Support Urban Food Systems

Ever look at the sticker on your apple or cucumber and ponder how far it had to travel to make it into your hand? As our food systems have become more reliant on global trade, they have become less diverse and less resilient to climate and social shocks.

At the same time, access to fresh and healthy food can be a challenge in urban centers due to the history of racism in our country. Racist policies in our country have led to areas with limited access to healthy food, known as food apartheid. Although many actions will be necessary to address food apartheid, one strategy is to redistribute power back to neighborhoods and ensure that the people have control over their own food system.

Urban farms are a mechanism of change - they can galvanize communities while also providing essential vitamins and minerals that help fill dietary gaps in our urban centers. We often think of food security and hunger as simply a lack of calories, but in truth, one can be malnourished even if one consumes plenty of calories. This is because a lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables can lead to poor health outcomes.

Our goal at Farm the District is to show that communities can produce high yields of nutrient-dense foods even in small spaces and even in a single season at low-cost. We also emphasize the importance of distributing that food not only to volunteer farmers, but to the broader community through food pick-up or donations to established food distribution programs in Washington, DC.