Can an Urban Farm Run by Police Create Jobs, Feed People, and Build Trust?
Dig Deep Farms, founded by the Alameda County Sheriffs Department a decade ago, is dramatically expanding its work to improve food access and job training. But it also has to overcome mixed feelings about law enforcement.
By Annie Sciacca
Civil Eats
September 14, 2022
Excerpt:
Bass recalled the initiative’s first plots of land: a small parcel next to a firehouse and a gravel-filled plot next to a clothing business. To some, creating a project that would meaningfully reduce crime and increase job opportunities sounded like a very tall ask for a couple of inconspicuous empty lots.
“It seemed a little nutty at the time,” Neideffer told Civil Eats.
Now, nearly a decade later, Dig Deep Farms, which has a home base in the San Leandro Hills, is currently putting the final touches on the new incarnation of Ardenwood Historic Farm, a 90-acre operation it recently acquired through a lease with the East Bay Regional Park District. It will be the newest of six farms and will operate a community supported agriculture (CSA) program as part of a county effort to create what Bass describes as a “circular food economy.”
The new farm will allow Dig Deep to increase its capacity dramatically for growing food: Before signing the five-year lease with the East Bay Regional Parks District, which owns Ardenwood, Dig Deep Farms was farming just seven acres. It also signed a lease for a 10-acre farm in Union City.
The farm’s produce is at the heart of several county-wide initiatives, including a food as medicine program, in which patients at county health clinics are prescribed fresh produce. A person suffering from diabetes, for example, can get a 12-week prescription from their doctor for free fruits, vegetables, and herbs that are delivered to their home each week. The program is part of what the county calls ALL IN Recipe4Health, and it’s often paired with exercise and nutrition classes.
