“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.”

The post Food 2050 Visionaries: Nourishing Nairobi with Ubuntu appeared first on Food Tank.

“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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The post Food 2050 Visionaries: Lima’s Local Regeneration appeared first on Food Tank.

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

The post The Promise of Urban Agroecology to Enhance Food and Nutrition Security in the 21st Century appeared first on Food Tank.

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

The post The Future of Farming Is on the Wall—And in Your Office appeared first on Food Tank.

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.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Ronald Levy

The post This Black-led Food Collective Fights Food Apartheid with Education, Land Reclamation, and Storytelling appeared first on Food Tank.

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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The post The Fight for the Healthy Incentives Program in Massachusetts appeared first on Food Tank.

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

The post Cornell Urban Agriculture Courses Turn Research into Action for Cities appeared first on Food Tank.

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.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Peter F, Unsplash

The post Urban American Farmer: Growing Local Food and Relationships in Austin appeared first on Food Tank.

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.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

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.” 

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of the Chennai Resilience Centre

The post Transforming Chennai with Rooftop Gardens appeared first on Food Tank.

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.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Kemper, Unsplash

The post Urban Garden Project to Connect and Empower Community Gardens appeared first on Food Tank.

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.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Kelly St Garden

The post What’s Left Out of the Conversation When it Comes to Urban Agriculture appeared first on Food Tank.

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.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Vertical Harvest

The post Grow Well: Vertical Harvest’s Inclusive Employment Model Empowers Individuals Experiencing Disabilities in Urban Farming appeared first on Food Tank.

The platform connects Black beekeepers across different regions of the United States, and offers resources and services to support people throughout their beekeeping journey. As part of her work, Bigelow hosts virtual seminars that discuss topics including the economics of beekeeping and its mental health benefits. She also compiled the “Honey Book,” a directory of Black beekeepers, organized by state.

Additionally, Black novice beekeepers can receive access to a yearlong mentorship, allowing them to learn from experienced Black beekeepers in their area. The program permits up to 15 new members at a time and incorporates an online cohort model to allow Black apiarists to be in community with one another in the early stages of their beekeeping journeys.

Bigelow became interested in beekeeping at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hoping to learn about the practice, she joined the DC Beekeepers Association in Washington, D.C., whose membership was mostly comprised of white beekeepers, she describes.

Early on, Bigelow found herself with questions that other members of the association could not answer nor relate to. She uses hair as an example in which she realized her experience as a Black beekeeper was very different from her white counterparts, explaining that “if I use a smoker, now my hair smells like smoke, and I don’t know how to navigate that. Because as a Black woman, I don’t wash my hair daily.”

Other anxieties stemmed from questions about finding the right location to site and operate her beehive in. Bigelow says her choices in a city were between setting up in a public park or collaborating with a host family. This led her to ask: “What does that mean to go into someone’s property knowing that I don’t look anything like the family?”

Bigelow states that these questions were emerging at a time when stories of Black folks facing unfair profiling were being publicized.

“It was hard for me not to still think about where my blackness was intersecting with beekeeping,” Bigelow tells Food Tank, “because of what was happening in the headlines, it really made me wonder, in what spaces will I be most safe to show up and to be a beekeeper?”

Bigelow describes herself as very “fortunate” for being received positively by her local beekeeping association and by the hosts she partnered with. But she also recognizes that this warm welcome is not guaranteed for many Black beekeepers.

According to Bigelow, beekeeping is a “niche form of farming that is very dependent upon mentorship,” and that without it, the early learning stages can be incredibly isolating and discouraging. She believes beekeeping is learned through a process of trial and error, and it is common for many novices to encounter colony collapse when working with their first hives. But, she says, these collapses are “a lot less likely if you have the proper support and mentorship that comes along with having community.”

Community provides safe spaces and gives “people permission to feel like they’re not odd or abnormal for having this interest in bees, or pollinators in general,” Bigelow tells Food Tank.

The idea for Beekeeping While Black came as Bigelow sought to reaffirm her experience as a Black beekeeper. But with few Black beekeepers in the local area, she found that she needed to extend her reach. “If you can’t find it in person then find it online,” she says.

Social media has allowed for online community building of Black beekeepers but has also been instrumental in offering alternative routes to connect Black beekeepers who are within drivable distances.

In the next year, she and her two partners also plan to advance their goal of founding a nonprofit that will offer more opportunities for mentorship to Black individuals interested in beekeeping and will contribute to the development of a more expansive network of black apiarists.

When talking about her aspirations, Bigelow tells Food Tank, “I’m looking to go beyond Beekeeping while Black, I want the content to continue, but also to really go beyond social media, in order to be able to connect to Black beekeepers, to help expand education and also give more representation.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Karyn Bigelow

The post An Online Platform Diversifies Beekeeping through a Virtual Network of Black Apiarists appeared first on Food Tank.

A citizen eater is engaged in food systems, active in pushing policy forward, and focused on building policies where everyone is nourished and can access and afford healthful food. So many of the local food system wins we’re tracking at Food Tank are made possible thanks to tireless advocates working in the communities where they live.

Just as one example, let’s highlight the city of Atlanta—where we’ll be next week for a Summit on Sunday, April 14, starting at 1:30PM, in partnership with Emory University and Spelman College and in consultation with the CDC Foundation, in support of the Biden-Harris Administration National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. And please feel free to forward this message to your networks in Atlanta! It’ll be an unforgettable afternoon.

There, many leaders and organizations are working hard to support local food producers and food economies, provide educational resources and agricultural training, and—at the heart of it all—make sure their neighbors are nourished.

Open Hand Atlanta, for example, delivers meals free of charge to folks in Atlanta and around the state with the goal of eliminating diet-related chronic illnesses, and they operate a teaching kitchen to offer nutrition support. Mariposas Rebeldes focuses on building access to ecology and community gardening for queer folks, and The Grocery Spot exemplifies a sustainable, community-first model for a nonprofit grocery store.

There are many inspiring organizations working across Atlanta, so I hope you’ll read the full list HERE. So many citizen eaters, stepping up as changemakers!

The Acres of Ancestry Initiative and Black Agrarian Fund work to restore land ownership by boosting food and fiber economies across the South and connecting people with financial resources through the Black Belt Justice Center—and Tracy Lloyd McCurty, the center’s Executive Director, will be at our Summit.

Wholesome Wave Georgia works to increase access to nutritious food options and help folks enroll in assistance programs—and Will Sellers, their Executive Director, will be at our Summit. Save Our Legacy Ourself, or SOLO, works to uplift heirloom crops and preserve the heritage of the Saltwater Geechee people—and Maurice Bailey, the organization’s President, will be at our Summit. Diversity Dietetics fosters collaborations to build a more diverse field of nutritionists and dietitians—and the Co-Founder and Executive Director, Tamara Melton, RDN, will be at our Summit.

And many of the most amazing food system leaders, farmers, researchers, scientists, journalists, lawmakers, food bank leaders, and others are joining us at the Empowering Eaters Summit next Sunday, April 14.

I hope you’ll join us, too. The event is completely free and open to the public, whether in-person or via livestream! So please CLICK HERE to secure your spot at the event.

Here’s a partial list of speakers, which you definitely won’t want to miss: Maurice Bailey, SOLO; Fedele Bauccio, Bon Appétit Management Company; Ravi Bellamkonda, Emory University; Kelliann Blazek, Special Assistant to the President for Agriculture and Rural Policy; Caree Cotwright, USDA; Andre Dickens, Mayor, City of Atlanta (via video); Rachel Ferencik, CDC Foundation; Diane Harris, Centers for Disease Control; Dr. Nik Heynen, University of Georgia; Kevin Holt, H&H Hospitality ; Dr. Kimberly Jackson, Spelman College; Steven Jennings, Ahold Delhaize USA; Sabrina Li, Emory University; Tracy Lloyd McCurty, Black Belt Justice Center; U.S. Congresswoman Lucy McBath (GA-07); Will McIntee, The White House; Beth McKibben, RoughDraft Atlanta; Tamara S. Melton, Diversify Dietetics; Alastair Pullen, Atlanta Neighborhood Charter School; Karuna Rawal, Nature’s Fynd; Tambra Raye Stevenson, Women Advancing Nutrition Dietetics and Agriculture (WANDA); Rose Scott, NPR-Atlanta; Pamela Scott-Johnson, Spelman College; Kashi Sehgal, Rataaza; Will Sellers, Wholesome Wave Georgia; Arthur Tripp, USDA Farm Service Agency; Kyle Waide, The Atlanta Community Food Bank; and Raphaela Ysrael, Atlanta Harvest, and many more!  More info is HERE.

We will also have breakout sessions, where discussions will inform a policy report submitted directly to the White House, and an amazing reception with our food and beverage partners.

As I mentioned: Progress in the food system comes down to empowering eaters, today and for generations to come.

That idea is at the core of discussions at the Summit around food and land justice, healthier school foods, food is medicine, procurement and business solutions, student best practices, and so much more.

HERE’s that registration link, so we know you’ll be joining us.

I look forward to seeing you next weekend! And, as always, my inbox at danielle@foodtank.com is open to Food Tankers around the world—send me the questions and concerns on your mind, and let’s keep the conversation going.

One last note: What’s amazing about the food movement is that every city in the world has so many amazing projects we can learn from! This week, we highlighted these fantastic 20 organizations just in and around Atlanta, including Acres of Ancestry Initiative/Black Agrarian Fund; Atlanta Community Food Bank; Community Farmers Markets (CFM); Diversity Dietetics; Friends of the Urban Food Forest at Browns Mill; Food Well Alliance; Georgia Foundation for Agriculture; Georgia Organics; Giving Kitchen; Global Growers Network (GGN); Mariposas Rebeldes; Open Hand Atlanta; Recovery Eco Agriculture Project; Save Our Legacy Ourself (SOLO); Slow Food Atlanta; The Common Market; The Grocery Spot; Truly Living Well Center for Natural Urban Agriculture (TLW); Umi Feeds; and Wholesome Wave Georgia. I hope you’ll read more HERE about the many best practices and replicable models in Atlanta.

And at the same time, I hope you’ll find some organizations carrying out these best practices in your community! We can’t take these local organizations for granted—it was not always the case that our cities had thriving food networks, so let’s celebrate empowered eaters!

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Markus Spiske, Unsplash

The post Progress in The Food System Means Empowering Eaters—Today and for Generations to Come appeared first on Food Tank.

Here’s a trivia question:

Where are the most important transformations in the food system taking place right now?

a. The United Nations headquarters

b. In the U.S. Congress

c. At a high-level dialogue in Europe or the Middle East

d. Within a few miles of where you’re reading this letter

If you answered (d), you’re correct!

When we talk about food system transformation, we’re not talking about a sudden metamorphosis in some far-off place at some indeterminate point in the future.

Rebuilding the food system in a more resilient, sustainable, equitable way is happening right now, as we speak, in neighborhoods and cities across the world.

And it’s not like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly or a tadpole becoming a frog. It’s a gradual process—sometimes it can feel slow, as many of us probably know!—that moves forward sometimes in big leaps but much more often in small steps.

But because of tireless advocates at the local level, we are indeed moving forward. Every step forward is a win: a win for producers, a win for eaters, a win for the planet.

And as Food Tankers know, we don’t just do this work for ourselves. A stronger, more just food system is vital toward nourishing future generations too, which is what we’ll be discussing at our next Summit in a couple weeks.

When I look out at the state of the food system, I see so much that’s going well.

Just take food waste, for example. Last year, the city of Chicago launched a composting program that allows residents to drop off food scraps at 15 locations around the city, where they’re collected and turned into compost for soil. And in Maryland, where I live, policymakers created a food residual diversion law in 2021, which requires any company, store, school, organization, or agency that handles food and is located within 30 miles of a compost facility to divert food scraps away from landfills.

Or look at school meals. Maine and California passed laws in 2021 that guaranteed free lunches for all school students, and several other states including Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Michigan, Connecticut, and Vermont have also done so since then.

And that’s just the beginning! Here are some other food policy wins we’re tracking on the local level around the country:

Minimum wage protections are being strengthened. In Chicago, the subminimum wage for tipped workers is being phased out following city council action last year, so employees including many food service workers will eventually be paid the standard hourly minimum wage rather than significantly less. First-of-its-kind legislation in New York City last year increased the minimum wage for app-based delivery workers, and in California, effective next month, the minimum wage will be raised to $20 for fast food workers at large franchises. Plus, the state created a Fast Food Council with workers, union members, and companies to set standards for workplace safety and wages.

Small-scale food producers are getting the rights they’re due. In Arkansas, a variety of laws passed in 2021 allow for homegrown or homemade food and drink to be sold at farmers markets, farm stands, homes, and even online to help boost local economies. A program called New Mexico Grown helps schools, educational institutions, and organizations serving elderly populations in that state to source food from local producers. And in Nevada, a 2023 law expands sidewalk vendors’ rights to sell food on the street.

Urban agriculture is getting official. In Detroit, the mayor appointed Tepfirah Rushdan as the city’s first Director of Urban Agriculture last fall to encourage and support urban farmers and streamline the use of abandoned lots as farms and gardens. And a couple years ago in Boston, mayor Michelle Wu created GrowBoston, the city’s office of urban agriculture, to work alongside the Mayor’s Office of Food Justice to fund and develop urban ag projects.

States are hearing the needs of rural communities, too. In Colorado, the Consumer Right to Repair Agriculture Equipment Act, which went into effect in January, means that owners of agricultural equipment can repair their machinery independently, rather than being required to go through the manufacturer. And in Missouri, a broad ag law signed last summer includes tax credits for farmers who help new farmers get started, plus programs to boost flood resilience along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.

As I mentioned, the list goes on. Recent laws passed in Colorado and Rhode Island limit the sale and use of neonicotinoid pesticides, which harm bees and other pollinators. The city council of Perris, California, recently passed an ordinance that requires grocery stores in the city to stock healthy food and drink items at check-out counters instead of junk food, following the lead of Berkeley’s similar 2020 regulation.

Municipal food policy councils and neighborhood advocates are making even more advances toward a better food system, too. At the end of the day, progress in the food system comes down to empowering eaters, today and for generations to come.

So I hope you’ll click HERE to grab your spot at our upcoming Summit in partnership with Emory University and Spelman College—in person or via livestream on Sunday, April 14—where we’ll all be inspired by 35+ amazing speakers discussing how food policy can build accessibility and affordability in the food system.

And I hope, too, that you’ll commit to creating more food policy wins in your communities! Again, transforming the food system is not a one-and-done process, nor is it one that only takes place in Capitol buildings and meeting rooms. Building a better food system requires effort from all of us—right where we live.

Let’s chat about how to make that happen. Email me at danielle@foodtank.com to share what’s going well where you live, and let me know how I can connect you with Food Tank’s resources to boost your efforts.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Markus Spiske, Unsplash

The post Where Are You Reading This? That’s Where Food System Transformation Is Happening appeared first on Food Tank.

“We’re able to provide such high-quality produce that anybody can shop,” Javier Guerrero, President and CEO of Coastal Roots Farm, one of the first farms to open a pay-what-you-can initiative, tells Food Tank.

Coastal Roots Farm, located in Encinitas, California, operates as a normal farm stand or supermarket, where consumers can shop for produce of their choice. At the point of payment, their private check-out system allows shoppers to view their total bill and choose the portion they can comfortably and willingly pay. Their market offers up to US$30 off produce at no-cost to those who need it.

“Those that can pay, pay. Those that need to deduct, deduct. Some people might donate,” Guerrero says.

Guerrero emphasizes that the market promotes the same shopping experience for people from all different walks of life, whether they can pay for any, all, or more than their total cost of produce. He says the customers who are paying the full fare, or even donating a little more, know they may be helping someone who is shopping right next to them and needs that support.

Last year, Coastal Roots Farm grew 86,000 pounds of food and fed 45,000 people, according to Guerrero. Between 70 -75 percent of what they grew is donated to the community, both through the farm stand or other initiatives.

Coastal Roots Farm has also inspired several other pay-what-you-can farm stands across the nation. Common Good City Farm, located in Washington D.C., launched their first pay-what-you-can initiative during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The question that we asked ourselves was how do we create a market where everyone can still shop for whatever they want, and that their ability to pay for that doesn’t impact their ability to shop,” Samantha Trumbull, Executive Director of Common Good City Farm, tells Food Tank.

Common Good City Farm is located in Ward 1, which houses over one tenth of the total D.C. population, according to DC Health Matters. They report that 20 percent of all households in Ward 1 earn less than US$49,999 annually. On average, white households earn twice that. Common Good City Farm’s pay-what-you-can model intends to respond to this inequality.

Trumbull explains that Common Good City Farm initially aimed to create a system that allowed people to pay a discounted price or pay nothing, while also encouraging those who can to pay more.

While the farm stand successfully increased access and reduced socio-economic stigma, she says they still find some community members are hesitant to shop when they can’t make any payment.

“It is our constant job to work on the way we communicate this to people,” Trumbull tells Food Tank. But through conducting demographic surveys on site, the Farm has found that people who can afford to pay more or donate are not nearly meeting the level that they had hoped and encouraged.

“People do tip and do pay extra to support the program, but not nearly at the level that we wanted to encourage them to,” Trumbull says. “We really think there are plenty of people in our community who can pay 200 percent of the suggested price, and no one is doing that.”

Trumbull and Common Good City Farm anticipated that the higher income group would help subsidize those with lower incomes. Yet, they were surprised to find that reciprocity was most prevalent among their middle-income shoppers.

This pay-what-you-can model has also been used at Groundwork Farms and Sprout City Farms in Denver, Colorado to ensure fresh produce is affordable and available for all of their community members. EarthDance Organic Farm School in Ferguson, Missouri also debuted a pay-what-you-can drive-thru farm stand in response to the pandemic; the farm’s success with this model inspired them to employ it at their farmers’ market booth and develop a physical on-farm stand.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), 12.8 percent of U.S. households were food insecure at some time during 2022, a significantly higher rate than the 10.2 percent in 2021. “Food insecurity has not gone away in San Diego [county] as it hasn’t with many parts of the country,” Guerrero tells Food Tank. “With the costs of inflation and the costs of everything, really, people shouldn’t have to question their ability to eat well and stay healthy.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo Courtesy of Melissa Askew, Unsplash

The post Pay-What-You-Can Farm Stands Flourish Amidst Soaring Food Insecurity and Inflation in the U.S. appeared first on Food Tank.

BUGs has hosted their national Conference—the largest of its kind dedicated to Black agriculture—since 2010, but this is the first time the organizers are bringing the event to Philadelphia. They hope the conference will offer an opportunity to explore the history of Philadelphia’s urban agriculture community.

“Philadelphia has such a deep-rooted agricultural history. It was an honor to work alongside local urban farmers here in Philadelphia to help bring the BUGS conference to the city of brotherly love,” says Karen Washington, Co-Founder of the BUGs National Conference. “We look forward to paying homage to the city’s rich agricultural past and helping to sow the seeds for a more just and equitable urban farming future.”

The Conference will provide engaging and informative sessions including keynote speeches by renowned speakers, urban farm tours, social events, and over 50 workshops covering a diverse range of topics such as soil health, financial literacy, intro to hydroponics, and more.

Ash Richards, Director of Urban Agriculture for the City of Philadelphia, says, “There is a deep gratitude for the space that the BUGS Conference provides to gather folks together who believe in growing food and land stewardship as essential components to community cohesion and resilience.”

And Regina Ginyard, Co-Founder of the BUGs National Conference, expresses her excitement, saying, “We look forward to showcasing Philadelphia’s urban farming movement and celebrating the profound influence of Philadelphia’s Black agrarian culture and leadership.”

For more details about the event and to purchase tickets, click HERE.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Massimo Catarinella, Wikimedia Commons

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