Five Borough Farm offers a roadmap to farmers and gardeners, City officials and stakeholders to understand and weigh the benefits of urban agriculture, and makes a compelling case for increasing resources—from soil and compost to growing space to funding—to grow urban agriculture throughout the five boroughs of New York City. 

outcome

With Five Borough Farm, we established a framework to understand how the broad range of activities happening at the city's farms and gardens contribute to social, health, economic and ecological outcomes, and introduced a set of indicators that can be used to measure the multiple benefits of urban agriculture. These tools are the first of their kind to address the full range of urban agriculture activities and benefits, and can be used locally and nationally to demonstrate how urban agriculture can positively transform communities.

The project publication, Five Borough Farm: Seeding the Future of Urban Agriculture in New York City, and companion website were released in July 2012, providing the first in-depth comprehensive overview of urban agriculture in NYC. Together they offer 30 policy recommendations to support and expand urban agriculture in all five boroughs and established the nation's first urban agriculture metrics framework so that farmers and gardeners can track their activities and demonstrate their impact.

background

NYC is a national leader in the urban agriculture movement with more than 700 food-producing farms and gardens throughout the five boroughs – that's almost three times the number of Starbucks franchises. By comparison, Seattle and San Francisco each have about 75 farms and gardens.

But urban agriculture encompasses a wide range of activities in addition to growing food: they capture stormwater, compost food waste, and create safe, attractive public spaces. Participants gain leadership and job skills, learn about nutrition and the environment, and earn income at farmers markets. These activities contribute to many citywide health, social, economic, and ecological benefits, as well as to the goals of municipal agencies and elected officials. 

process

Added Value, a nonprofit organization that runs the Red Hook Community Farm in Brooklyn, approached us with the idea for a project about urban agriculture during our 2009 Request-for-Proposals. Knowing first-hand the positive impact their urban farm has had in their community, they sought our assistance in quantifying the social, environmental, and economic benefits of urban agriculture; demonstrating the implications of this data to NYC policymakers; empowering other organizations locally and nationally to implement urban farms as public space; and activating public policy changes to encourage the creation of new community gardens and urban farms in NYC.

To understand and evaluate the benefits of urban agriculture, we assembled a multidisciplinary team of Fellows – including experts in food policy, sustainable design, and public health evaluation as well as a graphic designer and photographer – who conducted extensive research over a three-year period about all forms of urban agriculture in NYC. 

This process included:

• Engaging over 100 key stakeholders to shape and inform the project
• Conducting over 60 site visits around NYC to gather information about urban agriculture
• Convening more than 90 farmers and gardeners for a participatory workshop
• Conducting confidential interviews with key funders, government officials, support organizations and farmer and gardeners
• Producing 30 policy recommendations to strengthen and expand urban agriculture in NYC
• Developing the nation's first indicator guide to measure the social, health, economic, and ecological benefits of urban agriculture