being displaced so the city could build affordable housing, which is also a community need. The city’s housing and parks agencies worked together with the community to preserve the garden. The city will sell the market site to a local development group. The site will be developed to retain the market, accommodate the food co-op, and have affordable housing above.

UCC Garden, photo by Sarita Daftary

Added Value Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY

Added Value is a non-profit urban farm in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn whose mission is to “promote the sustainable development of Red Hook by nurturing a new generation of young leaders”. Red Hook has no quality supermarkets, no subway lines, nearly 80% of the population living in public housing and an average household income (as of 2004) of $14,000/year for a family of four. The program, started in 2000, has employed over 85 local youth, teaches them skills in business, literacy and farming. The youth help run the farmers market.

Added Value, which also supplies local restaurants, is located on approximately 2.5 acres of an unused basketball court owned by NYC’s Dept of Parks. The organization is currently in the process of working out a long-term lease with the City. Because much of the land is paved or contaminated, Added Value brings in soil and compost to build raised beds for planting. The Bronx Zoo provides the compost and soil.

The Food Project Boston and Lincoln, MA

The Food Project (TFP) started in 1991 and uses agriculture as a means to create stronger communities and a more sustainable food system. It is located in Boston’s low-income neighborhood of Roxbury/Dorchester (which also saw burning devastation in the 1970s) and in suburban Lincoln, MA. TFP Hires high school students from all classes and cultures for a summer program.

The Food Project, photo by Justin Steil

The organization grows 250,000 pounds of food each year. It donates half the food to shelters and sells the rest at farmers markets and through community supported agriculture (CSAs). The organization also offers catering and soil remediation services.

The Food Project farms about 33 acres of land, most of which is in Lincoln, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. The other land is in the Roxbury/Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, and is city owned, but protected in a community land trust that the community itself, in a unique instance of grassroots land use planning, put in place.

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Urban agriculture programs bring social, environmental and economic sustainability to their neighborhoods. They increase access to nutritious and environmentally sound food in low-income neighborhoods, provide job training and empowerment, and create active and safe public spaces. This type of sustainable development, particularly with rising real estate values, takes cooperative interagency planning. The city must appreciate the value of urban agriculture programs on a holistic level in order for different city agencies and community groups to work together to preserve and protect these community programs.