Success Factors

Many strategies are being used to address these challenges.

• Secure long-term use of land through local government policies, land trusts, or by securing permanent land ownership. In many instances, a partnering organization or local government owns the land and has dedicated its use to urban agriculture through easements or more informal agreements. In other cases, organizations are able to purchase the land for their farming operations or hold it in trust for community farmers/gardeners.
• This chart provides examples of policies and programs established in cities’ general plans and zoning codes that can help ensure the long-term use of the urban farm land and protect farmers’ efforts.
• Chicago City Council created a city-funded entity called NeighborSpace which operates as a land trust and is authorized to purchase properties to protect them as open spaces, including community gardens.
• Growing Home in Chicago owns their land outright as they obtained their land through the McKinney Act, which offers federal surplus land for organizations working with homeless individuals.
• Southside Community Land Trust (SCLT), in Providence, Rhode Island, holds title to five acres of inner-city land in trust for community farmers to use. Their initial holdings were both purchased for a low price and received as donations from individuals. In addition, SCLT has supported the development of a network of community gardens, market farms, and school gardens built on land owned by churches, city parks, the state, schools, and businesses. Currently around 750 low-income families grow food in 37 Providence-based community gardens; and seven limited-resource farm businesses collaboratively manage a 50-acre farm on the outskirts of the city. The growers include immigrants from Southeast Asia, Africa, the Caribbean , and Central and South America, as well as residents of the low-income neighborhoods surrounding the gardens and farms.
• Growing Power in Milwaukee and Chicago have multiple sites, some of which they own and some of which they lease or have permission to use. One site was purchased from the city, another site was secured under a 20-year lease agreement with the city, another was purchased in partnership with a local church, and another was established in partnership with the Chicago Parks District and Moore Landscapes, Inc., a private landscaping firm.
• Address potential soil-quality problems. Farmers and gardeners should address soil quality before attempting to plant food. Soil testing can help growers assess toxin levels. Farmers may also want to get a detailed land use history of the site they are considering gardening, since all organic contaminants may not show up in a soil test. Additionally, many large urban farms consist of several plots of land which may have varying levels of lead and other toxins depending on where the soil is tested. If the land is polluted, farmers can use raised beds/hydroponics, remediate the soil, or choose another location. Solutions for planting in areas with contaminated soil include:
  • Build raised beds/hydroponics to protect food from contaminated soil. Some farmers, such as Growing Power, choose to use raised beds and hydroponics to avoid potentially contaminated soil and ensure a high-quality growing environment. These methods also help keep out weeds and some common garden pests. The cost of constructing a raised bed ranges from about $50 to $125.
  • If planting directly in the ground, test the soil.There are labs (for example, see UMASS) that will test for heavy metals. Agricultural soil tests will look more at nutrients, pH, and other qualities important for growing plants. Remediation techniques for cleaning soil include phytoremediation (using highly absorptive plants to take up heavy metals), bioremediation (using microbes to eat certain harmful chemicals), and mycoremediation (using fungi to remove toxins from the soil). Urban farmers/gardeners more commonly use the raised bed method, since it more directly avoids problems of potential soil contamination.
• Identify ways to access water. Tapping into a water main for an urban farm can be very expensive, costing as much as $20,000.
  • In cases where the use of the land for a garden/farm is not permanent, some farmers address this by making arrangements with neighboring residents and paying them for use of that home’s water.
  • In Cleveland, the city water department allows people to access fire hydrants for urban agriculture use. This is a creative stopgap measure until the city is able to address issues of land tenure, which will encourage farmers to invest in formally linking to the city water main.
• Identify and use technical instruction on how to grow, market, and sell food. This instruction can maximize yield for farmers/gardeners and profits for farmers selling their food.
  • Just Food in New York offers an adult Farm School, which will provide professional training in urban agriculture through a two-year certificate program.
  • The Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture (KCCUA) runs programs to train urban farmers. In addition to teaching farming skills, KCCUA trains farmers in financial management, customer communication, marketing, and setting up CSAs.
  • The Latino Farmers Cooperative of Louisiana, based in New Orleans, provides education and training assistance in Spanish to address the needs of emerging Latino farmers, so that they can ultimately run their own sustainable urban agriculture micro enterprises. Participating families also receive access to farmland, tools, and other supports.
  • State extension services, which have traditionally supported individual farmers across the country, can provide technical assistance. State extension services’ funding has been rapidly declining, but they may still be a good urban farming resource.

• Collaborate with other farmers to secure tools, trucks, refrigeration, and other farming needs. Small farmers can work together to create and reach new markets by sharing expenses such as liability insurance, trucks, refrigeration, sorting, and distribution systems. They can also supplement their own offerings by selling other farmers’ produce and added value products.
  • Programs such as the MUD’s Truck Share allows the Missoula community to borrow a truck for occasional use. A $5 nonrefundable application fee is required and a farmer can borrow the truck for $5/hour and $0.45/mile in usage fees.
  • Urban Tilth in Richmond, California, is working to offer a tool lending library that allows community gardeners to borrow tools instead of purchasing them permanently.
• Increase potential revenue by extending the growing season and/or creating economies of scale. Net revenues can be increased by extending the production of the season or area. Expanding the size of urban farms can be helpful in reaching greater economies of scale, though small-scale farms can also be very successful.
  • Farms such as Growing Power use hoop houses to extend the growing season.
  • Green City Growers Cooperative will use a greenhouse to grow lettuces and herbs year-round.
  • SHAR in Detroit is spearheading an effort that will use 30 acres of land for farming as well as value-added food production.
• Work towards greater profitability and long-term sustainability by diversifying urban agriculture operation. Operations with multiple income generating activities tend to have larger total revenues.
  • Sell food from the farm to the consumer. Community supported agriculture, farmers’ markets, and farm stands are all good ways to reach consumers directly.
    • Some farmers use community supported agriculture (CSA)as a distribution tool. This allows farmers to start small, with a consistent set of clients. In some cases, CSAs allow farmers to skip some expensive infrastructure investments such as refrigeration, but in other cases refrigeration is needed to ensure that produce stays fresh in mid-summer.
    • Farmers can sell produce at farmers’ markets and farm stands, whether they are existing markets or new markets/stands that the farmers develop themselves.
  • Sell food to small grocery stores, corner stores, and community co-ops. Small stores and co-ops benefit from sales directly from farmers, and the produce is often less expensive compared to produce sold by large-scale distributors.
    • In Oakland, Mandela Foods Co-op buys produce from local farmers to sell at the worker-owned cooperative, benefitting the farmers, and also the community residents who can purchase fresh, locally grown produce.
    • Nonprofit organizations such as Red Tomato in Massachusetts and Community Alliance with Family Farmers in California serve as a middleman and connect local farmers with markets.
  • Prepare and then sell foods. Some urban farms create value-added products, such as jams or prepackaged cut fruit, which employs more people and generates additional income.
    • Nuestras Raíces transformed an abandoned building on a vacant lot into the Centro Agricola, a community center for small-scale business development. Included is a shared use community kitchen, whose space can be rented by community members for the development of small-scale food preparation enterprises, such as catering, food processing, and the production of sauces.
  • Sell foods from the urban farm along with foods from other local farms. Urban farms can supplement their offerings with goods from other local farms and food producers, acting as a distribution site for locally produced food. This allows the farmers to offer a larger, and more consistent, mix of foods.
    • Added Value, in Brooklyn, operates a CSA that sells produce from their urban farm combined with fruit and eggs from regional rural farmers.
  • Identify other ways to diversify the urban farming operation. Urban farmers can also operate a nursery selling food or non-food plants, raise bees, or provide consulting and trainings to local gardeners.
    • Greensgrow Farm, in Philadelphia, brings in significant revenue to support the overall farming operation through sales of nursery plants, including many non-food plants.
• Identify your market early. Some urban farms make plans for selling/distributing the food they grow as an important first step of their operation.
• Green City Growers in Cleveland is developing agreements to supply lettuces and herbs to local institutions, including a variety of retailers and restaurants. This arrangement helps ensure a consistent, reliable client base. The project is estimated to provide 35 to 40 living-wage jobs for low-income residents from the surrounding community. It is projected that the project will break even in one and a half to two years of operation. They predict that in approximately eight years worker-owners will accrue about $65,000 in patronage accounts in addition to good wages and affordable benefits.
• Evaluate success. Data can help advocates highlight the importance of their work and can provide helpful information for making changes to their operations. Evaluating an urban farming project often requires different metrics from project to project, as different urban farms are typically developed to meet a range of different goals.
  • Urban farmers do not select the same goals or approach them in the same way. For example, some farms focused on jobs may work toward permanent job creation, while others may focus on supplemental income generation or general job skill development. Others may be focused on healthy food access, reuse of vacant land, community revitalization, etc. The measures used must fit the goals of that particular farming operation.
  • Some operations seek to reach full financial sustainability without ongoing operating support, while others do not have this goal but believe that the services they provide merit ongoing investment.Evaluators should account for the farming operation’s philosophy and approach in developing an evaluation plan.