Local Food Systems

Victory Programs Revision Urban Farm

Victory Programs Revision Urban Farm is a one-acre social enterprise whose primary focus is educational. With an operating budget of $135,000, the farm generates half of its operating costs in sales, employing 3 permanent staff and 5 full time interns in the summer.  Additionally, the farm trains more than 600 volunteers, and also maintains a youth job-training program and seedling co-op. It grows over 7,000 lbs of produce, distributes more than 25,000 lbs, and runs a CSA with 75 shares (12 at a reduced rate). Read more about Victory Programs Revision Urban Farm...

Urban Roots Garden Cooperative

Founded in 2005, Urban Roots is a consumer cooperative garden center on Buffalo's West Side; its goal is to revitalize Buffalo through beautification efforts and urban renewal. Owned by more than 650 individuals, Urban Roots sells flowers, shrubs, trees and vegetables and originally grew out of planning and revitalization efforts of the West Side Community Collaborative. Read more about Urban Roots Garden Cooperative...

Somerton Tanks Farm

A product of a partnership between Philadelphia's Water Department and the Institute for Innovations in Local Farming, Somerton Tanks Farm is non-profit situated in northeast Philadelphia that uses a technique called S.P.I.N. (Small Plot INtensive) farming to turn its half-acre demonstration urban farm into a profitable, self-sufficient social enterprise. Founded in 2003, by 2006, the project had grown to have gross revenues of $68,000, with expenses coming in at $20,000. Two full time farmers, an assistant in training, and several volunteers operate the farm. Read more about Somerton Tanks Farm...

Resource Center

Starting in the late 1960's, Resource Center is a non-profit dedicated to revitalizing Chicago's neighborhoods through composting, urban agriculture, recycling, and other practices that are sustainable and that reuse resources. Today, Resource Center has approximately a $1.5 million annual budget, employs 25 people, and generates 95 percent of its revenue from earned income. Read more about Resource Center...

Ohio City Farm

Ohio City Farm is a six-acre urban farm co-developed by the Ohio City Near West Development Corporation, the Refugee Response, and Great Lakes Brewing Company. The goal of the Ohio City Farm is to provide healthy local food access to underserved Cleveland communities by developing a cluster of urban food and farm business incubators that will both utilize the distribution and retail opportunities of Cleveland's historic West Side Market as well as catalyze the Ohio City Market District. Read more about Ohio City Farm...

Mort Brooks Memorial Farm (Weaver's Way Farm)

Established in 2000 as a memorial to a former member of the Weaver's Way Cooperative, the Mort Brooks Memorial Farm (aka Weaver's Way Farm) is a 1.25 acre urban farm administered by Weavers Way Community Programs, an arm of Weavers Way Co-op created in 2007 to run the co-op's non-profit programs, and managed by two full time staff and two full season apprentices. In 2007, with the hire of the two full time staff, the farm was on pace to earn more than $50,000 by mid-July, and was also able to expand its educational mission, bringing students from local schools to the farm. Read more about Mort Brooks Memorial Farm (Weaver's Way Farm)...

Lynchburg Grows

Located in the city's first industrial park, which was built in 1919, Lynchburg Grows! H.R. Schenkel Urban Farm & Environmental Education Center consists of 9 (five original) greenhouses, exceeding 70,000 sq ft, and encompasses an area of 6.5 acres, zoned heavy industrial.  With the help of 2800 volunteers, donating more than 40,000 man hours, from 2005 to 2010, Lynchburg Grows has remediated the land and has successfully completed a $150,000 capital campaign, partnering with Lynchburg College to turn one of the green houses into a aquaculture and educational center. Read more about Lynchburg Grows...

Cultivate Kansas City

Founded in 2004, Cultivate Kansas City (formerly known as the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture) is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the local food system by providing technical assistance and training to urban farmers, conducting research and policy development, and managing the Kansas City Community Farm.  Located in the Argentine neighborhood, the 2.25-acre, self-sustaining, educational urban farm produces more than 30,000 pounds of food each year with sales of more than $100,000. Read more about Cultivate Kansas City...

Greensgrow

Founded in 1997 on the site of a former galvanized steel plant, Greensgrow includes an urban farm that grows over 2,000 pounds of produce each year, a CSA, a garden center that sells products and offers a range of workshops, and a commercial kitchen.  In 2011, it launched Greensgrow Mobile Markets to bring affordable, fresh, healthy food into underserved and economically disadvantaged parts of Philadelphia, an effort credited with distributing more than 40 tons of fresh produce to over 15,000 customers.

Growing Power

Founded in 1993, Growing Power, Inc. is a nonprofit organization focused on helping ensure equal access to healthy, high-quality, safe, and affordable food. To do so, it provides hands-on training, on-the-ground demonstrations, and technical assistance—all of which is geared to help people grow, process, market, and distribute food in a sustainable manner. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Growing Power also has multiple farm sites in Wisconsin and Illinois. Read more about Growing Power...

The Food Project

Striving to increase food security through creating sustainable, local food systems, The Food Project grows nearly a quarter-million pounds of organic food each year, which is then donated to area hunger relief organizations or sold through Community Supported Agriculture crop "shares" and at farmer markets in low-income neighborhoods.  Aiming to bring together youth and adults from diverse backgrounds to build a sustainable food system, the nonprofit engages over 120 teens and thousands of volunteers on an annual basis.  In Boston, The Food Project grows on plots in the city’s Dudley neighborhood and operates DSNI’s 10,000-square-foot greenhouse, which also functions as a community space and year-round learning center.

Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Food Policy Coalition

Formed in 2007, the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Food Policy Coalition strives to bring about public and private policy-based changes that foster a healthier food system. The Coalition is an unincorporated organization - an unconventional structure that allows staff and members of it five issue-based working groups to contribute their time through their capacity in one of several dozen organizations, including government agencies, nonprofits, community development corporations, businesses, neighborhood groups, and others. Read more about Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Food Policy Coalition...

Cleveland Botanical Garden Green Corps

Green Corps is a work/study program founded by Cleveland Botanical Garden in 1996. High school students earn as they learn, transforming vacant lots into flourishing urban farms. Green Corps students grow fruits, vegetables, and flowers -- as well as job skills, leadership, and a healthier, greener community for themselves and their neighbors. Ultimately, these young people learn to appreciate the earth's capacity for abundance and, in the process, begin to realize their own abundant potential.   Read more about Cleveland Botanical Garden Green Corps...

City Slicker Farms

City Slicker Farms aims to empower West Oakland community members to meet their immediate and basic need for healthy, organic food by creating high-yield urban farms and backyard gardens.  Founded by a community activist in 2001, City Slicker Farms started as a half-acre vacant lot growing food at a discount for local residents. Today, the organization’s operations include three community market farms (i.e., spaces open to the public), over 300 backyard gardens, a weekly farm stand, a greenhouse, and urban farming education programs. Read more about City Slicker Farms...

City Fresh

Initiated in the winter of 2006, the City Fresh market garden training program aims to develop a learning network focused on the promotion of urban agriculture in Cleveland and other traditional urban centers in Northeast Ohio. Read more about City Fresh...

Added Value

Added Value is a non-profit focused on creating a local, affordable food system in the neighborhood of Red Hook by turning vacant land into urban farms and by providing job training to local community youth (to date, more than 150 teenagers).  Its accomplishments include growing 12 tons of fresh produce for donation, sale and consumption; serving as a daily educational/work site for more than 150 teens; generating $70,000 in revenue for youth stipends, creating $120,000 in local economic activity; educating more than 1,300 schoolchildren on an annual basis; and building the largest community compost program in NYC that is run entirely with sustainable resources.

Cornell Cooperative Extension (New York City)

The Cornell Cooperative Extension based in New York City is focused on improving urban food systems and green spaces while providing support for family and youth development. The Extension offers programs in horticulture and ecology focused on the city's parks and green spaces and a Hydroponics Learning Model Program - a course designed to teach a useful urban agriculture method invented at the Extension while developing students' critical thinking skills. Read more about Cornell Cooperative Extension (New York City)...

Hollygrove Market & Farm

Started in 2008, Hollygrove Market & Farm is a non-profit urban agriculture-training farm and produce market located in the heart of New Orleans.  Hollygrove also runs a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, coordinating and providing a stable market for more than 50 local - rural and urban - farms.  As of 2009, Hollygrove had redeveloped an acre of blighted property into community garden plots, composted several thousand pounds of unmarketable material, given more than $5,000 in edible donations, and purchased more than $168,000 in local produce.  Committed to increasing access to affordable, healthy food, Hollygrove also offers discounted produce to community residents, students, and people using an EBT card.

Urban Farms Memphis

A project of Birmingham Development Corporation, Urban Farms provides Binghampton with healthy locally grown food, a market and new employment along with resources for neighborhood gardeners. They have begun a pilot Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and their Urban Farms Market has recently opened a coffee drive-through. Read more about Urban Farms Memphis...

Kansas City Food Circle

Kansas City Food Circle (KCFC) is an all-volunteer, grassroots organization founded in 1988 to develop a sustainable agricultural system by building a community of trust among local farmers, chefs, and grocers. KCFC is a project of the non-profit corporation Heart of America Action Linkage. KCFC has 77 member growers, which are local farmers who have pledged to meet certain requirements with the organization. As an information hub, KCFC partnered with Present Magazine to publish a series called the 100-Mile Diet Project, which helps inform residents about local foods and farms. Read more about Kansas City Food Circle...