New Stories From 'Urban Agriculture Notes'
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AficaPure: New York Urban Farmer Grows for Beauty Care Supplies

Antonisha Owens makes bath and body products with active ingredients she grows at her rooftop urban farm.

Her products include soaps, bath bombs, shampoos, conditioners, hair oils, hair dresses, body butters, body polish and body scrubs, all hand-made in small batches.

By Deborah Jeanne Sergeant,
Lancaster Farming
July 31, 2022

Excerpt:

But first, although she was somewhat familiar with growing plants, Owens felt she needed more agricultural knowledge. So she attended the six-month Groundswell Farmer Training Program in Ithaca, New York, finishing it in September 2021. Meeting three times a week for training workshops helped her learn how to grow all the herbs and flowers she needed in the city. Now, her rooftop farm includes lavender, peppermint, spearmint, water mint, roses, lotus flowers, aloe vera, hibiscus, lemongrass and bee balm. The plants provide the active ingredients for her products.

“I have a long history of my family farming,” Owens said. “My great-grandmother grew up on a farm, (and I grew up) with my grandmother and great-grandmother watching me. My grandmother said they couldn’t keep up with the farm (because of) the taxes. We would help her in the garden.”

Her formal training at Groundswell helped her learn more about effective growing practices in an urban environment. And, because she can grow only a certain amount of plants in her limited rooftop space, she has scaled back her product line to 48, which she admits is “still a lot,” but she decides what to make based upon what her customers want.

Owens also mastered how to dry her flowers and herbs so she can use her stored ingredients to make cosmetics at any time of the year.

Prior to growing her own plants, Owens had learned about natural ingredients while working at a local whole foods and supplements store, as well as while working part-time as a hairdresser. She had also realized there was a lack of natural, organic products for Black hair. This had led her to start making her own natural products. Her customers liked the results they experienced and told their friends. Eventually, the word-of-mouth advertising helped her grow both her salon business and the hair care product business. She left the supplement store and went into hairdressing full-time in 2010 as Afica Pure.

Read the complete article here.