The Future of Ag in Baltimore City

This post was authored by Miyon Adams, one of Great Kids Farm's 2020 YouthWorks students.

[Photo: Eric Jackson, Founder and Servant-Director of Black Yield Institute, leads a workshop on food sovereignty at the Great Kids Farm African American Foodways Summit in February 2020]

I’ve lived in Baltimore all my life but I’ve been in Cherry Hill for about five years. I live in a food desert, the stores that are here are on trucks. At the shopping center we don’t have a grocery store, instead we have Family Dollar and a place that sells pretty much only chicken boxes. But the Cherry Hill Urban Community Garden fights this by teaching the people in the community urban agriculture and how to garden.

I think the future of agriculture in Baltimore will be a remedy for some problems like blighted communities, food deserts and lack of access to healthy food. I also think it will bring more food tourism, jobs and improve Baltimore’s economy. In his 2018 op-ed in the Baltimore Sun, Brent Flickinger counted “more than 100 community and school gardens in Baltimore, as well as more than 20 urban farms and several organizations working to support urban producers.” (1)

This is happening because of the people who are building up Baltimore and investing in its youth. There are people like Dominic Nell aka Farmer Nell who provides healthy, fresh produce to people and the stores in those communities that have no fresh produce. He is even opening a store in a food desert so people in that community will always have access to healthy food options. Black Yield Institute teaches kids about the history of food and how to control the food, businesses and money within their communities by offering food co-op, black food research, urban agriculture, Sankara-Hamer and black land & food sovereignty.

(1) SOURCE: www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0531-urban-agriculture-20180530-story.html)