Urban farmers in Richmond, California are helping in the fight against food insecurity
When people are connected directly to their food supply, she says, it dodges the bottleneck that is created when disruption happens in the distribution chain in a crisis like COVID-19.
By Cameron Nielsen
Richmond Confidential
November 5, 2020
Excerpt:
As food insecurity racks Richmond’s low-income communities, farmers have become one of the residents’ saving grace. Urban Tilth, a Richmond-based farm dedicated to providing fresh produce to the local community has been providing almost six times more food since the pandemic began.
After receiving a grant from the USDA’s Farmers to Families initiative, which supports local farms during Covid-19, Urban Tilth now provides local organic food to 190 Richmond families financially impacted by COVID-19.
Urban Tilth is also doing free farm stands with leftover produce twice a week at Northbridge Gate and once a week at the Richmond Greenway. “There’s always a line of folks, especially at the Greenway Farmstand. And we’re out of produce within an hour,” says Doria Robinson, the director of Urban Tilth.
Robinson says that local agriculture is pivotal in a time of crisis, by providing food directly to communities. Instead of food being transported from the farm to the distributor then to a grocery store, local farms are connected directly to the customer.
