Midwest cities have plenty of vacant lots. So why can’t urban farmers buy that land?
In Detroit, the land bank currently has around 63,000 vacant lots.
By Eva Tesfaye
KCUR
November 4, 2022
Excerpt:
There’s a high demand for the vegetables Mediatrice Niyonkuru grows in her urban garden.
Cassava leaves, muchicha and white eggplant are staples in the dishes the Burundi native makes, along with other east African immigrants.
“I know what they like and what they’re gonna eat,” she said. “So that’s why I have different plants than other farmers.”
Yet Niyonkuru and her business partner, Gasaya Musekura, are struggling to get more than the small piece of land that they own, despite the estimated 10,000 vacant lots in Kansas City, Kansas.
“My garden is still small, but the problem, too, is no water,” she said, explaining she has no irrigation on this plot of land.
While many Midwestern cities have an abundance of vacant land, urban farmers often have a difficult time acquiring it, either from private landowners or city-run land banks. Supporters of urban farms say they provide stability and increased food security to neighborhoods, yet not every city recognizes their value.
For instance, in Kansas City, Kansas, the Wyandotte County Land Bank only sold one property to an urban farm in the past two years.
It was to Niyonkuru and Musekura.
Both are recent graduates of the four-year farm training program called New Roots for Refugees. They were supposed to move their operation onto their own land, but the lack of water access and the inability to extend their land has kept Niyonkuru and her business partner largely on the training farm.
