Hillside farm in Northeast LA takes urban agriculture to new heights
“It’s really about looking at creating soil health, ecosystem health, plant health, and most importantly, community health,” says Tomassini.
By Matt Guilhem
KCRW
May. 16, 2023
Excerpt:
There’s a reason most farmland is flat in America, says Eric Tomassini, who runs a tiny, hillside urban agriculture operation called Avenue 33 Farm in Lincoln Heights.
“It’s a lot of work,” he says. “We can’t really get any machinery up there because of the slope of the hillsides. So everything’s by hand, mostly using a broad fork, carrying buckets of compost up and down the hill.”
Those challenges didn’t stop Tomassini and his wife Ali Greer from transforming the formerly weedy, rough, and rugged slope behind their Lincoln Heights home into a bountiful source of produce for their neighborhood.
The couple began farming the land when they moved there in 2018, and today, the 1.2-acre plot teems with fresh vegetables, fruits, and flowers — much of which is offered at affordable prices to the surrounding community.
“We have a free food distribution every week,” says Tomassini. “And then we have a farm stand that’s open to EBT users where we get market match funding to make that produce affordable.”
For just $10, EBT users can get a box filled with produce, milk, eggs, and bread at the farm’s weekly Community Farm Stand. They also offer sliding scale boxes to non-EBT users.
