Urban Agriculture

SUPPORT ORGANIZATIONS

American Community Gardening Association
www.communitygarden.org/
Focused on strengthening communities through community gardening, the American Community Garden Association works to expand state and regional community gardening networks, develop resources and research in support of community gardening, and conduct educational programs. The Association provides numerous resources, including publications, information about funding opportunities, and useful links.

Community Food Security Coalition
www.foodsecurity.org
The Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) is a North American nonprofit that strives to provide communities with better access to affordable and healthy food by improving local and regional food systems. Consisting of over 300 member organizations, their mission is to help strengthen a community's ability to maintain an entire food system from growing to selling that incorporates the principles of justice, democracy, and sustainability. The coalition provide technical assistance, training and grants to community food practitioners, supports farm to school and farm to college programs, and advocates for federal policies to support local food security initiatives.

Fair Food Network
www.fairfoodnetwork.org
Based in Michigan, the Fair Food Network works to improve justice and sustainability in how food is regulated, grown, accessed, understood and funded. For example, in Detroit, they've implemented the Double Up Food Bucks project, which matches every $2 spent on fresh food by Food Stamp recipients at farmer's markets with $2 of Food Buck tokens, thus incentivizing healthier food choices while supporting local farmers. FFN also provides grants and technical assistance to food enterprises, entrepreneurs and communities as part of Healthy Urban Food Enterprise Development.

Food First: Institute for Food and Development Policy
www.foodfirst.org
The Institute for Food and Development Policy (aka Food First) is an Oakland-based think tank that focuses on issues of ending global hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation by utilizing research, analysis and advocacy to help develop democratically controlled, sustainable local food systems. One of Food First's active projects is an effort to map sustainable food business models in the San Francisco Bay Area, including looking at large scale cooperative systems (e.g. Mondragón) and other methods to help generate local economic development.

The Food Trust
www.thefoodtrust.org
The Food Trust partners with neighborhoods, schools, grocers, farmers and policymakers to improve access to and affordability of healthy food for low-income communities. They fund various school-based and community-based programs, including operating more than 30 farmers markets in the Philadelphia region, helping finance 83 supermarket projects in 34 Pennsylvania counties, and working extensively to create a national-scale version of the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative.

'Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food' (U.S. Dept. of Agriculture)
www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/knowyourfarmer
Launched in 2009, the USDA's 'Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food' program is an effort to improve local and regional food systems and create economic development in low-income communities by supporting small to mid-sized farms. In September 2009, the initiative awarded $4.8 million in grants through the Community Food Projects Competitive Grant Program and an additional $4.5 million through the Farmers Market Promotion Program. Recipients included urban agricultural focused organizations, including $300,000 to the Southside Community Land Trust in Providence, R.I., $75,000 to Growing Power, Inc. in Milwaukee, WI and $41,000 to the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture.

New Agrarian Center
www.web.me.com/blueheron55/NAC_Site/Welcome.html
The New Agrarian Center (NAC) was formed in 2000 with the mission of growing a sustainable local food system in Northeast Ohio. The NAC began its work with the initiation of the George Jones Farm and Nature Preserve in Oberlin, Ohio. Earned income from farm production exceeded $70,000 in 2008. In partnership with Ohio State Extension, the New Agrarian Center has developed the City Fresh initiative. City Fresh meets the needs of both urban and rural communities by improving access to fresh, locally grown food for urban residents and increasing marketing opportunities in the city for local farmers. The City Fresh program impacts the local food system through the development of neighborhood food centers called Fresh Stops, nutrition education, garden installations in urban areas, the cultivation of direct farm-to-business connections, and its City Fresh Youth program.

Slow Food USA
www.slowfoodusa.org
With more than 200 chapters across the county, Slow Food USA is an organization that focuses on promoting better access local, equitable and sustainable food production and engaging in outreach, such as through children and school and other public programs, to help connect communities to these food systems.

Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE)
www.sare.org
Supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA) and operated under cooperative agreements with the University of Maryland and the University of Vermont, the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program provides grants and outreach to promote sustainable innovation in American agriculture. Since 1988, SARE has provided grants for more than 2500 projects, including support for urban agricultural farms, such as $6,000 to the Resource Center City Farm in Chicago, IL, $6000 to New Roots Urban Farm in St. Louis, MO, and $18,000 to the Minnesota African Women Sustainable Backyard Farming Project in the Twin Cities metropolitan area.

W. K. Kellogg Foundation: Food and Society Program
www.foodandsociety.org
Started in 2000, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Food and Society Program has, to date, funded more than 75 food projects - efforts to create community-based food systems that support local, healthy, and sustainably grown food. Working to transform the nation's food system, the Program provides assistance to both rural and urban food networks as it strives to increase accessibility to Good Food - food that is nutritional, sustainable, fair and affordable.