Urban Agriculture
From rooftops to vacant
lots, Heifer International’s Urban Agriculture program is growing goodness, changing lives and building communities
in the heart of North America’s big cities. Heifer supports grassroots organizations that help communities reclaim and
support local food systems.
Inner-city youth learn entrepreneurial skills and the value of healthy eating by planting vegetables, growing flowers,
and selling produce to local markets. Immigrants share community gardens and their indigenous agricultural practices, which
builds bridges between cultures. Disabled citizens use therapeutic gardening to reconnect with the earth and their communities.
Revision House Urban Agriculture Project
Dorchester, MA
Heifer is supporting Revision House in improving
its small scale fish farming and organic vegetable production in concert with job skills building programs in a long-term
shelter for women who are pregnant or have small children.
East New York Farms!
Brooklyn, NY
The East New York Farms! (ENYF!) project works to strengthen and
sustain food security and increase economic opportunities for approximately eighty families in East New York, Brooklyn. Composed
largely of women immigrants from the West Indies and neighborhood youth, this multi-generational urban agriculture program
restores vacant land for bio-intensive vegetable and small-scale livestock production for sale in a local farmers' market
managed by the group.
CONTACT: Sarita Daftary East New York Farms! ENYF! Project Director (718) 649-7979, Ext. 28 or sart6@hotmail.com
Added
Value and Herban Solutions, Inc.
Brooklyn, NY
Youth ages 14-19 in the Red Hook neighborhood are active participants
in the local economy and community through projects that reclaim vacant urban land for organic agriculture and marketing.
The group has established an urban farm on 2 acres of a rarely- used city baseball field. The youth initiated and now manage
a farmers' market that caters to the growing, economically diverse population in Red Hook, including recipients of WIC Farmers'
Market coupons.
CONTACT: Ian Marvy, Executive Director, Added Value (718) 855-5531 or imarvy@added-value.org
New Farmer Development Project
New York, NY
This program supports agriculturally experienced Latino
immigrants in the New York City area to establish economically and ecologically sound farming operations. The project strengthens
farmers' markets and helps to meet New York City's need for fresh, high-quality, locally grown farm produce.
CONTACT: Kate Granger, Project Director, 212-341-2254 or kgranger@greenmarket.cc
The City Farms
New York, NY
This network of organizations and urban food producers helps urban gardeners
contribute to their community's food security. The project is transforming urban gardens into urban micro-farms, helping these
urban farmers grow more food in their gardens, distribute and market it within their neighborhoods, as well as train others
to do so.
CONTACT: Jane Hodge, Project Director, Just Food, 212-645-9880 or jane@justfood.org
FoodShare Community Agriculture Project
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Project participants include mental
health clients, youth at risk, and urban and rural farmers working in partnership to contribute to the building of a local
food system. Through innovative agricultural projects such as urban farming; community supported agriculture programs emphasizing
ethnic foods; neighbor-hood farm stands; and value-added product development, low-income communities in the Toronto area receive
access to high quality food, job skills development and opportunities for training and marketing.
CONTACT: Karine Jaouich, Urban Agriculture Coordinator, FoodShare (416) 363-6441, ext. 225 or Karine@foodshare.net
FRESH Foundations Project
FRESH New London
New London, CT
The mission of FRESH New London (Food: Resources, Education, Security,
Health in New London County, Connecticut) is to encourage, educate and empower New London’s residents to participate
in the transformation of their food system to be healthful, universally accessible, sustainable, just and beautiful. The FRESH
Foundations project is a developmental phase for this young organization to create engines of opportunity through building
food systems infrastructure, community leadership and organizational capacity to support this over the long term.
Contact: Arthur Lerner, Project Director, 860-444-8051 x3 or artherner@hotmail.com
City Seeds
Poughkeepsie Farm Project
Poughkeepsie, NY
CITY SEEDS aims to increase
awareness of, participation in, and capacity for a healthy and just food system by combining efforts of community-based food
projects in the Mid-Hudson Valley. City Seeds engages limited resource young adults (ages 14-24 years old) living in the cities
of Beacon and Poughkeepsie in a project that combines urban farming, market-gardening, farm marketing, and seed saving. At
the core of this multi-year, multi-faceted project is the creation of a seed bank of regionally adapted seed stock.
CONTACT: Susan Grove, Executive Director, 845-473-1415 or susan@farmproject.org
Tierra De Oportunidades Project
Nuestras Raices,
Holyoke, MA
The Tierra de Oportunidades Project is a public space where Holyoke
residents unite to develop a better future for the community. Participants advance Latino/a culture and build community food
security through applying their agricultural skills, cultural heritage and traditions to positive activities that show love
of the soil and natural world, and make a social and economic impact which is passed proudly to the youth who are the next
generation. Heifer partnership enables new Latino farmers to start viable farm businesses on land managed by Nuestras Raíces,
an established community organization, through gifts of livestock, training in livestock health, investment in resources that
benefit the whole project and individual farms through passing on the gift.
CONTACT: Farm Manager, 413-535-1789
