Food safety. Is it legal to sell processed food out of your home kitchen per a “cottage food law”? If not, determine whether a commercial kitchen is available to rent. Learn more about food safety law from the Urban Agricultural Legal Resource Library, a project of the Sustainable Economies Law Center.
Should you decide to advocate for changes in zoning or ordinances that are more favorable to urban agriculture, it helps to look at best practices in other cities. For example, Cleveland, Ohio, has an Urban Garden District Zoning ordinance that gives community gardens additional protection from being sold and converted to other uses. Seattle, Richmond, Portland, Oakland, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, and Baltimore also have useful policy templates for promoting urban agriculture.7 In advocating for policy change, try to get your hands on any community food assessments that can provide data to support the need to uplift urban agriculture. Engage with the local food policy council to find allies for your cause.
Lack of accessible and affordable land can be one of the greatest constraints to urban farming. Empty lots, utility rights-of-way, private backyards, parks, institutional land (schools, hospitals, churches, prisons, universities, senior homes), and rooftops are all examples of vacant land that might be reclaimed for agricultural use. When you encounter vacant land with agricultural potential, take note of the address of the adjacent parcels and take that information to the local tax assessor or department of finance. Ask to see the tax map and property records to determine the parcel number, and research the site’s ownership history. You can then contact the most recent owner to discuss license, lease, or sale of the property. Alternatively, many cities have passed legislation to allow citizen-controlled land banks and land trusts to manage vacant land. If your city has a land bank, approach them directly to determine what properties are available, their land-use history, zoning designation, and any public programs that provide incentives for their purchase. The national nonprofit Trust for Public Land also stewards urban lots that can be used for agriculture.
If you are unable to buy property outright, you will need to enter into a lease or other contractual agreement to guarantee access to the land. The Urban Agricultural Legal Resource Library outlines important elements of land-use agreements for both public and private land and sample land-use agreements. Your land-use agreement should include the following provisions, at minimum:
Provisions of Land-Use Agreement
Land. Specifications of size and location.
Rent. Cost to tenant.
Use of land. Specification of permitted uses and prohibited uses (sales, tree removal, fires, and the like).
Term. Duration of lease, options for lease renewal, and expected tenure of project on land.
Building and improvements. Clarification of building types prohibited and permitted (carports, storage, temporary shelters, and so on) and improvements (fencing, garden beds, landscaping).
Right of entry. For example, restrictions to farm employees, contract workers, volunteers.
Hours of use. Days and times of activities, clarification of overnight stay.
Noise. Expected decibels of noise pollution created.
Animals. Use of animals and restrictions thereof.
Expected traffic. Estimated number of trips to the site and number of people expected on a plot at any given time.
Growing practices. Farmers’ use of tools/machinery and use of pesticides, fertilizer, fungicides, and so on. (On the city’s end, this could be a selection criterion—for example, projects growing organically could rank higher than projects proposing to use these chemicals.)
Environmental impacts. Management of runoff and water pollution.
Water usage. Agreement on source, use, and payment.
Routine maintenance. Specifies responsibilities of landowner and farmer in maintenance of plot’s appearance and preventing hazards.
Subleasing policy. Permitted/prohibited and where liability for subtenant lies.
Garden produce. Clarification of ownership of produce from the land and whether sales are permitted.
Compost. Agreement on use and location of compost pile and perhaps use of landowner’s acceptable yard and kitchen wastes.
Payment. Type and amount of payment; can be monetary or in-kind through share of crops.
Liability. Two-way release of liability; each party gives indemnity to the other over specific scenarios and legal responsibilities for their respective uses of the land.
Clean Soil, Clean Water
The ¼-acre lot at the end of Oread Street in the Main South neighborhood of Worcester, Massachusetts, was partially covered in asphalt and entirely covered in garbage. There were high levels of soil lead, no secure land tenure, no infrastructure, and no access to water. Where others may have seen despair, the mostly Afro-Latinx residents on the block saw a future youth farm. We supported neighbors to negotiate with the grumpy absentee landlord and get a license agreement, then convinced the city to pick up the trash and asphalt for free. Of course, we first had to remove the trash and asphalt. With borrowed crowbars, pickaxes, and wheelbarrows, our intergenerational team set to work clearing the lot over a series of weekends. We installed rainwater catchment on a neighbor’s shed as our initial irrigation and implemented best practices to keep gardeners and consumers safe from contaminated soil. Over 15 years later we are proud to say that the Oread Street Farm is still in operation, managed by local youth growers.
Clean Soil
A legacy of environmental racism has contaminated many of the sacred soils in our neighborhoods with arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, nickel, selenium, and petroleum pollution. From the demolition of buildings containing toxic materials, to atmospheric deposit of air pollution, to industrial effluent, the land in our communities bears a disproportionate burden of harmful toxins. This legacy, however, should not make us fear the earth. According to Malik Yakini, only 13 percent of soil samples in garden lots across Detroit have heavy metals above the federal guidelines, despite public perception that all are contaminated. Further, it is possible to grow in moderately contaminated areas so long as you follow certain safety precautions.
A thorough discussion of the possibilities for remediating contaminated soil using specific plants and phosphate-rich compost is provided in chapter 4, “Restoring Degraded Land.” Even for those without the time and resources to remove contaminants through remediation, there are simple precautions you can take if your heavy metal levels are within the range presented in table 11.1. It is imperative that you have the soil-tested for heavy metals at a professional soil testing laboratory. Your local agricultural extension office can provide you with a list of certified laboratories. At Soul Fire Farm we mail our soil samples to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst for analysis.
Teens from Worcester’s Youth Grow urban farming program visit Soul Fire Farm. Photo by Jonah Vitale-Wolff.
Table 11.1. Unsafe Levels of Heavy Metals in Soil
Provided that your soil contaminant levels are below those in the “unsafe for any gardening or contact” column, follow the subsequent best practices to minimize risk.
Plant crops away from building foundations, painted structures, and heavily traveled roads.
Plant vegetable crops in raised beds containing uncontaminated soil and compost.
Remove obvious contaminants such as scrap metal and construction materials.
Use mulch and cover crops to minimize exposure to contaminated dust, and to maintain high levels of organic matter.
Because concentrations of heavy metals are highest in roots and leaves, avoid planting and eating leafy or root vegetable crops in soils with heavy metals above typical levels.
Lime, compost, or amend soil to keep pH close to neutral, or even slightly alkaline, and ensure adequate draining to reduce the mobility and availability of lead and heavy metals.
Work in the garden only when soil is moist or damp to avoid inhaling particles.
Wear gloves, long sleeves, and pants whil
e gardening to prevent skin exposure.
Wash hands after gardening.
Wash all vegetables thoroughly.
Remove gardening shoes and garments before entering the home, and wash gardening clothes separately from other clothing.
UPLIFT
Karen Washington, Garden of Happiness
Karen Washington, founder of the Garden of Happiness in New York City, as well as Black Urban Growers, is a movement elder who exemplifies the teaching “We protect what we love.” Karen learned to love and cherish wholesome food and agriculture as a child. She comes from a long legacy of talented cooks, and her father was the first Black produce manager for a major supermarket chain. He was also a fisherman and brought home “tons” of fresh seafood and vegetables for the family. Mama Karen shared, “We lived in the projects and every Saturday mother would be knocking on doors to share the extra fish. We had it wrapped in newspaper in the freezer ready to give to everyone in the building.” As a child, she watched the “farm report” on television before the cartoons and tasted milk fresh from a cow’s udder on a school field trip, while the other children squealed.
Mama Karen moved to the Bronx in 1985 as a single parent of two children and had a big backyard for the first time. She called upon her lifetime love of farming and taught herself to grow food from library books. She said, “It was the tomato that changed my life. I used to hate them because they were pale and did not taste good. But that first tomato was so good, I decided right then that I wanted to grow everything.”
In 1988 she founded the Garden of Happiness on a vacant lot right across the street from her home. At the time there were a lot of empty lots in the Bronx; many considered it a “war zone,” with buildings literally burning down everywhere you turned. Mama Karen got support from Bronx Green Up to start that landmark garden 30 years ago. The garden was centered on community hope and survival in the midst of a cocaine and heroin epidemic. The gardeners removed the garbage and made the lot into a beautiful, safe space, a beacon that encouraged people not to flee from the community. Mama Karen explained, “Anytime Black and Brown people do something to be self-reliant, the system does something to buck it, dismiss it, or co-opt it. ‘Look at those monkeys, look at what they live in, they live in filth,’ said the white police officers. I heard it with my own ears.”
Then Mayor Giuliani came in with the developers, enticed by what the gardeners had done to improve the neighborhood and eager to develop these “empty lots.” They auctioned off our gardens and we fought back. “My garden was not going to be on that auction block,” Mama Karen pledged. She garnered the support of the NY Botanical Garden, Green Thumb, and Green Guerillas and got the garden transferred to the protection of the Parks Department. Another 294 gardens followed suit, saving many of their properties.
The fight is far from over. Not only are gardens under threat from gentrification, but the urban garden movement is being “swindled by a high-tech vision.” Individuals and corporations from outside the community are working to commercialize gardening and negate the original vision of home provisioning, safe spaces, and cultural maintenance for immigrants. “We have been here from the beginning. We tested the soil, put in raised beds, and have grown food sustainably and efficiently. Community gardeners are farmers. We are strong and we have done so much with nothing. We are the ones who can feed the world. We know how to work and what to do. If you give us the capital, land, and opportunities, we can move mountains.”
Karen Washington is founder of the Garden of Happiness in the Bronx and the national organization Black Urban Growers. Photo courtesy of Karen Washington.
Clean Water
In order to save money, the Emergency Manager of the city of Flint, Michigan, poisoned its residents. In 2014 Flint switched its water supply from Lake Huron to the notoriously filthy Flint River, resulting in several instances of fecal coliform bacteria contamination. The city responded by adding more chlorine to the water, causing a buildup of cancerous trihalomethanes. They failed to add an anticorrosive agent to the water, so iron and lead leached from pipes into the water supply, making children sick. In one home the tap water had 13,200 parts per billion (ppb) of lead. The EPA limit is 15 ppb. After persistent organizing by residents, the city declared a state of emergency and several lawsuits ensued.
In our own rural community, several towns recently had to install water filtration plants because private wells were contaminated with carcinogenic perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) that had leaked from the Taconic Factory and Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics. Fortunately, Soul Fire Farm’s well was not contaminated, but many people lost their health and their homes to the disaster.
Clean water is life. In urban and low-income communities, we cannot assume that society will provide clean water for us. We need to be proactive about testing our water and seeking clean sources. To find a water-quality testing lab in your area, call the EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 800-426-4791 or visit www.epa.gov/safewater/labs.
Table 11.2. Recommended Residential Water-Quality Testing
For those without access to a roof, you can construct a rain barrel with an inverted satellite dish to collect the water. Photo by Scott Kellogg.
A simple rain barrel can be constructed from a 55-gallon (210 L) barrel. Photo by Scott Kellogg.
Even when we know that the public water supply is clean, it may be prohibitively expensive to access. D-Town Farm in Detroit received a $1,500 water and sewer bill from the city for one month of summer usage. Of course, the farm was not using the sewer system at all, but rather diverting water from city management by maintaining a large permeable surface and a rainwater retention pond. While they work to reform policies, they are also taking action by developing their rainwater catchment systems to reduce the water they need to purchase from the city.
Rainwater harvesting saves money for farmers and has positive environmental impacts. Capturing rainwater reduces pressure on the sewage system, which maintains the health of local water bodies. While rainwater is not clean enough to drink or wash produce, it is suitable for irrigation. If you have a roof with gutters, a simple rain barrel can be made using an HDPE 55-gallon barrel that you can pick up from a car wash, from a food distributor, or on Craigslist for under $10. Select an opaque barrel that has not been used to store any toxic chemicals and rinse it thoroughly. Drill a hole on the side of the barrel toward the top and install a hose adapter for overflow. Drill another hole on the side of the barrel toward the bottom and install a hose bib to release the water. Set up the rain barrel on cinder blocks under the downspout of the gutter system and use a downspout adapter to direct the flow into the barrel. Multiple rain barrels can be attached to one another via the hose adapter.
Growing in Small Spaces
Like the exemplary urban farmers in Cuba who have sustained themselves for over 25 years on tiny city lots, we often have paltry spaces in which to grow the food that will nourish our community. It is possible to coax abundance from cramped places using a few strategies.
Sprouts
Our team of Afro-Caribbean farmers, artists, and healers were making our annual solidarity delegation to work with partners and family in Haiti on sustainable farming projects. We arrived in Leogane well after dark, exhausted from hours of hot dust on the bumpy road from Port-au-Prince, and eager for sleep. My roommate and womb sister, Naima, removed a glass jar with a perforated lid from her bag. She filled it with a handful of mung beans, rinsed the seeds with water, and set the jar on our bathroom sink to grow sprouts. “I always carry my greens with me,” she announced casually while I looked on with awe.
Sprouts are nutrient-dense, containing vitamins C, A, and K, fiber, manganese, riboflavin, copper, protein, thiamin, niacin, vitamin B6, pantothenic acid, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and live enzymes. In 1997 John Hopkins University researchers showed that broccoli sprouts contained major amounts of the substance glucoraphanin, a precursor to the natural antioxidant and cancer-inhibiting detoxifying i
sothiocyanate called sulforaphane (SGS).8
Sprouts are simple to raise and require negligible space and light. The only equipment you need is a quart-sized glass canning jar, a sprouting lid or sprouting screen, clean water, and sprout seeds. Lentil, alfalfa, broccoli, buckwheat, clover, cress, fenugreek, mung bean, onion, pea shoot, radish, and sunflower are among our favorites. You can buy sprout seed from a health food store or order it online, though we find that it saves money to simply buy seeds marketed as grains or legumes. We purchase organic lentil, buckwheat, and sunflower seeds directly from the bulk bins at the health food store and find that they germinate effectively. Place 3 tablespoons of sprout seeds into the bottom of the jar and affix the lid. Fill the jar with clean water and let the seeks soak for 6 to 10 hours: less time for small seeds, more time for large ones. Rinse and drain the sprouts after soaking, allowing the jar to rest at a 45-degree angle in a bowl or rack in between rinsing. Rinse two or three times per day. The sprouts will grow to fill out the jar and then turn green, all in just four to six days. Store dry sprouts in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. They keep for four to five days.
We distribute sprouts in our Ujamaa Farm Share. To get the quantity and quality we need, we grow them in trays rather than jars. We use sterilized 1020 seedling flats with plastic dome lids. One plastic dome lid is inverted and used as the drainage tray. We place six metal rings from canning jars evenly spaced in the tray to hold up the 1020 flat. Next the 1020 flat is placed on the metal rings. Inside the flat, we evenly distribute about 2 cups (480 ml) of soaked sprout seed. Another plastic dome lid goes on top to hold in the moisture. Over the dome lid, we place a clean hand towel to keep out the light until the last day. Restricting light makes the sprouts grow taller. We remove the towel for the last 24 hours so that the green color develops. Similarly to the jar method, rinse and drain the sprouts two or three times per day and harvest in five to six days.
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