Urban farmers in Connecticut are leading the fight to feed areas lacking fresh produce
“If you look at it comprehensively, the Connecticut Department of Agriculture has been very deliberate and intentional to support program outreach and education for our urban growers.
Theresa Sullivan Barger
CT Insider
July 31, 2023
Excerpt:
Shawn Joseph has been working in the dirt for about as long as he can remember. A gardener since age 7, he earned a horticulture degree from Naugatuck Valley Community College. Later, the Bridgeport resident began farming after getting laid off from a corporate job, starting Park City Harvest with his partner, Richard Meyers, seven years ago.
They began growing in a few community garden plots and family members’ backyards. But the logistics of driving to multiple locations ate up valuable time and became untenable. When they couldn’t find any viable land in Bridgeport despite searching, they put out a plea on social media for a place to farm. A woman who lives on a half-acre plot on the Bridgeport-Trumbull line responded, offering up her quarter-acre yard where her grandfather used to garden. The homeowner provided a low-cost lease, and they’ve been able to farm in the soil there for the past four years.
Park City Harvest sells its produce at local farmers markets, and has diversified its offerings with microgreens grown indoors year-round, plus olive oil, candles, spice mixes, herbal tea, hot sauce, pickles and apparel.
“I just wanted to do something that didn’t feel like work to me,” Joseph says. “I have three boys. One thing I wanted to show them and tell them is the value of being able to find something you enjoy that you can do all day and figure out a way to get paid for it.”
