Urban Agriculture

Small Farm Opportunities to Improve Community Accessibility and Affordability

Traci Barkley, Sola Gratia Farm
[Handout: None]

This session will introduce Sola Gratia Farm, a small community-based farm in Urbana, Illinois dedicated to producing locally-grown, high-quality produce for their community, with a particular focus on helping those with limited food dollars and resources. Over 10 years, Sola Gratia Farm has developed and adapted their farm and programming to better serve their neighbors in need including: overcoming barriers of cost, access, transportation, cooking knowledge, etc. Methods to improve equity and including strategic community partnerships, diversified product donation outlets, outreach and educational programming, and most recently, adaptations to their CSA program will be discussed.

High Tunnel Tomato and Pepper Trials at Extension Demonstration Sites

Zack Grant, University of Illinois Extension
Erin Harper, University of Illinois Extension
[Handout: None]

Join Educators Zack Grant and Erin Harper to learn about high tunnel variety trial projects at the South Suburban Cook Urban Ag Demonstration Site (SoSuCo), the Sustainable Student Farm on our main campus, and other sites. Data from the 2021 Heritage-Heirloom tomato hybrid trials will be presented along with other current projects.

Urban Ag Issues: Site Assessment and Water Access

Zack Grant, University of Illinois Extension
[Handout: Urban Ag ISSUES]

Learn about important site assessment and water access factors for urban agriculture projects. Educator Zack Grant will share lessons from urban ag projects in Cook County to highlight critical considerations for planning an urban agriculture project.

From Social Media to Urban Farmer: Creating a Community

Natasha Nicholes, We Sow We Grow
[Handout: None]

How does one person manage to take the skills learned from creating a successful social media presence into creating a successful urban farm? Join Natasha Nicholes of the We Sow We Grow Project to learn about her journey from old school content creator to Master Urban Farmer and how the two go hand in hand.

Urban Ag a New Catalyst to Building Community

Michael Howard, Fuller Park Community Development
[Handout: None]

Michael Howard CEO and cofounder of Fuller Park Community Development shares how a small network of Chicago neighbors used an illegal dumpsite and an abandoned trucking campus to solve the crisis of fresh food access in a real food desert.

Panel: When Your Customers Are Your Close Neighbors. Best Practices and Lessons Learned from Start-Up to Thriving Urban Farm.

Lucia Leon, Herban Produce
Traci Barkley, Sola Gratia Farm
Dulce Morales, Cedillo’s Fresh Produce Quilen Blackwell, Chicago Ecohouse and Southside Blooms
Tyrean Lewis, Heru Urban Farming
Kathryn Pereira, University of Illinois Extension
[Handout: None]

For an urban farmer simply knowing how to grow food and having land on which to grow the food is simply not enough. Whether the farm is a commercial or social enterprise large or small indoor or outdoor or somewhere in between the community surrounding the farm must understand and accept the farm’s mission and vision for it to thrive. Research has shown that barriers to a communities’ acceptance for an urban farm include “a lack of familiarity with urban farming; negative impressions of the appearance of urban farms; concerns about pests, vandalism, and the safety of eating farm food; fear that farms replace other, preferential, development; seeing urban farms as projects introduced by ‘outsiders’ who exploit neighborhood resources; and concerns about the long-term sustainability of urban farms” (Poulson and Spiker, 2014).

To overcome these barriers urban farmers must earn the community’s support of by using strategies such as relationship building, networking, strategic communication, and on-going resident engagement throughout all phases of a farm’s development.

In this session practicing urban farmers discuss the successful strategies they’ve used as well as the mistakes they made along the way.

Updates from Extension Urban Ag Demonstration Sites

Grace Margherio, University of Illinois Extension
Zack Grant, University of Illinois Extension
[Handout: URBAN AG updates]

Updates from urban agriculture demonstration sites managed by Extension. Learn about research and demonstration projects at the South Suburban Cook Count urban ag demonstration (SoSuCo) and Jackie Joyner Kersee Center in East St Louis sites.

Heavy Metals in Soils: Chicago Safe Soils Initiative

Andrew Margenot, University of Illinois
[Handout: Heavy Metals in Soils]

In collaboration with University of Illinois Extension, Advocates for Urban Agriculture, and stakeholders, we evaluated soil heavy metal contamination in soils in the Chicago, USA metropolitan region. This work utilizes portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) for rapid on-site estimation of heavy metal concentrations in soils. By establishing where, how much, and what kind of heavy metals may be present in urban soils being used to grow food crops, this work is a first step in the evaluation of soil-based constraints to urban food production systems in Chicago.