Challenges

People/organizations wishing to develop an urban farm typically face several challenges in getting it established and maintaining a successful farm/garden.

• Urban farms are often built on vacant land which offers little security in terms of long-term land access. Community gardens are typically established on vacant or abandoned land, and the farmers/gardeners often do not own the land they tend. Many operations lease or have permission to use land and do not own it outright. One recent survey found that only 5.3 percent of gardens in 38 cities were permanently owned.

Gardeners farming on vacant public land run the risk of losing years of hard work if a developer wants to purchase that land and there is no protection from eviction. This lack of security makes urban farmers reluctant to invest in infrastructure inputs such as water line access, machinery, sorting and refrigeration/storage facilities, educational /community gathering centers, or cooking/processing facilities. 

• The 14-acre South Central Farm/South Central Community Gardens in Los Angeles lost their farm when the city sold the land back to a previous property owner under a right to repurchase clause in the original contract the city used to acquire the land. The landowner, who wanted to put the property towards a more profitable use, had the farm raised and the farmers evicted, resulting in multiple court battles and protests by the farmers.

• Much of the available urban agriculture land is contaminated and requires clean-up. Many of the available, vacant plots for community gardens and urban farms may be contaminated with lead and other toxic chemicals from former industrial uses or lead paint or gasoline.
  • It is expensive to clean contaminated soil. Conventional brownfield clean-up, where tainted soils are removed and disposed of in toxic waste facilities, is cost-prohibitive without state and federal funding support (See brownfields tool for more detailed information about brownfield cleanup.)
    
    EPA's Brownfields Program provides grant dollars for brownfields assessment, cleanup, revolving loans, and environmental job training. The EPA Brownfields Program presents two obstacles, however, for urban farmers wishing to use these grant dollars: (1) the brownfield assessment program is limited to government or quasi-government entities (while the brownfield clean-up program is available to government, quasi-government, and nonprofit entities); and (2) municipalities wishing to establish urban agriculture projects on former residential land are forced to undergo the same stringent, and typically unnecessary, assessment standards that former industrial properties must meet to be eligible for cleanup funding.
  • Large urban farms often consist of several parcels of land often with different historical uses, thus making it hard to determine the soil quality for the entire farm. SHAR in Detroit is working to identify effective ways to ensure, on large tracts of land, that soil is suitable for growing food.

• New urban farms/gardens must address start-up and operating costs. This includes expenses associated with gathering soil, seeds, and tools. The initial expense of tapping into water lines can be quite costly. Larger-scale farms often need refrigeration, sorting/packing facilities, delivery areas, compost areas, and trucks and tractors. Often urban farms face problems with soil contamination and need to pay for soil testing and/or building raised beds. Most urban agriculture programs struggle to understand and address a mix of city permits and policies that affect their ability to garden/farm, which can lead to increased time and costs.
• Training in food production, distribution, marketing, and business planning are often needed. Agricultural training can help ensure greater farming success. Business training and support can help operations that are selling food increase their ability to make a profit – contributing to increased incomes for the farmers and more funds for the farm’s ongoing expenses.
• Urban farms often only generate small or supplemental incomes, for a limited number of people. The income generated from farm sales typically does not provide sufficient wages for full-time employment for farmers. In addition, there are often limits on the number of farmers that can farm on relatively small plots of land in urban areas.