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Facing Eviction from an Urban Farm, Baltimore Activists Continue Their Fight for Food Sovereignty

Black Yield Institute’s Cherry Hill Urban Community Garden. Photo By Jaisal Noor

After years of relying on fresh produce from a local urban farm, Baltimore’s Cherry Hill neighborhood is rallying together to save their farm from the city’s eviction notice.

By Jaisal Noor
Yes.
Nov 30, 2021

Excerpt:

A 1.5-acre fenced-in plot of land in the heart of South Baltimore’s isolated Cherry Hill neighborhood currently lies barren, its fields exhausted from growing nearly 3,200 pounds of crops for a community marked by disinvestment and a lack of access to healthy food.

After serving the surrounding neighborhoods for over a decade, Black Yield Institute’s Cherry Hill Urban Community Garden will no longer provide vine-ripened tomatoes, kale, squash, or other fresh, affordable, and culturally relevant food to nearby neighborhoods lacking a grocery store. In June, city officials served the garden with an immediate eviction order for occupying government land without permission.

Neighborhood residents, those the garden fed, and the farm’s supporters rallied behind Black Yield Institute, which administers the space and aims to build food sovereignty. They won a six-month reprieve so crops could be harvested and the Black-led grassroots organization could find an alternative space. This has so far proved elusive.

Read the complete article here.