Earth Day is this week, on Wednesday, April 22. From my vantage point, two of the most impactful forces shaping the health of our planet are converging—the climate crisis and urbanization—and it’s up to us whether it’ll be a cataclysmic collision or a chance to collaborate on change.

We’ve just lived through the three hottest years ever on record: 2023, ‘24, and ‘25. Ocean temps were higher than ever last year. And the global population is not only growing but getting more dense: According to United Nations data, close to 70 percent of the world’s population will live in cities by 2030.

What does this mean? In my view, this cements the power—and the responsibility!—of local food and ag systems to lead the charge toward more sustainability and climate resilience on a global scale.

“With bold investments and good planning and design, cities offer immense opportunities to slash greenhouse gas emissions, adapt to the effects of climate change, and sustainably support urban populations,” says António Guterres, Secretary-General of the U.N.

Through efforts like the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP)—signed by more than 330 cities worldwide—local leaders can share knowledge and experiences in strengthening equitable food systems. Earlier this year, I had the honor of emceeing a MUFPP Regional Forum, and the collective food system power we have in each of our communities is electric and unbelievably inspiring.

Already, so many municipalities and local governments and advocates are stepping up to the plate, which is amazing to see and learn from. This Earth Day, I want to highlight some success stories that are turning cities into sites of big-picture transformation:

On the subject of procurement: Last year, Seoul, South Korea launched a new Climate-Friendly Meal Service initiative to expand nutrition education for students and improve the sustainability of food grown for the country’s universal school meals.

“Because school meals are universal and publicly funded, they embody social equity, while simultaneously shaping demand for eco-friendly and local agricultural products,” says Seulgi Son, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Yonsei University.

New York City is prioritizing plant-based meals in public institutions such as schools, where students participate in Meatless Mondays and have “plant-powered” options, and hospitals, where vegetarian options are default. In just the first year of this transition, the city reported a 36 percent reduction in carbon emissions!

When it comes to fighting food waste: Milan, Italy, has launched an award-winning food waste hub model to help the country halve food waste by 2030 by facilitating food recovery and distribution, and each of five hubs within the model have recovered the equivalent of over 260,000 meals per year.

Or, take Baltimore, where the Baltimore Zero Waste Coalition is dedicated to promoting waste diversion practices that minimize landfill or incineration use and maximize recovery work through education, collaboration, and advocacy. Meanwhile, the city is also focusing on better managing the waste that does occur. The city’s Department of Public Works adopted a 10-Year Solid Waste Management Plan in 2024, aimed at increasing organics recycling and promoting backyard and community composting.

And cities can also vitally support farmers and food production: In Brazil, São Paulo’s Connect the Dots program brings together urban buyers for organic produce, helps train the family farms growing those crops in more sustainable practices, and safeguards farms and forests from urban development.

In Xochimilco, in Mexico City, researchers, farmers, and government entities have partnered to create a sustainable certification program that has helped to restore 40+ floating farms, protect endangered axolotls, and connect producers to premium markets while improving local livelihoods.

And across the world in Kenya, we’re seeing action on the county level, too. Several Kenyan counties have adopted policies to expand agroecological production and help farmers access markets.

As U.N. Habitat analysts write, “While the overlapping challenges of environmental stress and rapid urbanization are uniquely daunting, it is precisely this intersection that makes urban climate action so opportune.”

If cities or other local governments where you live are taking bold action on food systems and climate, share their stories. And if your city is not doing its part, then it’s time for us as citizen eaters to use Earth Day as an opportunity to push for change! Reach out to your local elected officials and community advocates this week to share these success stories from other cities. And do reach out to me via email too, to let me know how Food Tank can use our resources to help.

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Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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Development Aid Plummeted in 2025

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), preliminary data show that last year, ODA from member countries and associates of the Development Assistance Committee fell by nearly a quarter compared to 2024.

This is the largest decline in foreign aid in history and it marks the second consecutive year that ODA has fallen. According to the OECD, this means that development assistance is back to where it was when the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was first released.

The United States alone drove the majority of the decline, where ODA fell by nearly 60 percent compared to 2024. Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, and France are also responsible. Together with the U.S. these countries accounted for more than 95 percent of the total decline in ODA. Bilateral aid—financial assistance given from one government to another—and U.N. funding have been hit the hardest.

Carsten Staur, DAC Chair at the OECD says that the world is seeing the exact opposite of what it needs, stating, “We are in a time of increasing humanitarian needs; strong pressures on the poorest and most fragile countries; and facing growing global uncertainties and massive insecurity. In this situation, the world needs more ODA, not less.”

Low Staffing at USDA Slows Progress on Regenerative Agriculture

Politico reports that staffing cuts in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) have left farmers with little to no support as they try to transition to more regenerative practices.

The NRCS has lost more than 2,500 workers—over a fifth of its staff across the country. That’s the second-highest number of any branch at the USDA, which has suffered more than many government agencies. According to an analysis from Inside Climate News, the entire federal government saw a 12 percent reduction in its workforce since President Trump took office, but the USDA lost 21 percent of its staff.

The shortage at NRCS means fewer program applicants, fewer approvals, and more payment delays for conservation work. Gabe Averson, a beef and grain producer in Minnesota, described his local NRCS office as “a ghost town.” And when talking about an employee in his region’s NRCS office, he said they are “spread so thin that they can’t even think straight.”

Other farmers say that they have had to wait weeks to receive basic information on farming practices and grant programs, which has impeded their ability to move forward with conservation projects on their land.

At the end of last year, the USDA announced a US$700 million pilot program to scale regenerative agriculture. At the time, advocates such as Sarah Starman of Friends of the Earth expressed concern that the program can only be effective if the USDA reverses their cuts to conservation staff.

Now producers like Averson, who is a member of the pilot, see why. He says that he has been waiting three or four months “just to get the basic information” about it.

Rwanda’s Capital Takes Steps to Protect Farmland, Scale Urban Agriculture

The city of Kigali is taking steps to protect farmland from development, the Associated Press reports.

Land data from the mayor’s office reveal that the city plans to dedicate 22 percent of land to agriculture. In September, the government began mapping agricultural land and they soon plan to deploy drones for real-time monitoring as they track any developments encroaching on farmland and forests.

Authorities say that they understand that housing construction is attractive, but projects show “farming will be even more productive,” especially at a time when demand for food is rising and the country’s population is growing.

To encourage local production, city developers are also requiring that developers seeking building permits, include green spaces and gardens in their designs.

Richard Bucyana, an agronomist, says that he wants to see African governments “start thinking how they can be self-sustainable.” He and other young agronomists are training farmers to embrace technologies like hydroponics to get around limited land access and maximize productivity.

Bangladesh Launches New Scheme to Boost Agricultural Productivity for Small Farmers 

This week, the Banladeshi government launched a “Farmers’ Card” scheme, which is designed to support the country’s farmers and help modernize the agricultural sector. The initiative is focused on small farmers, including sharecroppers who often lack access to banks or other forms of institutional support.

During the official launch event Prime Minister Tarique Rahman said, “If farmers of this country are well-off, if the ​farmers of this country survive, then the whole of Bangladesh will do ​well and the people of entire Bangladesh will live well.”

Developed with guidance from the Ministry of Agriculture and in collaboration with Sonali Bank PLC, the card integrates identification with digital payment capabilities, helping farmers access government services and benefits more efficiently, according to a press release.

Those registered in the program will receive access to subsidized fertilizers and seeds, agricultural machinery, low-interest loans, crop insurance, and advisory services.

Shawkat Ali Khan, Managing Director and CEO of Sonali Bank PLC says that the initiative is “strengthening how financial support is delivered to farmers across Bangladesh.”

The scheme is beginning with a pilot project that includes more than 22,000 farmers. It will then be rolled out in phases over the next five years. By the end, the government hopes to reach all 27.5 million farmers in the country.

U.S. Makes Progress on Food Waste

ReFED’s 2026 U.S. Food Waste Report reveals that in 2024, total surplus food decreased to 70 million tons, representing a 2.2 percent reduction from 2023 levels. That’s equal to a 3.7 percent decrease per capita.

ReFED finds that households are helping to drive this progress. Residential food waste fell by nearly 950,000 tons. This is the first year-to-year reduction in food waste since there was a dip during the COVID-19 pandemic, which the organization calls “a significant milestone in the movement to reduce food waste.”

At a time when eaters are looking for ways to stretch their dollars, Dana Gunders, President of ReFED says, “this is an opportune moment to focus on wasting less food…The wind is at our backs, and it’s time to step on the gas.”

ReFED’s report also digs into the food waste solutions that are working — like centralized composting and smaller portion sizes — and why they’re so impactful. It also outlines opportunities such as legislation and AI that can be unlocked to drive progress even further.

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Photo courtesy of Kabiur Rahman Riyad, Unsplash

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Founded by Allison DeHonney, the organization operates primarily on Buffalo’s East Side, where limited access to affordable, nutritious food contributes to high rates of diet-related disease including diabetes, hypertension, and obesity. 28.3 percent of Buffalo’s population lives below the poverty line, and 24 percent is food-insecure.

DeHonney launched Buffalo Go Green without formal training in agriculture or healthcare, instead drawing on experience in business and insurance to address structural drivers of poor health.

“The impetus of the organization, after doing research on health disparities, was addressing the lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables and the lack of knowledge surrounding healthy food choices,” DeHonney tells Food Tank.

DeHonney began by starting a farm, focusing on healthy soil, non-GMO seeds, and growing practices designed to produce nutrient-dense food. To fight health disparities and their effects, Buffalo Go Green developed produce prescription programs, where patients are provided with prescriptions for fruits and vegetables to bolster their health, and prepared meal programs for the underserved.

The organization operates year-round growing facilities that yield hundreds of pounds of organic fruits and vegetables. It also runs mobile produce markets to ensure Buffalo residents can access nutritious food where and when they need it.

As DeHonney spent time engaging with community members at markets and on the farm, education became a focal point. She found that access alone was insufficient, particularly in dense urban neighborhoods with limited growing space. “So much harm has been done in these communities,” DeHonney explains, noting that education helps build lasting skills and confidence around food choices.

Buffalo Go Green’s education programs now span home growing, greenhouse management, nutrition, cooking, and food systems literacy. Participants receive hands-on training, books for guidance, and exposure to the institutions working to improve food access in the area.

As New York expands Food is Medicine through a Medicaid 1115 Waiver, Buffalo Go Green has identified a critical gap between screening patients for food insecurity and delivering effective services. When individuals are deemed eligible under the waiver program, they are directed to a community-based organization, regional non-profits, or health care providers for support.

“Once people are screened as food insecure and navigated to us, life doesn’t stop,” DeHonney says, pointing to changes in housing, caregiving responsibilities, allergies, and weekly needs. Existing systems, she notes, are not designed to track those shifting realities over the months someone receives services. Without that information, providers risk missing opportunities to support the nuances of participants’ lives and sustained behavior change around shopping, cooking, and nutrition.

To address this gap, Buffalo Go Green is launching a new platform designed to strengthen service delivery under the 1115 waiver. Originally developed as a point-of-sale and inventory system for farmers markets, the updated platform will include a new layer focused on individual service delivery. The tool allows staff to capture what a participant needs week to week, while also generating aggregate data to inform program design and policy discussions.

“It’s based on the individual, but we can aggregate all of that,” DeHonney says, citing insights such as housing instability that are often invisible in traditional reporting systems. The platform is expected to launch imminently.

Along with on-the-ground service delivery, Buffalo Go Green participates in food policy coalitions and national networks, lending on-the-ground insight into how policy decisions affect implementation. DeHonney views this role as essential to ensuring Food Is Medicine policies translate into real-world impact.

The organization’s commitment to co-production with universities and partners has shaped both its programming and research collaborations. “These relationships don’t have to be complicated,” DeHonney says, emphasizing trust, responsiveness, and shared problem-solving.

Looking ahead, Buffalo Go Green is expanding through a holistic wellness and agricultural education campus that will include a teaching kitchen, a small market, a juice bar, and indoor hydroponic growing. The goal, DeHonney says, is to grow without losing the community-centered approach that has defined the organization’s work from the beginning.

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Photo courtesy of David Lang, Unsplash 

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Has the Vertical Farming Bubble Burst?

The New York Times recently reported on the future of vertical farming in the United States.

In December, AeroFarms announced they lost their biggest investor and would be forced to close. And although they received temporary financing and have shared that they have a non-binding letter of intent to sell the company, they still could shut down this month. And both Bowery Farming and AppHarvest, have gone out of business despite raising US$938 million and US$792 million in venture capital funding, respectively.

According to the Times, 23 companies signed a Vertical Farming Manifesto in the Fall of 2022, as they came together to commit to feeding a rapidly growing population with fewer resources and protecting humanity. Today, less than half of these companies are still operating. 

Omar Asali, whose investment firm One Madison Group invested in the vertical farm Plenty says, “The industry went through a very difficult time” as they faced extremely thin margins, high energy costs, and less available funding from venture capital as interest rates rose. Nona Yehia, behind Vertical Harvest, also believes that few eaters are seeking out vertically farmed produce. That’s why she’s targeting a specific part of the market: schools, hospitals, and local grocers. 

The article asks whether vertical farming can truly compete with soil-based agriculture. And while some business leaders interviewed like Mike Zelkind, Co-Founder of 80 Acre Farms, believe that vertical farming will never be a replacement, Zelkind says there’s still “value there” in the work that is being done by the industry’s pioneers.

Federal Court Dismisses Challenge to Animal Welfare Regulations

A federal judge recently rejected the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit against the state of California, Governor Gavin Newsom, Attorney General Rob Bonta and other state officials over California’s Proposition 12.

First passed in 2018 and going into effect in 2024, Prop 12 strengthened protections for California’s livestock by banning the in-state sale of products that came from the extreme confinement of egg-laying hens, pigs, and newborn calves for veal. The U.S. Supreme Court already upheld the constitutionality of Prop 12 in 2023 after it was challenged by the National Pork Producers Council and American Farm Bureau Federation—a decision that Harvard Law School’s Animal Law & Policy Clinic called “a momentous win for the animal protection movement.”

Then in 2025, the DOJ filed a lawsuit taking issue with the Proposition’s egg provisions, arguing that regulating eggs falls under the purview of the federal government. They said that Prop 12 was, on its face, meant to increase animal welfare by reducing threats to the health and safety of California’s eaters. But it was actually “driven by activists’ conception of what qualifies as ‘cruel’ animal housing, not by consumer purchasing decisions or scientifically based food safety or animal welfare standards.”

Last week, however, U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi, appointed by President Trump, tossed out the complaint, calling the allegations by the DOJ “undisguised legal conclusions in search of substantiating facts. The Judge also expressed concerns about “the potential for abuse of the federal courts” if the case moved forward simply because decision makers at the agency don’t like a state law at odds with their politics.

Companies and animal welfare advocates are now turning to Michigan where they are awaiting the results of a similar lawsuit against the state over cage-free egg laws.

More Countries to Face Critical Food Insecurity if World Heats by 2°C

A new analysis from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) finds that the number of countries falling into critical food insecurity could almost triple if global temperatures increase by 2°C.

The burden is expected to be felt unequally, with low-income nations and countries facing conflict—whose systems are already fragile—expected to see the greatest decline in food availability and nutritional variety. Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Haiti, and Mozambique, are some of the most affected countries.

Rising temperatures are expected to widen the food security gap between rich nations and poorer ones, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. But the IIED states that richer countries are “far from immune” from the climate crisis, and “strain induced by climate change shows first in supply chains and countries’ underlying ability to keep quality food accessible over time—even in the rich world.”

According to Ritu Bharadwaj, Director of Climate Resilience for the Institute, “This research shows that, yet again, it’s the poorest countries with the least responsibility for climate change that will suffer its worst effects.” But she adds that catastrophe isn’t inevitable. She adds that the investment in social protection schemes can keep disasters from “becoming full blown crises.” This includes helping farmers adapt to extreme weather by improving water management, soil quality, and crop variety. 

New Initiative Launches to Support Climate-Resilient Agriculture

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) announced the launch of the Collaboration for Agricultural Transformation through Advanced Learning, Science & Technology, or CATALYST.

The initiative is focused on strengthening relationships between research and industry to deliver solutions for farmers, which Himanshu Pathak, Director General of ICRISAT, calls “essential to scaling climate-resilient agriculture.” It will focus on four broad areas—research for development, consulting and advisory, technology and digital solutions, and training and capacity building—and is meant to provide a structured platform for industry leaders to engage with ICRISAT’s research. 

This will help accelerate crop productivity, strengthen seed systems, expand agribusiness opportunities, and advance climate-resilient farming across the drylands of Asia and Africa.

Côte D’Ivoire Builds Tech Hubs for Women Farmers

Côte d’Ivoire is developing the country’s first technology hubs designed to empower women farmers.

Led by the country’s Ministry of Women, Family and Children and the Ministry of Digital Transition and Digitalization, the initiative will support women’s adoption of digital tools and strengthen their agricultural processing skills to improve their productivity. 

The Ministries are currently working to select sites for the hubs, where women will be exposed to modern technologies. Women will also have access to training and mentorship programs that will help accelerate the growth of women-led enterprises in the food and agriculture sector. 

This initiative is part of a broader plan to build modern agricultural processing centers across 15 localities in nine districts, which will be used to convert raw staple crops into value-added products. The centers will also include laboratories, processing workshops, training rooms, and exhibition spaces.

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Photo courtesy of Marcus Spiske, Unsplash

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According to the Department of Justice, more than 600,000 people are released from United States prisons each year. Nearly two thirds of them will return within three years. But ALMA wants to disrupt this trend.

ALMA’s mission extends beyond food production. The organization wants to bridge the gap between criminal justice and food justice and demonstrate that sustainable agriculture can be a powerful force for healing land, people, and communities.

“There’s no shame in my story anymore,” says Dennis Meman, Associate Farm Manager and formerly incarcerated for 27 years. “Working here gave me a sense of trust, something I hadn’t felt in a long time.”

Meman traces his connection to farming back to his childhood in the Philippines where backyard gardens were an important part of his life. At ALMA, he found more than employment. He also reconnected with the land, which has driven personal and communal growth.

ALMA’s Co-founders Richard Garcia and Erika Cueller launched the project in 2013 to address food injustice and the growing need for long-term solutions to reentry.

“We didn’t want to replicate the same transactional models,” Garcia tells Food Tank. “At ALMA, work is relational. It’s about restoring dignity, not just getting people a job.”

Participants in ALMA’s program receive training in organic farming techniques, food safety, composting, and harvesting. Garcia describes the work as “caring for living things,” noting that the skills learned on the farm often mirror the emotional labor of rebuilding one’s life post-incarceration.

Garcia sums it up best: “Working with plants is like working with infinity. You plant one seed, and it keeps growing. That’s what we’re doing here, one person, one plot at a time.”

ALMA’s flagship farm in Compton is intentionally embedded within the community it serves and accessible to the public. Monthly public brunches and seasonal events transform the farm into gathering spaces, where neighbors come together over fresh, locally grown meals.

“When people visit, they don’t ask, ‘How long were you in prison?’” Garcia tells Food Tank. “They ask, ‘Where did you get this tomato?’ That changes the conversation.”

Garcia believes the farm’s community integration has helped shift perceptions. It also addresses food insecurity in a neighborhood where access to fresh, affordable produce is limited. As cities and states across the U.S. experiment with alternatives to incarceration, ALMA hopes it can offer a working model.

But the organization has challenges. Restrictive zoning laws, for example, can make it difficult to revitalize vacant lots. Garcia also describes a “tension between the city’s vision of development and our vision of community.” But, he says, “we believe money and resources follows mission. If we stay rooted in our values, the rest will come.”

With Los Angeles set to host the 2028 Summer Olympics, Garcia also sees a unique opportunity for ALMA to share its mission with a global audience. “When the world comes to L.A., I hope they’ll visit the farm,” he tells Food Tank. “I want them to see that transformation is possible, not just in sports, but in our justice system, our food systems, and in people’s lives.”

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Photo courtesy of ALMA Backyard Farms

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“Growing up as a young kid, there was no guarantee that we could get 3 meals in a day. I used to depend on the school meal. It was a challenge that many people are facing,” Greg Kimani, the CEO of City Shamba, says in the Food 2050 film, which premieres January 2026 in partnership with Media RED, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Food Tank. “If my neighbor cannot have food, we are not food secure.”

This belief reflects a broader cultural value rooted in Ubuntu, an Indigenous African philosophy of interconnectedness. 

“When I was growing up, sharing food was a common thing that we did. It’s about the value of Ubuntu, [meaning] ‘I am because we are.’ It’s the spirit of helping one another. It’s the spirit of sharing,” says Dr. Elizabeth Kimani-Murage, a Research Scientist at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC). 

“But the world is urbanizing, and we are losing that culture of Ubuntu,” says Dr. Kimani-Murage.

Nairobi’s population is projected to triple by 2050 to more than 10 million people. Historically, the city relied on rural communities for food, but those areas have increasingly urbanized themselves, reducing agricultural production. Dr. Kimani-Murage, who has conducted research on nutrition and food security among the urban poor for more than two decades, has seen firsthand how these shifts have deepened inequality. Today, she promotes agroecological urban farming across socioeconomic divides to “ensure that people can produce safe food for themselves and feed themselves with dignity.” 

In Nairobi, affordability—not availability—is often the core problem, according to Dr. Kimani-Murage. Because many residents cannot afford market prices, the food supply can exceed demand. “A lot of the food finds itself in the dump site, and people go to scavenge on that food,” either feeding it to their families or selling it to others, says Dr. Kimani-Murage.

City Shamba was founded to challenge the assumption that dense urban areas cannot produce food. The organization trains residents in vertical farming techniques to maximize productivity in limited spaces. It provides seedlings and soil, which are often difficult to access. Kimani’s team also prioritizes nutrient-rich Indigenous vegetables, helping households improve nutrition while reducing costs.

According to David Osogo, a Research Officer at APHRC, City Shamba shows that urban areas themselves can be part of the solution to food insecurity and malnutrition.

“Urban farming almost gives you instant results,” says Osogo. “We have seen communities in the informal settlement feed off their tiny kitchen gardens…school children eating lunch and eating hot meals that are directly from vegetables from the farms…chicken from the poultry farms within the schools.”

These community-led efforts are supported by Dr. Kimani-Murage’s vision, “A Place of Cool Waters”—the translation of the Indigenous name for Nairobi—which was named a Rockefeller Foundation Top Food System Visionary in 2020 and featured in the Food 2050 film. It provides grants to grassroots organizations including City Shamba that are rethinking food production and access in urban spaces. This work is also advancing what Dr. Kimani-Murage describes as a “right to food movement” in Kenya.

“It is important that people can take charge of what they’re eating,” says Dr. Kimani-Murage. “We really want to promote the spirit of Ubuntu, encouraging people to share any excess food…so that food is not just seen as a commodity, it is seen as a common good and a human right.”

Since the Food 2050 filming, the initiative has expanded to cities throughout Kenya and gained international attention: In 2023, King Charles III visited City Shamba’s facilities. But Dr. Kimani-Murage’s long-term vision has expanded beyond food—she sees climate action as critical to food systems transformation.

“We have embraced climate action as a key driver of this work,” says Dr. Kimani-Murage. “Food security and nutrition are very heavily impacted by climate change. By encouraging climate action, you are also promoting food security and optimal nutrition.”

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“Lima is in fact green. It’s just not green for everybody,” Parsa says in the Food 2050 film, which premieres January 2026 in partnership with Media RED, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Food Tank. “There are two Limas,” and many remote, isolated, and low-income communities in the city pay as much as ten times the price that wealthier residents pay for water.

Parsa founded Lima 2035 with a vision to transform Lima by first enabling equitable access to water. Simple sheets of mesh, called mist catchers or fog nets, have been used for years in hillside communities that lack access to running water. The nets intercept fog as wind blows it through, causing tiny water droplets to stick to its fibers and drip into storage tanks, capturing 200 to 400 liters (53 to 79 gallons) of fresh water per day. 

“Although we do not have rain, the water that evaporates from the Pacific Ocean gets captured in dense fog that becomes somewhat of an airborne aquifer. When fog meets the Andes, the landscape is turned green,” says Parsa. “How do we unlock that water? How do we make it freely available to people?”

With a new “harvesting tower” design by Alberto Fernandez, Lima 2035 is working to expand the surface area that captures fog, reclaiming up to 10,000 liters (more than 2,600 gallons) of fresh water per day for remote and isolated communities. “Once we are able to bridge the water access gap, then many more opportunities become available,” says Parsa.

Lima 2035’s second innovation promotes local food sovereignty. Alison Anaya, farmer and founder of Huertos En Azoteas, creates compact, efficient farming units that transform underutilized city rooftops into flourishing garden spaces. This not only provides fresh, locally grown vegetables and herbs to city residents but also a source of income and employment.

“The majority of the people, they do not have the resources to pay for one vegetable,” says Anaya. These rooftop gardens are “diversifying their diet, teaching them to sow, to have their own garden from which they can feed. And they can also generate extra income for their family.”

Huertos En Azoteas has installed rooftop gardens across Lima’s most underserved neighborhoods, prioritizing schools, community centers, and households led by women. The system uses recycled materials and focuses on water-saving techniques to minimize waste. Since winning the Food System Visionary prize in 2020, Anaya says her team has also developed an app that allows customers to scan a QR code and see detailed information about growing practices, inputs, and harvest timelines.

Today, the model is helping to restore a sense of dignity and self-reliance within the urban food system.

“When you step inside [the rooftop garden], despite being in the middle of the city, there is a surprising color,” says Anaya. “It feels like a small green room suspended above the urban chaos. A place where you can work, observe, and also just pray for a while.”

Lima 2035’s third innovation builds on this by recognizing the city’s rich food culture spanning thousands of years. Lima’s network of 350 archaeological sites, which were sacred in ancient times, is in danger of disappearing amid dense urban development. Architect and Urban Designer Jean Pierre envisions turning these spaces into community hubs, where people can visit a farmers’ market, exchange seeds, or take a gastronomy tour. 

“The only way to preserve these places is by activating them,” says Pierre. “And the answer is food.”

This model has archeological sites participating in urban life, rather than slowly and quietly eroding into neglect, says Pierre. Together with Lima 2035’s other innovations—capturing water from fog, growing food on rooftops—it offers a blueprint for how cities facing deep inequality can build resilience using simple tools, community leadership, and food as a unifying force.

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In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to embrace remote learning models, we had to decide what to do with the food hubs and farms at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC). We couldn’t tend to the produce from our homes, but we realized what we were doing was too important to stop. Lines at food banks were getting longer and the need from the community was only growing. We chose to keep the farms rolling. Each week, we loaded up UDC’s food truck with our produce and delivered it to our partners at the nonprofit Martha’s Table and local D.C. churches, who then distributed it to keep our neighbors—and our city—fed. 

Today, 55 percent of the world’s population lives in an urban environment, and this is projected to increase to almost 70 percent by 2050, according to the United Nations. But limited food access and nutrition security, rising food costs, limited space for local food production, and—from my personal standpoint—low or nonexistent urban farming literacy are pushing the urban environment to its limits.

To nourish a growing urban population, we need the same social values—dignity, equity, political awareness—that we upheld in our D.C. community during the pandemic. The good news is that urban agroecology (UA+) offers an ecologically sound and socially just framework to reshape food systems in cities in this way. 

Both Urban Agriculture (UA) and UA+ can increase food production in urban areas by enhancing food and nutrition security. But UA—like agriculture—is a broad term that can include subsistence, organic, and industrialized ways of growing food. In contrast, agroecology is a movement and practice that prioritizes diversity, knowledge co-creation, economic and social well-being, and food culture. When applied in cities, UA+ addresses the need for equitable food systems in which people can exercise choice over what they eat and how and where it is produced. 

Put simply: UA+ makes the urban environment more resilient because it is run for and by the people who reside there.

There are many challenges to scaling UA+, including limited land access, a lack of economic resources, and bureaucratic barriers. Urban land remains limited and expensive, and cities tend to prioritize housing, retail and commercial development due to their ability to generate immediate tax revenue. This means that urban food producers are priced out, even if their work contributes to better living standards.

In Washington, D.C., the Urban Farming and Food Security Amendment Act of 2016 was enacted to enable qualified residents to lease vacant, District- and privately-owned land for urban farms.The owners of the property could then pay reduced property taxes. But the number of vacant plots is limited and access to them is inequitable. Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) farmers are less likely to receive loans, grants, capital, and investments to start their farms. And most importantly, they are often left out of the urban planning processes, which means their food needs are not centered in policy decisions.

But we need UA+ more than ever. One reason why: in the US, science is increasingly mistrusted and under threat, which can lead to weakened food systems and poor public health outcomes. UA+ offers an antidote to this, as it creates hands-on and personal relationships with science. Composting, crop rotation, soil testing, pest control, and crop biodiversity are all examples of science in action.

This year, UDC’s Center for Urban Agriculture and Gardening Education implemented a new program called the Citizen Science and Food Systems Project. This project recruits people from the community, who may not have the time or space to tend to an urban garden, to participate in the science of UA+. In June, the program kicked off at our food hub sites, where we are looking at container crop production. Participants are able to collect yield data, monitor pests, manage nutrients, and select crops specific to this way of growing food. 

We may start talking about a bambino eggplant and other crops that grow well in small spaces, but it’s a domino effect. UA+ helps to build ecological literacy, which helps humans mitigate climate instability such as urban heat, flooding, fire, and water shortages. We are educating people for sustainability in the 21st century. 

Fortunately, this is also a model that can be replicated. When we teach communities to embrace the values and practices of UA+ and apply these in their own cities, it can help them create independent, sustainable cooperatives. And this, in turn, can support community-controlled food systems, foster economic self-reliance, and promote collective ownership and decision-making. 

Urban agroecology is not a cure-all. But it is a crucial piece of the food systems puzzle. If embraced equitably and ecologically, it offers the urban environment a path toward greater resilience, justice, and sustainability.

Photo courtesy of Che Axum

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Grobrix founder Mathew Howe tells Food Tank that both Scandinavian principles, and the concept of Lego blocks, inspired the design. Anyone can install a Grobrix garden–in workplaces, hotels, or private homes. The only requirements are electricity, water, and enough space for the vertical wall unit.

Customers pay a one-time installation fee, and a monthly service fee, and leave the rest to Grobrix. Each plant “plug” starts in their nursery, and upon installation benefits from a special light blend that supports optimal plant growth. The hydroponic system operates as a closed loop, which means access to a water main is not necessary.

“Everything is automated,” Howe says. This makes a smooth farming experience for customers, even without previous farming knowledge.  “We think everyone should be an urban farmer, if only for one hour a week,” he tells Food Tank.

Customers can choose their level of involvement. Grobrix staff can provide workshops on urban farming, farm to table meals, and herbal tea and infusions from the harvest.

Green City Growers (GCG), based in the U.S., has been supporting urban farm development since 2008. Operating with a similar philosophy as Grobrix, GCG designs, installs, and maintains urban gardens for clients in the Boston area, reaching everyone from school-age children to seniors. The company’s educational team encourages engagement through wellness programming, K-12 educational programming, and pop-up events.

“Successful gardens are the best tool for educating the next generation of environmentalists,” GCG President Christopher Grallert tells Food Tank.

The GCG team offers a wide array of urban garden models from raised beds to rooftops. And they are now partnering with Grobrix as an indoor growing option. Grallert says that Grobrix’s practical approach drew his attention. “In farming, as in many businesses, complexity is the enemy.” The simplicity of Grobrix “underpins its success,” he tells Food Tank.

GCG works in more than 50 Boston Public Schools and according to Grallert the “accessible and functional” hydroponic systems that Grobrix provides allows them to “deliver objective, realistic, and engaging programs that promote food system literacy.”

Both organizations share a vision for “a localized, participatory food system,” Grallert says. And adds Howe, “communities should have a closer relationship with the source of their food.”

And Howe says that food is a powerful connector, stating that “food has this unique way of bringing people together and we believe it can create communities where people can come together and learn.”

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Photo courtesy of Grobrix

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According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Access Research Atlas, all eight of East Knoxville’s census tracts are designated low income, low food access areas. Rooted East Founder Femeika Elliott describes an abundance of convenience stores and liquor stores in the area and points to the historic redlining and displacement of Black residents that led to this. “You can’t make a salad anywhere in East Knoxville,” she tells Food Tank.

“We heard a lot of talk about food insecurity and food deserts within the city, but nobody was talking about food apartheid,” Elliott explains. “Food apartheid is strategic. When we found out what to name this, which is food apartheid, we were like, it’s time to get to work.”

Elliott founded the organization with pastor-turned-gardener Chris Battle in 2022. Battle was using a converted minibus to distribute fresh produce from his urban farm throughout East Knoxville. Although the community was grateful for the produce, Elliot says, “they wanted somebody to teach them how to grow their own food.” The first Rooted East meeting included only six people, gathered in a private kitchen.

Since then, Rooted East has focused on using garden education and land partnerships to create a self-sustaining food system. The organization teaches people how to grow food using ancestral wisdom and reparative agriculture techniques, feeding into their mission of “establishing a community led and hyper local food system,” according to Elliott. She describes positive results of their efforts including reports from new gardeners about improved mental, physical, and emotional health.

Rooted East values contributions from elders who grew food before discriminatory policies in the 20th century created the food apartheid seen today. “We had community elders who were doing food justice work,” Elliott explains. “They were farmers, they were gardeners, they tended to the lands. They did a lot of skill sharing to preserve community sufficiency.”

“There’s a lot of trauma getting back to the land—when we talk about involuntary servitude and what our ancestors have been through over the past 200-plus years,” Elliott says. “But also, there’s beauty in learning about what’s happening right underneath our noses.”

The East Knoxville elders who partner with Rooted East represent key voices in Roots of Resilience, which, Levy explains, helps preserve a side of history that is largely undocumented. “They have so much to say, and not even just elders, but people in the community who don’t really reach the masses,” he tells Food Tank. “I felt like it was a true calling to make sure that I helped tell those stories with a simple microphone and a camera.”

The film “is an ode not to us. This is an ode to them,” Elliott says about the elders featured. “To uplift their stories, to tell their narratives. Letting them have a sense of dignity and integrity, and telling their lived experiences was amazing.”

During screenings of Roots of Resilience, Levy noticed that the documentary is spurring conversations about not only not just the film, but the themes it explores. “It seemed as if people were having conversations with the film,” Levy says.

Looking forward, Rooted East hopes to increase farmland access for the community through land trust models, acquiring land to steward that might otherwise be left fallow. According to American Farmland Trust, if recent trends continue, Tennessee could lose over 1 million acres of farmland by 2040. Rooted East is seeking partnerships with landowners, especially churches and blighted plots, to create gardens and farms that benefit the wider community.

Elliott tells Food Tank that after the documentary, an abundance of people expressed an interest in volunteering at local gardens. “The best thing to do, aside from donating out of your pocket, is to donate your time,” she says, adding that people of all ages and skill levels can be valuable to the movement.

“Everybody plays a role in the food system. Everybody plays a role, or should be playing a role, in the community,” says Elliott. “The bottom line is, we are here to take care of each other and our neighbors, and we have to get back to that.”

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Photo courtesy of Ronald Levy

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Since 2017, the HIP program has provided additional money for recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to purchase fresh, local produce from participating markets. In turn, the program also incentivizes farmers to sell their products in underserved areas. Similar programs exist in 26 other states.

Massachusetts Food System Collaborative (MAFSC) reports that since HIP was first created, almost 300,000 individuals have utilized HIP benefits. And U.S. Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA) calls the program a “resounding success” throughout the state.

“This is one of the tools we have to really help folks address challenges with being able to afford the basic grocery staples that everybody wants to have access to,” Aliza Wasserman, Director of Boston’s Office of Food Justice, tells Food Tank. “As well as making sure that those dollars are supporting Massachusetts farmers and building that resilient food system while we do it.”

After recent budget cuts, what used to be a monthly budget of US$40-80 depending on family size, is now US$20. The number of members in a household no longer has any bearing on benefits. Since the budget cut went into effect, sales at HIP-eligible markets have dropped by 56 percent compared to the same time last year.

According to Wasserman, older adults who face food insecurity are among those most affected by the cuts. Additionally, larger households may not find it worthwhile to shop at farmers markets now that the benefits have been reduced. “When you think about how much food costs in a month for five people, it’s pretty devastating,” she says.

Fresh Truck mobile market volunteer Ted Gilbert echoed this sentiment: “I’ve heard a lot that the US$20 doesn’t do anything for the family,” he tells Food Tank. But, Gilbert argues, US$20 in benefits is better than nothing. “I actually argued with a couple of the customers that the $20 still helped because they didn’t want to shop.” Fresh Truck reports that about 98 percent of their sales utilize HIP benefits.

Farmers are also concerned about the cuts, as HIP provides revenue and incentive to sell in food-apartheid areas. “It’s not so much our profit margin—it’s our survival margin,” Chris Kurth, who owns Siena Farms in Sudbury, MA, tells Food Tank. “We’ve really built our business around the program, so we’re quite vulnerable as a business when the funding gets cut.” Siena Farms is one of a handful of HIP-eligible points of sale available year-round in the Boston Public Market.

Farmers are also worried about a loss of trust in customer relationships. “We spent the whole fall trying to build people’s trust,” Ava Spach, Food Access Service Member at New Entry Sustainable Farming Project, tells Food Tank. New Entry, located in Beverly, MA, is entering their second season selling food. “Now we have to go back and say, just kidding, it’s been cut, you only have US$20.”

When HIP was created, its pilot budget was just US$1.35 million, compared to nearly US$19 million in FY2024. Still, it comprises a small portion of the state’s nearly US$60 billion budget. Although MA Governor Maura Healey requested a US$5 million increase in HIP funding in an FY25 budget recommendation, which would bring the HIP budget to US$25 million, the state legislature cut the program to US$15 million.

“The power of the food dollar is so important,” Ludia Modi, Director of Learning and Programs at The Food Project, tells Food Tank. The food justice and youth development organization helped develop the initial HIP program in 2017 and has been advocating for it since. “So being able to have policies like HIP really puts money back into consumers’ pockets and therefore helps them build stronger economies and just stronger people in general.”

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According to Agrarian Trust, more than 40 percent of U.S. farmland will change hands over the next 15 years.

The average age of the country’s farmers is 58 years old, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports. “A lot of folks are retiring,” Jean Theron Willoughby, Executive Director at Agrarian Trust, tells Food Tank. This, she says, presents an opportunity for worker and community ownership, “rather than just selling to the highest bidder on the speculative market.”

Agrarian Trust supports community-led endeavors to steward this farmland in ways that are sustainable and equitable by partnering with local organizations.

Farmland is most at-risk of being transitioned into a non-agricultural use when it is sold, according to American Farmland Trust. “Farmland is really a national treasure, but it’s not protected that way in the U.S.,” Willoughby tells Food Tank.

Agrarian Trust believes that local farmers can be great stewards of land, which is why they work with local Agrarian Commons to fundraise money to purchase land. The land is then held by the trust, and leased to local farmers at affordable rates.

Cameron Terry of Garden Variety Harvests is one farmer who faced difficulty in finding farmland. He started his business in Roanoke, VA by farming on borrowed spaces of land in other people’s yards.

“I wanted an opportunity to operate a business just like anybody who wants to open up a bakery or a coffee shop or a law firm. You lease a place and run the business there. And that opportunity just does not exist for someone who wants to run a farming business,” Terry tells Food Tank.

A survey from the National Young Farmer Coalition finds that land access is the greatest challenge facing the next generation of farmers. But for the health of our food system, it’s critical that newer farmers can access land, Willoughby explains. “It’s an important time to be involved in building soil, building a farm, to have access when you have the ability to do it,” she says.

Owning a farm and making the investments into the land seemed like an unlikely opportunity for Terry. “I had a few thousand dollars in savings, but nothing where I was going to be able to go buy land to farm…anywhere,” he tells Food Tank.

Terry says he also has “real misgivings” about the concept of private land ownership.  “I think maybe a different path could have been taken that would have yielded much better for our society than the way we deal with private land and exclusion of people now,” he adds.

An elder farmer approached Terry with the idea of passing along his Roanoke property, Lick Run Farms, to another farmer. “It was really hard to nail down what that relationship [would look like]. We didn’t know the shape of the thing we were looking for,” Terry says.

Agrarian Trust was the intermediary that both parties were looking for. Using the national connections of Agrarian Trust, the Southwest Virginia Agrarian Commons –Terry’s local “commons”–raised the money to buy Lick Run Farms. Agrarian Trust is now the deed holder, and will take rent payments from Terry. “[The lease] is basically infinite, and inheritable to whoever I chose to leave it to,” he tells Food Tank.

Terry plans to continue his current level of production, and use his farm to educate others. “I’m going to spend a lot of time sharing what I know, what I’ve learned about how to grow food, to anybody in Roanoke and the nearby region who will listen. And we’ll keep growing our little one-acre market garden,” Terry says.

While other farmers may find themselves in a similar position to Terry, Willoughby believes every case is unique and that the ultimate goal is to “de-commodify” land. “We want to be working together, learning from each other and exploring what the commons can look like,” she says.

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Photo courtesy of Garden Variety Harvests

The post A New Path to Sustainable Farming: An Agrarian Commons Approach appeared first on Food Tank.

Cornell worked with Rooted, a Madison, WI based nonprofit, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) to create the courses. They also draw on the research conduct for the University’s report, The Promise of Urban Agriculture.

“There was interest in trying to figure out how to take all that research and put it into action,” Molly Riordan, Chair of the Food Systems Planning Division of the American Planning Association and co-author of the report, tells Food Tank. The courses provide an opportunity for growers to learn from their peers, says Riordan. “This isn’t academic best practices. This is what people have been doing in other cities and this is what we can learn from it,” she says.

Marcia Caton Campbell, former Executive Director at Rooted, says that growers’ expertise drives the content. “One of the things we were committed to in the courses was making sure that practitioners had a large voice,” she tells Food Tank.

The first two courses—Deciding Where to Grow in the City and Urban Farm Planning and Management—target urban growers who are curious about expanding their operations. “The goal is that people who have a little bit of farming knowledge and experience are finding opportunities in the grower’s courses to figure out how to scale up, and the real nuts and bolts of what it takes to do that,” Riordan says.

The third course, Urban Farming by Community Nonprofits, supports people curious about moving into the nonprofit sphere. In addition, it helps current organization staff who want to incorporate urban agriculture into their work.

The fourth course, Urban Agriculture Skills for Planners, is for urban planners, policymakers, and extension staff at universities. The planners course aims “to help them better understand the context in which urban agriculture takes place. And it helps planners identify and eliminate the barriers to urban agriculture,” Caton Campbell tells Food Tank.

Riordan sees urban farming as a gateway. “[It’s] a kind of starting point for a lot of different people’s journey into understanding food systems, understanding social justice, and thinking about how they can use their own assets, talents, skills, resources, to work toward a food future that values the wellbeing of people and animals and the planet,” she tells Food Tank.

Riordan and Caton Campbell agree that the benefits of urban agriculture are difficult to quantify. “Community gardening is as much about the social gathering and community connection as it is about food production,” Caton Campbell says.

The courses are free to pique people’s curiosity. “We’ve just been really excited to share this information, and we want more people to be exposed to it,” says Riordan. “Even if they don’t go through the whole course, but they glean a couple of really good things, that feels like a win for us.”

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Photo courtesy of Jonathan Kemper, Unsplash

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Hans Dieter Temp, Founder of Cities without Hunger Brazil, started the project to address the widespread hunger he saw across São Paulo. According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), 27.6 percent of Brazilian households (21.6 million) experienced food insecurity in 2023.  “We have a lot of middle class and rich people here, but at the same time, in the same space, we have a lot of poverty,” Hans Christian Temp, son of Hans Dieter Temp and Manager of Investor Relations and Distribution at Cities without Hunger Brazil tells Food Tank. “There’s huge inequality in the same space.”

When Dieter Temp started the project his first task was to find spaces to use for the gardens. “We focus on at least 8,000 square meters,” Christian Temp tells Food Tank. “We make these big urban farms, use local manpower, and start to supply local communities with cheap food.”

Christian Temp explains that, after about a year, the gardens are typically well-established enough to support all the people working there. Each garden employs about 30 to 40 people and, in addition to a steady income, they receive benefits through the organization.

“This creates the opportunity to have better housing, better food access, maybe education for their children…rights that everyone needs to have,” Christian Temp tells Food Tank.

They now have 33 urban farms with over 500 people working at the different sites. Furthermore, they helped start and run 65 school gardens, producing over 80 tons of food per year and serving over 60 students daily. Christian Temp says that they have become one of the main producers of food inside the city of São Paulo.

The school gardens project is another initiative of Cities without Hunger Brazil. The project turns unused grounds on school property into gardens, transforming vacant lots into hubs for food systems education. Students learn how to grow and harvest food, understanding all the steps it takes to produce food and becoming familiar with diverse vegetables. “The kids love to plant and harvest,” Christian Temp tells Food Tank. “It is always an event.”

The project also helps to ensure that all students have access to at least one nutritious meal each day. “Most of the kids in these poor neighborhoods, their school meal is the only guaranteed meal most of them have that day,” Christian Temp tells Food Tank. “We need to make this meal as nutritious as possible.” Staff from Cities without Hunger Brazil work with teachers and chefs, ensuring that they understand how to use the gardens as educational spaces and utilize the produce to make healthy meals.

One of Cities without Hunger Brazil’s current priorities includes hiring a local, representative staff. Christian Temp tells Food Tank that they want to “hire people from the local communities to work in the administration of the foundation… because it’s not for us, it’s for their community.”

The vision is to “expand this model not only for Brazil, but for other countries,” Christian Temp tells Food Tank. “We have the information; we have the technical skills in Cities without Hunger to be able to solve this problem in any place of the world. We only need the support, and the people will have the good will to do it.”

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Photo courtesy of Cities without Hunger Brazil

The post Empowering Communities: The Cities without Hunger Model appeared first on Food Tank.

Urban American Farmer hosts farming courses to increase consumer awareness about sustainable food sourcing and growing practices. They also offer consultation on the development of new urban farms to households, restaurants, and organizations.

The inspiration for Urban American Farmer came about eight years ago when Bates began growing food on a quarter acre and selling produce to restaurants. Through her relationships with chefs and other producers, Bates discovered that both groups were using previous growing seasons as guides for their future menus and produce selections. She realized that Austin’s local food system lacked a strong communication network between its different stakeholders.

This led Bates to ask, “What could we grow in the region if we were working together and having these conversations, and planning for the future?” She continues, “that kind of sparked this idea that maybe…our local food system wasn’t fully developed in the ways that it could be.”

She describes how interactions between farmers and buyers are usually brief and transactional.

“There’s not a lot of opportunity for the buyers and the sellers to connect and build those relationships. And because of that, there’s not a lot of understanding about each other’s business,” Bates tells Food Tank. She goes on to say that this can result in “expectations that are unrealistic, or don’t get met on either side.”

Bates seeks to bridge this gap by expanding opportunities for growers, buyers, and consumers to connect in person. Three years ago, she developed the Field Guide Festival—an annual event that engages local farmers and chefs with Austin residents through conversations about cuisine, food trends, and the different ways people can get involved in their local food system.

“If you don’t know your farmer personally, it’s hard to have any faith in your food,” Bates tells Food Tank. “And I think that buyers are going to be much more likely to spend more money and to be more invested in where their food is coming from if they know the people that they’re supporting—the people behind the farm.”

Bates understands that food education is a key component in encouraging relationship building and strengthening the local food system. She argues that common food labels like “organic” and “local” can be misleading for consumers who are not knowledgeable about the qualifications of these labels and their resulting impacts. “Just because it’s [grown] in Texas, does not mean that they’re doing it the right way. You know, it’s a huge production,” Bates explains.

She has taught hospitality workers to farm for three seasons, and has witnessed firsthand how farming can result in a deeper connection to one’s food and appreciation for the work required to produce it.

After completing their farm training, many participants reported a change in mindset about food. They shared that they “waste less,” making sure to use what they can and “compost the rest.”

“If I can educate a chef, then they’re going to go out and educate a whole bunch of other people,” Bates says.

In partnership with the nonprofit organization Sustainable Food Center, Bates is working to get more local food into Austin’s school districts. She describes this relationship as being “super impactful” for her, expressing that it gave her a deeper understanding of what her role is in the local food system.

Bates likens herself to a pollinator: “I pick up information from one place and put it down in another.” She sees her active engagement as a way of aiding in the distribution of resources and helping others achieve their food system goals. Her hope is that more connections will form between producers and buyers, ultimately lending to the expansion of Austin’s local food system.

“What I think about, for the future, is I want more people to know that there’s space for doing this work. And that it doesn’t take a very specific skill set, it just takes the drive to get started.”

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Photo courtesy of Peter F, Unsplash

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Sweetwater began as a small backyard garden that Founder and Operator Chaz Daughtry started while he was a student in law school. When Daughtry recognized its potential, he decided to move to a larger place. Sweetwater Farms opened on a six-acre plot of land his family owned, located in an area where residents have little access to fresh food.

Sweetwater welcomes visitors that span generations, “from babies to 95 [year olds],” Daughtry tells Food Tank. They grow vegetables that “members from our community love to eat” as well as less common varieties that attract chefs, who stop by the farm “to find inspiration.”

In addition to growing fruits and vegetables ranging from collard greens and kale to okra and melons, Sweetwater uses its land to educate local students on the importance of fresh produce. Teaming up with the Texas Women Empowerment Foundation (TWEF), Daughtry explains that they host monthly STEM and agriculture classes.

In partnership with TWEF, the farm also employs local teens, allowing them to learn sustainable food production practices and healthy living while gaining work experience. “[These] young interns also manage [their] community farm stand and meet and sell to local chefs,” Daughtry tells Food Tank.

Community support for Sweetwater so far has been “great,” Daughtry says. “We are trying to keep up with the demand!” He is also excited that the farm has inspired others to plant their own backyard gardens and raised beds.

As Sweetwater grows, Daughtry hopes to see residents continue to shop at the farm and hopes that others will “share the good work [they] are doing in Houston all over the world.”

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Photo courtesy of Chaz Daughtry

The post Sweetwater Farms: Cultivating Knowledge in Houston appeared first on Food Tank.

One aspect of CUFI’s programming involves partnering with day care centers and schools to build organic, edible gardens. These gardens teach students about food systems, organic farming practices, botany, and composting. Children as young as two learn about colors, shapes, and identifying vegetables. The produce that students help grow is then incorporated into their school meals. 

“The children seem to love the taste of the spinach they grow—they normally hate spinach,” Krishna Mohan, Chief Resilience Officer of Chennai, tells Food Tank. 

The gardens are designed to improve the health of the whole community. Mothers can visit the spaces when they pick their children up from school and are often inspired to start their own gardens at home, where they grow medicinal plants and herbs.

CUFI also distributes Mobile Vegetable Garden Kits to families across Chennai, ensuring that women-led and other vulnerable households receive priority. These kits contain all of the necessary materials for people to start their own gardens, encouraging a broader cultural shift toward urban farming. Beginner gardeners can join a supervised WhatsApp group for advice, guidance, and to build relationships with other gardeners across the city. 

 In addition to improving health and facilitating food systems education among young people and families, urban farming can also have positive impacts, particularly on women and other marginalized groups, according to researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

CUFI partners with women’s self-help groups, training women in vegetable gardening and putting them in contact with people who need help creating gardens and will pay for their services. “For women, urban farming presents an opportunity to earn a dignified livelihood, contributing to women’s agency and their empowerment,” Mohan tells Food Tank. 

CUFI’s projects can also improve mental health. Urban farming “improves mental health and well-being not just for people engaged in the farms but also for those seeing/visiting it on a regular basis,” according to Mohan. Researchers at MacEwan University found that spending time at urban gardens improves mental wellness, fostering feelings of altruism, serenity, and connection with nature. 

Urban gardens, particularly those on rooftops, may support the development of cooler, more sustainable cities as well. Mohan tells Food Tank that rooftop gardens can reduce the temperature of rooms by up to 7°C. This temperature drop can reduce the need for air conditioning and is “a huge blessing in affordable housing schemes where most people cannot afford air conditioning.” In a city that, according to Weather Underground, has recently experienced temperatures close to 40°C, a seven degree drop makes a significant difference.

 But creating a more sustainable city and benefiting the community, the Initiative is not without challenges. While CUFI is funded by the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Centre and has government support, Mohan tells Food Tank that the project must increase in scale to ensure its continued existence. Policy change is needed “to provide incentives for urban farming to flourish within urban centers.” According to Mohan, policy change will require more data, and more data will require funding that allows CUFI to run for another two years. 

“We have a dream,” Mohan shares with Food Tank. “To ensure that every rooftop in Chennai has an edible rooftop garden.” 

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Photo courtesy of the Chennai Resilience Centre

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The Urban Garden Project aims to create a playbook to help organizations establish and operate community gardens. This includes guidance for back-office management, leadership structures, inclusion and belonging, logistics for garden creation and land use and more.

Project organizers hope to change the perception of community gardens so that they are considered essential resources. Research published by the National Library of Medicine demonstrates that community gardens enhance nutrition and physical activity, promote the importance of public health and create spaces that spark opportunities to organize around other issues and connect as a community.

Project goals also include uniting people dedicated to creating and managing gardens, and providing funding and resources for garden projects.

“Every garden has its own bylaws, every garden has its own operating system. And it’s like, that’s a lot to ask, right? That’s a lot to ask of somebody who is in this because they’re gardeners,” Linda Appel Lipsius, Executive Director of DUG tells Food Tank.

According to a survey of community gardens in Canada and the United States published in Agriculture and Human Values, the most common barriers to starting and operating community gardens are lack of funding, participation, land and materials.

Appel Lipsius also explains that even while community gardens are becoming more widespread, they require a lot of administrative work. This is something that many people don’t realize, she says, which can cause them to become neglected or fall into a state of disrepair.

DUG can help these community gardens by drawing on its experience operating 200 garden sites across the Metro Denver area. Appel Lipsius says the administrative management is handled by the central DUG office and is not the responsibility of garden leaders—and it allows them to focus on running the gardens instead of managing issues like securing funding and land rights.

Although the Urban Garden Project is still in its early stages, Appel Lipsius tells Food Tank that it may take many different forms depending on the needs of other community garden organizations. It may ultimately evolve into a consulting operation, an association of organizations, or even take an entirely different approach.

“I think with some support, we can just really help uplift all these organizations,” Appel Lipsius says.

Before launching the Urban Garden Project, Appel Lipsius says DUG regularly received calls from other organizations asking for help setting up different programs and managing operations.

“I think there’s been, institutionally for a long time, an interest in [asking] how can we be of greater help?” Appel Lipsius tells Food Tank.

In addition to community garden work, DUG also is also working to establish food forests across the Metro Denver area. These community green spaces are designed to mimic the natural ecosystem of a forest through multiple layers of edible plants.

Food forests can produce fresh food for eaters, provide wildlife habitat, and connect communities to nature, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports. They also tend to be publicly accessible, according to the Natural Capital Project of Stanford University, and designed and planted by community groups or local government entities.

At DUG, small teams of Tree Keepers—volunteers who monitor and maintain the sites—manage the forests. Appel Lipsius shares that the food forests are designed so that produce is first available to the community. But DUG also plans to partner with gleaning organizations and food banks to collect any food that is not collected by the community so that nothing goes to waste.

Appel Lipsius sees the food forests complementing DUG’s other projects, because these public spaces reach people who might not be engaged with community gardens.

“Gardens are rinse and repeat every year, and this is just sort of a sustained legacy project. It attracts different people, which is also really great because we know that not everybody’s a gardener.”

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Photo courtesy of Jonathan Kemper, Unsplash

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Urban agriculture can take on many different forms including, but not limited to, community gardens, urban farms, greenspaces, bioswales, rain gardens, community composting, beekeeping, and aquaculture. It is rooted in practices that support the environment, promote sustainable methods of food production, and minimize waste. So much more than growing food, urban agriculture provides safe havens for people to gather, heals communities, and restores land.

Innovation within the sector ranges from building smart infrastructure like multi-tier raised beds to increase food production to implementing rain barrels that capture stormwater from adjacent buildings for irrigation, thus minimizing flooding and supporting water conservation. This multi-pronged approach can be seen at Kelly St Garden located in the South Bronx, a neighborhood with one of the highest rates of food insecurity in NYC. According to Farming Concrete, Kelly St Garden grows about 1,500 pounds (680 kilograms) of food on 3,000 square feet of growing space.

Much of the urban agriculture in NYC originated in neighborhoods that were historically redlined and disinvested from for decades. The disparities affected not only housing and educational opportunities but severely damaged the environment. Hank Herrera, a long-standing food activist, was one of the first to describe this intersectional inequity as food apartheid. He argued, “Communities that lack access to fresh, healthy, affordable food result from structural inequities, deliberate public and private resource allocation decisions that exclude healthy from those communities.”

As a result, NYC gardeners have been addressing food apartheid themselves for years by turning vacant lots into food production and distribution sites. Gardeners tap into agricultural knowledge, experience, and training they’ve acquired from their homelands and tight-knit communities. Many utilize regenerative growing and composting to maintain healthy crop life cycles from seed to harvest and foster healthy soils. They grow healthy, seasonal food as well as culturally relevant options familiar to the diverse populations they serve such as bissap (a beverage made from hibiscus) and callaloo (a dish made with leafy greens).

Gardeners also share their food for free or sell produce and other locally made products at farmers’ markets and CSAs. These models support healthy food access while strengthening economic justice for urban and rural farmers alike, critical stakeholders in the city’s foodshed.

Urban gardens and farms are much more than just growing food, they provide safe havens for people to gather, heal communities, and restore land. Community gardeners are climate stewards addressing food insecurity, beautifying neighborhoods, and actively reducing waste. Yet, too often they are left out of the narrative nor get the credit or funding they’re due. They are putting in sweat equity, but their free labor is not quantified monetarily. And they’re regularly left out of the decision-making processes that impact the gardens in which they grow.

Community gardeners are not just tackling food security, nor are gardens simply emergency food sites. They are cultivating food sovereignty right here in the city—the right to grow, sell, and eat healthy food that the community wants in their neighborhood.

Urban agriculture is one of the City’s best nature-based solutions to address climate injustice. With the positive impacts to fostering healthy, safe neighborhoods, addressing food insecurity, sequestering carbon, and mitigating stormwater runoff, urban agriculture needs to be valued as an economic benefit to NYC. It empowers people to make decisions about their food choices, minimize their food waste, and lessen the reliance on emergency food.

With increased farming knowledge and improved land access by the city, New Yorkers would have more agency and impact on the City’s food supply and waste management. We need leadership to invest in a food system that reflects the people’s vision for a sustainable future.

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Photo courtesy of Kelly St Garden

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Vertical Harvest, which grows a variety of greens and lettuces, is guided by three primary tenets: Work Well＋Be Well＋Do Well, according to the company’s Co-Founder and CEO Nona Yehia. This refers to the combined effort to prioritize workforce development, improve the personal wellness of each employee, and strengthen the company’s position as a positive actor within its community.    

The company’s mission and its Grow Well model were initially inspired by Yehia, who saw firsthand how few economic opportunities were awarded to her brother, a person with developmental disabilities. This led to Yehia and her Co-Founder Caroline Croft Estay—a disability advocate and former case manager—seeking to foster a more “human-centered approach” to business, Yehia tells Food Tank.

Within Wyoming, the rate of unemployment for those with a disability is twice that of those without, according to the ADA Participatory Action Research Consortium (ADA-PARC).

The Grow Well model uses a multidimensional framework to address this disparity. The design offers increased workplace productivity whilst also centering practices that promote individual welfare, especially related to the professional and personal development of each employee. 

It is “meant to offer a bridge into adulthood with a disability—for those who need it,” Yehia tells Food Tank.

A job at Vertical Harvest is, for many workers, their first introduction into complex vertical farming, according to Yehia, which means the company is responsible for helping staff develop technical skills.

She emphasizes that it is important “to customize each person’s role for where they’re at today, agree upon any accommodations or supports the employee may need, and then develop a plan for where they want to grow in the future” in order to facilitate a culture of inclusion and equity. 

The Grow Well model also focuses on personal wellness. “We start by looking at social determinants impacting an individual if they’re part of a marginalized community and assess what support an employee might need,” says Yehia. “We focus a lot on self-reflection and listening and learning from different perspectives.”

Yehia believes that in the company’s eight year history, she has been able to witness the positive impact customized employment can have at the individual level. “We’re showing every day that businesses that prioritize diversity are, by all accounts, better businesses,” she tells Food Tank.

Vertical Harvest plans to expand their work with the establishment of two new locations: one in Westbrook, Maine and the other in co-founder Nona Yehia’s hometown of Detroit, Michigan.

These expansions are expected to work at a greater level of operation, with the Westbrook facility having 15 times the output of Jackson.

“Our buildings are these bright beautiful beacons, right in the heart of the community, demonstrating we care about where our food comes from, the people who grow it, that the health and wealth of our community matters and should include everyone, especially those at the margins,” says Yehia, “health and humanity is what stitches us together and food is one of the most basic expressions of both.”

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Photo courtesy of Vertical Harvest

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