How to Make a Neighborhood Farm for an Entire Metropolis
A program being started in Atlanta helps midsize farmers buy their own land while providing much-needed fresh food to urban consumers.
By Kim Severson
New York Times
Aug 9, 2021
Excerpt:
The new program aims to bridge the gap between small, urban farms and large, highly industrialized ones — with what is often referred to as agriculture of the middle, the midsize regional farms that once fed most of the country but started to decline in the 1950s and ’60s.
In their wake, urban farms began popping up in nearly every part of the country, and a wider appreciation arose for food grown locally and organically.
“What we haven’t figured out is how to scale up that model now that we realize we need a robust, strong food system around urban centers,” said Mindy Goldstein, who directs the Turner Environmental Law Clinic at Emory University, which provides the legal infrastructure for the project. “Instead of a couple-acre farm that feeds the neighborhood, we need to think about how can these farms feed cities like Atlanta or Chicago.”
In its debut effort, the Working Farms Fund is buying 20- to 500-acre plots within a 100-mile radius of metropolitan Atlanta and restricting it to agricultural use through a conservation easement. It will lease the land to farmers who have been working with the fund to develop business plans that include saving money to buy their farm outright within 10 years.
