By: Rebecca Messner


Seeds of change: Civic Works employee Mitch Matthews is preparing the ground for the first of an ambitious network of urban farms. | photo by Valerie Paulsgrove


On a sweltering June afternoon, the 6 acres of dry grass behind the football field at Lake Clifton High School look especially barren. Matt Bell surveys the landscape from the shade of a few sparse trees, assessing the progress he’s made with a small army of volunteers. The place is still lightly littered with candy wrappers and broken bottles, but it looks better than it did. He points to the spot nearby where he and some high school students recently hauled away a couch that looked like it had been lit on fire.

This inauspicious site, Bell says, will soon be transformed into Real Food Farm, the epicenter of a city-backed, many-tentacled urban agriculture network that, within the next decade, will produce 10 percent of the food consumed in Baltimore. That is, if all goes according to plan.

That plan had its genesis with the Chesapeake Sustainable Business Alliance, a nonprofit headed by Ted Rouse, son of developer/philanthropist James Rouse and a onetime partner in the development firm Struever Brothers, Eccles & Rouse. With the alliance’s former executive director, Terry Hardcastle, Rouse spent last winter concocting an elaborate business model for urban farming in Baltimore—a large commercial-scale operation, not just a community garden. The plan spun off from the work of the Baltimore Urban Agriculture Task Force, which Rouse helped organize last year. It calls for a central farm here at Clifton Park, equipped with twenty greenhouses to produce vegetables year-round. The Clifton site, planners say, could generate enough income after three years to fund the construction and operation of satellite farms throughout the city. A decade from now, they hope to see 250 greenhouses on sites all over Baltimore.

Buoyed by the local-food movement, urban agriculture is a hot topic nationally, with downsized industrial cities eager to both redevelop their abundant vacant land and feed their low-income residents, many of whom live in parts of town poorly served by grocery stores. Rouse, a longtime garden buff who was inspired in part by a prototype urban farm in Philadelphia, says that one key goal is to provide access to fresh, organic vegetables in inner-city Baltimore “at prices equal to the Safeways and Giants closest to those neighborhoods.” The plan calls for providing 150,000 pounds of produce annually to the low-income communities surrounding Clifton Park at below-market-rate prices; surplus food would be sold on the wholesale market to supermarkets and restaurants, as well as farmers’ markets and community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs.

While urban ag is being touted as a potential source of green jobs, the initial numbers in Baltimore would be modest: The plan anticipates the creation of five full-time and ten part-time jobs at the Clifton Park site, with additional stipends for community volunteers. But Rouse and company are thinking big. One of the Clifton greenhouses will serve as a classroom and training site, where area students will learn about the farming process, from planting seeds to marketing produce—a launching pad for a homegrown industry. “If even half of the 1,500 available acres in Baltimore City were used for food production,” the Civic Works project overview states, “3,000 new jobs could be created.”

In May, the plan received a thumbs-up from City Hall, and Deputy Mayor Andy Frank arranged for the use of the land in Clifton Park. The business alliance then turned the operation over to Civic Works, a nonprofit job corps based in the Clifton Mansion, just a few hundred feet from the farm site. Now, Matt Bell and his fellow Civic Works employee Mitch Matthews are clearing away the trash and preparing the site for a full-scale organic farm.

These upstart agriculturalists have their work cut out for them. This July, Baltimore Green Works sponsored a visit from Will Allen, founder of the Milwaukee-based city farming outfit Growing Power Inc. and a rising star in locavore circles (see Urbanite, Nov. 2008). Speaking at the Great Kids Farm, a project of Baltimore City Schools food chief Tony Geraci (see Urbanite, Nov. 2008), Allen warned of the challenges facing those who are serious about growing food in the inner city. For high-intensity farming to work, he said, Real Food farms would need lots of volunteer labor—not to mention a market willing to pay for the food they produce. “Inspiring the local community—that’s the first step,” Allen said. “You’re going to have to get embedded in the community, organize the community around food.”

And then there are the myriad challenges inherent in all farming, urban or otherwise: uncooperative weather, disease, bugs, and endless manual labor. “I think it’s a great idea,” says Joan Norman, who, along with her husband, Drew, has run One Straw Farm, the largest organic farm in Maryland, since 1985. “But I’m afraid that people won’t understand its potential. What if they put up twenty greenhouses and they don’t do so hot this year? There’s nothing more disappointing than a failed crop season. ”

One Straw Farm sells its produce through a CSA, at farmers’ markets, and to restaurants such as Gertrude’s and Woodberry Kitchen. Norman knows that farming—especially organically—can be an expensive proposition that requires a long-term commitment. “Two things a farm can’t be sustained on are volunteers and grants,” she says. “The food has to make money.”

The business end of the urban ag formula is still something of a question mark: Allen’s Growing Power, the national benchmark in city-to-farm projects, now enjoys a steady flow of grant funding to supplement its sales revenue, and its fourteen greenhouses are still a long way from supplying 10 percent of Milwaukee’s sustenance.

Civic Works says that it will cost about $500,000 to get the first twenty greenhouses built, and each commercial greenhouse could generate up to $25,000 per year in produce. For startup funds, they’re pursuing grants from a host of local and national foundations. Once the site is cleared, the group hopes to construct the first greenhouse by October and have the other nineteen built and ready for planting in March 2010. Norman, for one, is crossing her fingers and wishing these future farmers success in the spring. “This is way too important to fail,” she says.

—Rebecca Messner





WEB EXTRA:


REAL FOOD FARM


Overview

Real Food Farm is a partnership among Civic Works, Earthome and the Coldstream Homestead Montebello Community Corporation (CHMCC). Using solar high tunnel greenhouses, Real Food Farm will produce vegetables, fruits, and herbs in Northeast Baltimore’s Clifton Park and become completely self-sustaining within three years. Project goals include:

1.    Improving Community Access to Organic, Wholesome and Real Food:  Real Food Farm will provide approximately 150,000 pounds of high-quality fruits and vegetables each year to the low-income communities surrounding Clifton Park at a cost below market rate.
2.    Localizing Baltimore’s Food Consumption:  Real Food Farm will increase the percentage of food consumed by Baltimore City residents that is grown within 150 miles of Baltimore City.
3.    Creation of New Green Jobs:  In its first year, Real Food Farm will employ 4 full time employees, 1 part time employee and 9 quarter time employees. Hiring preference will be given to community members and students and graduates of the Baltimore City Public School System. 
4.    Training Residents for Green Jobs:  Real Food Farm will provide training for workers and volunteers in farm construction, horticultural production, business management, and marketing. 
5.    Promoting Education:  A Real Food Farm curriculum will be developed in partnership with Baltimore City Schools to teach biology, botany, chemistry, and business to local students.  Visits to an education greenhouse at Real Food Farm will enhance classroom instruction.  
6.    Becoming Sustainable and Replicable:  Real Food Farm will generate sustaining income that is greater than its costs of operation by the third year of production. Real Food Farm will become a model for urban food production that has a positive impact on its ecosystem and community.  It will develop satellite locations in similar community spaces that can contain one to ten greenhouses. 

Real Food Farm will place twenty high tunnels (30’ x 96’) in an under-utilized section of Clifton Park -- 18 production tunnels, one processing and packaging tunnel, and one dedicated to education and training.  High tunnels are greenhouses (or hoop houses) heated by the sun that enable farmers to grow throughout the year. In an effort to create sustaining income and simultaneously sell the produce to community members at an affordable rate there must be a blend of large quantity buyers, specialty-vegetable buyers and individual family buyers. Therefore, half production tunnels will focus on community food and will grow a variety of vegetables and fruits to be sold in the Clifton Park neighborhoods and at other farm stands throughout the city, while the other nine are slated to provide large quantities of local organic produce to the wholesale market, including stores such as Whole Foods, schools (such as BCPSS), colleges, restaurants, and other institutions. Community residents and local businesses have expressed strong interest in the project and we are working with community leaders to create a widespread and equitable food distribution plan.

In order to begin food production during the Spring 2010 growing season, Real Food Farm will develop in three phases.  Phase 1 (May 2009 – October 2009) will focus on pre-development planning, finalization of partnerships and curriculum, and construction of one demonstration tunnel.  Phase 2 (October 2009 – February 2010) will focus on site preparation, construction of 19 tunnels, and hiring and training staff.  Phase 3 (March 2010 – May 2010) will focus on planting, harvesting, marketing, and sales.


Green Job Creation and Training

During Real Food Farm’s first year of production, it will employ a General Manager, a Production Manager, three AmeriCorps members (two full-time and one part-time), and nine quarter-time general farm workers.  We will recruit community members and students attending local high schools to fill the AmeriCorps and farm worker positions.  Real Food Farm will use high tunnel consultants to ensure that the General Manager and Production Manager, who will both have prior experience in farm management, are trained in high tunnel farming techniques.  AmeriCorps members, who will spend a service year at the Farm, and the farm workers will be trained in high tunnel food production, business management, marketing, volunteer recruitment and management, and community development.  Civic Works staff will provide job skills development, encourage further academic attainment, and assist in job placement. 

In addition, participants in other Civic Works AmeriCorps programs, including Youthbuild and the Community Lot Team, will be trained in farm site preparation and construction of the high tunnels.  We expect their participation in the Farm development process to enhance the construction and landscaping skills already acquired during the program year and make our participants more competitive in the job market.  Once Real Food Farm begins production, it can serve as a training site for students enrolled in agriculture programs, farm workers who want to learn new techniques, and community members interested in urban agriculture careers. 

Real Food Farm will demonstrate that urban agriculture is a viable career path for Baltimore City residents.  Replication of the model has the potential to create a new green job industry in Baltimore.  Demand for locally produced organic food is higher than ever and the City contains a large amount of underutilized land.  More than $7 billion of food is consumed each year in the Baltimore area and it is estimated that less than 2% of that food was produced within 150 miles of Baltimore City. If an urban agriculture industry was created in Baltimore City that percentage could increase to 10%, resulting in an increased local economy and the creation of a substantial number of green jobs. 

Approximately 300 acres of publicly owned land (primarily parks and vacant lots) and 1,000 acres of privately owned land (currently containing 25,000 abandoned houses) could be used to develop urban agriculture projects.   Baltimore contains at least 200 acres of EPA certified Brownfields that, with proper encapsulation, could be converted into high tunnel food production.  We estimate that for every acre of land used in high tunnel production, 4 new urban agriculture jobs will be created.  If even half of the 1,500 available acres in Baltimore City were used for food production, 3,000 new jobs could be created.  This number could increase even more with the addition of food processing and retailing.


Phase 1

Phase 1 of Real Food Farm will combine site preparation for the large-scale project with the construction of a demonstration tunnel.  By October 2009, Civic Works will develop a site plan, complete soil testing, and submit necessary construction documents to the city for all required permits.  We will construct a demonstration tunnel near the site that will allow Real Food Farm to begin growing food in the high tunnel while showcasing this urban agriculture model to the community, partners, City agencies, and potential funders. 



Questions and comments can be directed to:
Alex Smith (r.alex.smith@gmail.com) 410-366-8533
John Ciekot (jciekot@civicworks.com) 410-366-8533
Tyler Brown (tbrown@civicworks.com) 410-366-8533









EMAIL TO EDITOR // SEND TO A FRIEND // PRINT