Blog Action Day: St. Louis Urban Farm Provides Fresh Food and Economic Empowerment
Ever tried to buy fresh produce in an inner city grocery or convenience store? Good luck. Urban farming is one approach to addressing the “food deserts” so common in poor urban neighborhoods. St. Louis’ City Seeds Urban Farm goes a step further, though, and creates opportunities for “addicted and chronically mentally ill homeless” to build life skills and self-sufficiency, and to increase food security in the city.
Located downtown near Union Station, City Seeds employs clients of the St. Patrick Center, a non-profit that “provides opportunities for self-sufficiency and dignity to persons who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.” Combining hands-on farming with horticultural classes, the farm attempts to empower these people with skills they can use to build independence.
The farm’s workers aren’t the only economically disadvantaged people that benefit from its harvest, though. Vegetable seedlings grown in the farm’s hoop houses are distributed to community and backyard gardeners. And, the farm also serves as a distribution point for a pilot food distribution program that provides rural farmers with access to inner city markets: a low-cost CSA-type program provides weekly boxes of fresh produce to residents in some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods for $7 a week.
