Create, assist with and promote local food production/distribution within the city:
Best Practice of this action
Keywords
schools
Rating Guideline
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Summarize what exists in the city: a farmer's market, urban ag businesses, school garden, etc. |
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Report on supportive actions taken by the city such as use of city land for a farmer's market, garden plots in city parks, rooftop gardens, hiring a garden/market coordinator, supporting season extension techniques such as hoop houses or greenhouses; a winter farmer's market; donations from markets/gardens to food shelves. |
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Report a permanent conservation easement on a school forest, orchard, garden; report on percent of housing units within a 1 mile of a healthy food source (farmer's market, community garden, CSA drop point, and stores with an NAICS code of 445110 or 445230); convert top level of a parking ramp for a local food growing business; support a mobile food market to bring healthy food to people. |
Resources
- Some local food promotion efforts, such as Homegrown Minneapolis, cover the multiple areas of expanding a community’s ability to grow, process, distribute, eat and compost more healthy, sustainable, locally grown foods.
- Farmers Markets:
- Comprehensive manual on how to start a farmers market from the Minnesota Farmers Market Association. From the MN Dept. of Agriculture see Minnesota Grown promotional assistance for farmers markets and farmers, and the AGRI Urban Agriculture Grant Program.
- Gardens:
- A model resolution of support for community gardens (Public Health Law Center, St. Paul: 2011).
- Contact the Land Stewardship Project for assistance in starting a community-supported agriculture enterprise and see the American Community Garden Association’s How to Create a Community Garden.
- See Ramsey County's SummerLands Project that allows community groups to utilize unused county land for seasonal community use such as event space, parks, art installations, community gardens, etc.
- Food Forests:
- MN Dept. of Natural Resources' school forests program and information from University Extension on school gardens.
- Urban Farms:
- University of MN Extension resources for enhancing the sustainability of Minnesota's small farms and the Urban Farm Business Plan Handbook (U.S. EPA: 2011), a framework for any organization or community interested in developing an urban farm on cleaned brownfields or vacant sites to help address neighborhood blight, food access, or community development challenges.
- During 2012 J&J Distributing of St. Paul teamed with the city of St. Paul and New York-based BrightFarms LLC to develop a 38,000-square-foot hydroponics facility to produce more than 350,000 pounds of tomatoes and lettuce annually. Reduced costs and shrink rates at the facility and fresher produce will result in competitive prices. In addition to new jobs created and a product with a reduced carbon footprint, BrightFarms will recycle and reuse stormwater captured in tanks, preventing 750,000 gallons of runoff. BrightFarms will also use 4.5 million gallons less water than traditional field agriculture while producing the same amount of crops. Contact Garden Fresh Farms of Maplewood about license agreements to build and operate an aquaponic or hydroponic urban farm.
- See case studies of season extension techniques - growing with greenhouses / high tunnels (MN CERTs, 2012)
- Urban agriculture isn’t as climate-friendly as it seems - but these best practices can transform gardens and city farms (The Conversation, 2024)
Sublist
a. A farmer's market or co-op buying club.
b. An urban agriculture business or a community-supported agriculture (CSA) arrangement between farmers and community members/employees.
c. A community or school garden, orchard or forest.
Order Number
3
Action Type
Finite