Local Food Systems

Founded in 2010, Rid-All Green aims to transform Cleveland communities through urban agriculture.  Its projects are located within the City of Cleveland’s Urban Agriculture Innovation Zone, a 28-acre vacant tract in a disinvested, inner-city neighborhood.  To date, the organization has developed a 1.3-acre farm, which is credited with creating four new jobs, harvesting more than 4,000 tilapia fish and more than 14,000 pounds of produce, and processing up to 40,000 pounds of food waste per week.  As a regional training center for the Milwaukee-based Growing Power, it also has trained over 150 people in urban agriculture techniques.

GRACE Communications Foundation works to increase public awareness of environmental and public health issues created by our current food, water and energy systems, and to promote a more sustainable future.  Its website includes information on a range of food and agriculture topics, including local food systems, as well as practical toolkits and video and multi-media resources to educate people on these topic Read more about Grace Communications Foundation...

Our Harvest is a union worker-owned cooperative that farms on multiple properties in Cincinnati, OH and sells its produce through CSA programs and other markets.  The Co-op is committed to creating family-sustaining jobs, producing sustainably grown, produce, building a food hub to strengthen the local food system and increase access to healthy food, and sustaining these efforts by training new farmers.

Tricycle Gardens uses its year-round ½ acre urban farm in South Richmond as a living classroom for adults and youth to learn about farming, soil improvement, nutrition, and organic growing. Producing over 20,000 pounds of produce per year, it is able to run its own farm stand in addition to supplying online grocer Relay Foods and local restaurants. It has also launched five community gardens. In 2013, Tricycle Gardens partnered with the Richmond City Health District, Virginia Community Capital, and Bon Secours Richmond to reduce food deserts in Richmond’s East End through the Get Fresh East End! pilot, modeled after the national Healthy Corner Stores Initiative. Tricycle Gardens provides fresh, affordable, and locally grown produce to two corner store owners. As the program grows to include more corner stores, Tricycle Gardens will work with other urban farms and community gardens for additional local food sources. 

Feed RVA developed from the for-profit Grow RVA, which operates one the largest farmers’ market in Virginia, the South of the James Market. Though originally formed to create an incentive program to provide matching funds for SNAP benefits at farmers’ markets, Feed RVA’s mission has since expanded. Feed RVA is working to expand selling opportunities for the 100+ South of the James Market vendors, three quarters of which make at least two thirds of their total incomes at the Saturday market. It is now putting together a group of stakeholders, including purchasers from Richmond hospitals and universities and Richmond’s Economic Development Authority to form an advisory committee on the formation of a food hub.