Progress report for FW25-023
Project Information
Urban areas are unique growing places- both dense and expensive to live in making economically viable production models more difficult than their rural counterparts. What examples exist of successful, economically viable urban ag? How can we learn from and use these examples to further create economically viable urban ag? What other questions should we be asking as we plan our cities to host urban agriculture and to meet the needs of the communities they reside in? By conducting interviews with individuals and organizations involved in urban ag, we will seek to understand these questions and highlight successful models that can be replicated or used to further increase the capacity of our cities to have thriving and economically viable agriculture. We will also seek to create a broader framework from which to discuss urban ag. We will create a summary of our findings for publication. We will also hold a symposium to bring people together from across disciplines- producers, policy makers, city planners, developers, and others involved in urban agriculture. At the symposium we will share our findings and discuss strategic plans for sustainable, economically viable urban agriculture. As the population of our urban centers increase, it is more important than ever to plan for climate resilience in the city. Urban ag is essential to this mission but we must have economically viable systems in place to sustain it.
Interview 35 urban farmers and business owners who have proven to be economically successful (for profit and nonprofit) and other stakeholders involved in urban agriculture. After each interview we will summarize the findings in a story format that is easily readable. From these interviews and summaries we will create a working hypothesis on best practices for the economic viability of urban farms for the long haul. We will conduct follow up interviews to share thoughts on the summaries and questions about the hypothesis. The information and stories collected from follow up interviews will be added to the summaries and will inform the working hypothesis.
This research will lead to a symposium type event to disseminate the information gathered, and to discuss the hypothesis bringing together multiple stakeholders from across disciplines.
| Date | Activities | Team members |
| April 2025 | Start conducting interviews, aprox 3 a week at an hour each. Finish with first round of interviews by August | Joanna Letz conducts interviews |
| 4/15/2025- 8/1/2025 | After each interview create a summary story board, arpox 3 hours each | Joanna Letz creates summary drafts for review by Brad Gaolach |
| 4/15/2025-12/15/2025 | Plan and execute symposium type event | Joanna Letz conducts logistics for executing event and works with Brad on materials, invites and content/ structure for the symposium |
| 8/1/2025-8/15/2025 | Expand and revise working hypothesis | Joanna Letz works with Brad Gaolach to revise working hypothesis based on the interview summaries |
| 8/15/2025 | Begin follow up interviews, aprox 6 a week, 30 min interviews | Joanna Letz conducts follow up interviews (with input from Brad creates a set of questions for follow up interviews) |
| 8/15/2025-10/1/2025 | After each interview write up a summary and add to the summary story board if needed. | Joanna will write up the summaries and add to existing summary pages if needed |
| 10/1/2025-11/15/2025 | Revise working hypothesis and create additional materials for symposium | Joanna and Brad work together to revise hypothesis. Joanna will create a powerpoint for the symposium, and will work with Brad to create additional materials. |
| 11/15/2024-12/15/2024 | Conduct live sessions on instagram to report on the findings | Joanna will conduct these on her instagram |
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11/15/2025-12/15/2025 |
Share findings through newsletters, website, and interviewees marketing/ community outlets. | Joanna will share through her newsletters and ask her interviewees to share with their constituents as well (through social media, newsletters etc). |
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12/15/25 |
Symposium Type Event at the David Brower Center in Berkeley | Joanna and Brad will lead this event together. |
Cooperators
- - Technical Advisor
Research
Interview 35 urban farmers who have proven to be economically successful and other stakeholders involved in urban agriculture. List of people to be interviewed will be finalized by Joanna and Brad. As well as with help from other people in the field.
- Interviews will take place over zoom or in person. Prior to conducting interviews Joanna will summarize project, and explain that the findings will be published and they will have a chance to review before publication. All interviewees will be asked to fill out a pre-survey form and post-survey after symposium event.
- Each interview will be recorded
- We will use the same basic structure for each interview. Interview will start with a breakdown of the project and stated goals and the hour timeline for the first interview and half hour for the follow up interview to be scheduled at a later date. Here is a potential breakdown of questions.
- Do you have any questions for me before we start?
- What kind of business do you run and do you have employees? - ie: production systems, sales avenues, other revenue streams?
- What portion of your sales comes from sales of a product you produce? What percent comes from other sales ie: value added, ag tourism, other services…? For non-profits ask for breakdown of funding.
- What are your biggest expenses?
- What are your biggest challenges and what are some ways you have worked to address them? What are the biggest challenges facing urban farms?
- What do you see as your biggest assets and biggest benefits to you and your community?
- What is your role as the farm owner? What do you see as your business's role in the community? What is the vision/ dream of your work/ business? What do you think the role of urban ag is? Does your business help further this role?
- How do you define success? What makes a farm successful and do you view your farm as successful?
- Would you be willing to share your gross and net sales for the business? Or a range?
- Do you have a set income goal each year (gross, net, and take home)? If so, are you able to meet these goals consistently?
- Do you want and think your farm will exist in 2 years, 5 years, 10, 20.. ? Why or why not?
- What changes would you like to see in the future? Policy, city planning, business development, socially/ culturally..
- Do you have a community for support both personally and professionally? Do you have suggestions or thoughts on how to make either of these stronger in your own life and for other business owners and urban agriculturalists?
- Do you have suggestions on how we can bridge the gaps between disciplines (agriculture, development, architecture, city planning, conservation, rural ag, nutrition, food access etc)?
- Anything else you would like to add or you think is important in thinking about the economic viability of urban agriculture or urban ag in general?
- If you could do one thing tomorrow to change your business or something in your life what would it be? And what’s stopping you from doing that?
After each interview- Joanna will summarize the findings in a visual story format that is easily readable. She will work with a visual storyteller/ artist to help her build the story boards.
While farmers like myself often participate in surveys that address some of these questions. This project seeks to provide a richer context and understanding of the economic viability of urban farms. We can do this by conducting interviews. We will be summarizing and publishing our findings and holding a symposium type event to discuss them. These interviews are not meant as solely a form of data collection, but more as a living document that can be disseminated and discussed.
While we have a loose hypothesis of how urban production systems can be profitable. We hope by conducting the interviews we can combine, collaborate, and share more ways of thinking about this question in hopes to come up with and highlight solutions that can be replicated and further the discussion across disciplines.
The working hypothesis is: Urban production systems cannot be profitable solely off of traditional agricultural production models. The research seeks to understand and summarize the ways that farms stay in business in urban spaces.
From these interviews and summaries we will be “testing” and informing our working hypothesis and seeking to answer the question: what are the best practices for the economic viability of urban farms for the long haul. From the summaries Joanna and Brad will work together to come up with follow up interview questions with the goal of greater understanding around the hypothesis and question. We will also share each summary with the interviewees before the follow up and again before publication.
After the follow up interviews we will go back to the summaries, add any pertinent information, and see if we need to change or adapt the hypothesis and answer(s) to the central question.
This research will lead to a symposium type event to disseminate information gathered, discuss the hypothesis and bring together multiple stakeholders across disciplines.
The symposium will be an afternoon event. We will plan the event and discussions around our findings from the research. While other symposiums have taken place around urban ag this event will be focused on the economics of urban ag and bringing together people across disciplines to discuss. This event will be primarily for people local to the bay area with potential for another larger event in the future.
- We will ask for feedback from all interviewees and participants at the symposium. What could we have done better? Is the discussion leaving anything or anyone out? What’s next? How do we best use what we have found to further the urban ag movement?
- This research is innovative in that it seeks to answer the specific question about the economic viability of urban ag, from a producer to producer perspective, and bring together people from across disciplines to discuss the findings.
I have conducted 5 of the 35 initial interviews. The rest are scheduled for this Spring and Early Summer.
The interviews conducted so far were with: Grey Kolevzon of Growing Together, Maya Kosok of Hillen Homestead, Rachel Nafis of Psalter Farm Flowers, Sasha Kano of Farm Lot 59, Benjamin Flanner of the Brooklyn Grange.
I have post interview notes for all interviews. I will be working on the one page summaries simultaneously as I conduct the rest of the interviews. I will meet with Brad to go over the summaries once I am done with the initial interviews. At that point we will come up with the follow up interview questions and the working hypothesis for the symposium.
Research outcomes
So far from the interviews I have conducted some of the factors that hinder or increase success rates by urban farmers are: access to land, having good or at least non antagonistic landlords, multiple avenues of funding from direct sales, wholesale, on farm sales, and agritourism, ability to have an 'off' season where work and communication with customers cease for a period of the year, ability to easily transition out of farming should the need arise (back up career or family with some savings). Other things to note: farmers that have supportive partners and family both monetarily and/or physically/ emotionally increase success rates. All interviewees had subsidized health care or health care through a partner. .
Some recommendations to increase success rates include: city/ state/ federal legislature to: increase awareness of the importance of urban agriculture, could be in the form of a urban ag statement or part of the climate resiliency programs or general plans. A city/ state / federal plant to work day (like bike to work day except a holiday where people can go work on urban farms or other plant centered initiatives). Support for urban ag in the form of yearly cash assistance to run operations, increase access to land and long term land tenure (empty lots or unused spaces). Support to remediate land and create infrastructure for urban agriculture.
Continued and increased support for buying programs (schools, food banks) for food grown in the urban center that both help the farmers and urban residents. Support for food hubs and co-opearative buying models. Yearly regional urban ag symposiums to bring together stake holders across fields to highlight successes, continue discussing how to remediate challenges and create innovative ideas of how to better grow in the city. Cash assistance for apprenticeship programs for young people to learn farming skills and state funded jobs to run farms upon completion of the apprenticeship programs.
Education and Outreach
Participation summary:
Interview 35 urban farmers and business owners who have proven to be economically successful (for profit and nonprofit) and other stakeholders involved in urban agriculture.
The target audience will be a wide range of people from across disciplines, from producers, policy makers, educators, and developers. We will ask our interviewees to share the findings with their constituents as well. Some, if not most of our interviewees represent underserved communities.
After each interview we will summarize the findings in a one page story format that is easily readable. We will use these summaries and research to inform a working hypothesis of best practices for the economic viability of urban ag. We will write up a one page report on our findings as well as a longer report for publication.
After getting consent from each interviewee we will make the one page summaries and written reports available online through the SARE website, social media and newsletters. We will also look to publish our findings in other media outlets and trade journals such as Growing For Market Magazine, Growing for Market Podcast, and local newspapers such as Berkeleyside. Our hope is to also present at the Ecological Farming Association Conference that is held every January in Monterey, CA. We will host live online sessions through instagram to discuss the findings in addition to holding the symposium event in December of 2025 at the David Brower Center in Berkeley.
With the one page storyboard summarizes we will create a powerpoint that also includes videos and photos. We will include in the powerpoint a one page report that includes our working hypothesis.
This research will lead to a symposium type event to disseminate the information gathered, and to discuss the hypothesis bringing together multiple stakeholders from across disciplines. At the symposium we will share the stories through the powerpoint and share our hypothesis and lead the group in a discussion format. Given the scope of this project the symposium we are planning for December 2025 will include mostly people local to the bay area. Our hope is this will lead to a larger symposium to discuss the findings at a future date.
Our approach is innovative in that it seeks to bring together people across disciplines to discuss and to highlight examples of successful urban ag. Our central question on the economic viability of urban ag is at the bedrock of building sustainable, ecologically minded cities.