Educational Urban Farm
What's an Educational Urban Farm?
An Educational Urban Farm can take many shapes.
Central themes often include:
merging indoor and outdoor learning experiences,
building connection to food sources,
learning by doing,
building community and economic development.
​Do you have more ideas and want your voice heard?
Do you have a special skill set that could be put to use to get this project going?
JOIN the Urban Farm planning team and make it happen!
Sign Up here to help build the farm
Some notable examples of urban farms that exist around the world
Edible Schoolyard Project in California is a garden, kitchen, and cafeteria at King Middle School, serving as a demonstration site and innovation hub for the edible education curriculum and pedagogy.
Great Kids Farm in Baltimore City is a living, working farm that educates students of all ages about healthy eating, sustainable agriculture and the natural sciences.
The Farm on Ogden in Chicago, Illinois is an incredible project that sustains a healthy urban community by bringing food, health and jobs together in one location. They work have a 7,300 square foot greenhouse and a 50,000-gallon aquaponics system that produces not only fresh vegetables but fresh tilapia all year.
The Urban Green Blue grid is a resource that help make cities sustainable, resilient and climate-proof. Their goal is to bring the different key players together along with examples of projects so that more sustainable projects can be created
HOW WOULD THIS URBAN EDUCATION FARM BE FUNDED?
As part of this study, our partners will be developing self-sustaining funding options for the educational farm. The farm itself will not have any negative economic impact on the city, school district or community. Ideas to-date for self-sustaining revenues include:
education (on a sliding scale basis) including certification programs,
year-round growing and selling fresh produce to school district(s), local restaurants, Farmer's Market & CSA, Summer (out of school) Food service, etc..
Memberships (at various levels)
Rentals, Catering, and "Destination Attraction" fees.
WHAT WILL SLP'S URBAN EDUCATIONAL FARM BE LIKE?
The purpose of the community engagement phase is to involve students, community groups, parents and faculty/staff in contributing their perspectives about what's best for SLP. No matter the outcome, education will be the core purpose to the end goals of eliminating hunger and improving nutrition in SLP and beyond.
WHERE WILL IT BE LOCATED?
We are excited to conduct a site selection process based on the outcomes of the input phase. We look forward to working with our neighbors, curriculum and learning experts, landscape architects, soil professionals, agricultural educators, surveyors, planners, and other experts to help in this process. Numerous factors such as soil contamination and size of parcel in an urban setting will affect the final decision.
WHEN WILL WE FIND OUT MORE?
The community-led engagement phase started in April of 2015. Since then, over 900 names have been submitted to City Council and the District School Board. In cross sector partnership we seek a Community Food Project grant from the USDA, the SLP Food Security Task Force will recommend a site and model for the educational farm. We look forward to sharing more as the process moves forward!
