The P-Patch Trust builds healthy and diverse communities by fostering community gardens, urban farms and green space. This is accomplished through public engagement, partnerships, leadership development, advocacy, and land acquisition.
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The P-Patch Post - Our Newsletter Issue: Fall 2011 From P-Patch to P-Plot
The P-Patch Post - Our Newsletter Issue: Fall 2011 From P-Patch to P-Plot
| From P-Patch to P-Plot |
| P-Patch Post - The P-Patch Trust's Newsletter - Issue: Fall 2011 |
| Written by Eddie Hill |
|
On a former dairy farm in the hills of unincorporated King County, just outside Auburn, WA, a group of farmers meets with Seattle Tilth staff outside the hoophouse and tool storage area to plan their day. Red Barn Ranch, a 39-acre pasture and forested site owned by the City of Seattle and managed by the Seattle Parks & Recreation Department, is currently housing Seattle Tilth’s new Farm Incubator Program. Today, Tilth staff members and some interns provide guidance on which crops look ready to harvest for market, what time of day to water certain plants and how to get the land ready for another round of brassicas and root crops for over-wintering. The Farm Incubator Program is part of a recent expansion of Seattle Tilth from teaching and promoting gardening and biodynamic horticulture (permaculture) to smallproduction urban agriculture, including small-animal husbandry. Tilth acquired the program from Burst for Prosperity, a regional organization that pilots creative solutions to poverty and instability. The program began with twelve Burundian and fourteen Somali-Bantu refugees on the 10-acre Boscolo Farm in the Kent Valley between 2008 and 2010. Each of these family businesses tends about a quarter acre their first year in the program. One of them, the Somali-Bantu Family Farmers of Washington, now tends 1-acre in their third year of participation. The Burst pilot was developed by Jenny Thacker and Njambi Gishuru, a Kenyan-born community builder with an awareness of refugee and immigrant issues. Taking cues from other successful small-farming incubators in the Midwest and on the East Coast, Burst for Prosperity added business training, household management and modified ESL courses to get the first participants started in learning how to farm in the Northwest. At first, Burst worked with Washington State University Extension’s Cultivating Success Program in Puyallup, Washington CASH and Highline Community College to support the Farm Incubator Program. After Seattle Tilth’s participation in promoting the 2010 Year of Urban Agriculture in Seattle, Burst contacted Tilth about taking on the program and moving it to the next level. “Burst focuses on starting pilot programs, not sustaining them. We look for partners that can advance the idea and solidify success,” says Jenny Thacker, now a Program Manager for Grants and Contracts at Seattle Tilth. “We sought out a partnership with Tilth because of their solid background in community, as well as food production and environmental knowledge of the Northwest. It was a perfect match.” The program is providing insight into sustainable, integrated, regional food security. The Executive Director of Tilth, Andrea Dwyer, says, “In order to create a healthy and equitable food system in King County, it requires that cities connect with the counties, and then connect with the rural communities. It is a whole system, requiring each piece do its part to connect and work together to improve our effectiveness.” The reenergized movement to “bring the farm back to the city” is now reaching the suburban and peri-urban communities that form a boundary between the city and the larger rural farms. Suburban areas in King County have maintained farmable areas of land in the form of county- or suburban-designed outdoor green spaces like sports or county fair fields, and large undeveloped areas of pasture or gravel. Local advocates have long called for acquiring vacant public lands for public benefit (training, education, business incubation). However, a common interest in these issues has only recently galvanized efforts and energies to make real changes in regulations, rules and guidelines. “I think our work and our partners are committed to supporting and advocating for all farmers,” says Dwyer, “rural, urban or suburban.” Currently, the Farm Incubator Program is maintaining a training cohort of 12 participants, making up five farm businesses. “We have a history of farming in our countries and when we came here to America it was hard to find out how to keep farming,” said Mohamed Rago, a third-year participant and a Somali-Bantu from a Kenyan refugee camp. “We like to farm and the work makes us feel good about participating in this country. We are good farmers, and we want to be a part of making good food.” Red Barn Ranch already sells to several food co-ops, restaurants and small catering units, providing some training stipends for participants. Farm Incubator Distribution Manager Zach Gayne says, “Growing the food this season wasn’t really the issue, nor was selling it, so far. One of the big issues is being able to sell to corner stores and smaller community markets in low-income areas of our cities.” Gayne continued, “Stores pay 60% less for conventional produce than what we can sell it for to meet the needs of the participating farmers. This creates a gap, where we are still able to service more economically stable communities while not being able to meet our goals of getting more healthy food to communities in food-insecure areas.” Seattle Tilth has just been awarded a three-year United States Department of Agriculture grant through the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program to continue this work. The Farm Incubator Program is also connected to Tilth’s new Rainier Beach Urban Farm & Wetlands Program, the Rainier Valley Eats! Coalition and Seattle Youth Garden Works. Tilth hopes that this chain of opportunity from high school to adulthood will spark new generations of sustainable, chemical-free, organicallycentered small farmers who rebuild and strengthen our local farming culture, community and economy. |
P-Patch Post
News Notes
- P-patch community gardens keep growing with levy funds
- Matching Fund connects
- P-Patch tours a hit!
- Work party adventures: A shed, a gang and a shoe!
- From P-Patch to P-Plot
- Levy update: World’s strongest community gardeners
- Saving seeds for the future: Mayor Mike McGinn’s gardening and political philosophy
- P-Patches in the community: Lessons from University Heights
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