Project Overview
Commodities
- Agronomic: mustard
- Vegetables: garlic, okra, turnips
- Animals: bees
- Miscellaneous: collard greens
Practices
- Education and Training: farmer to farmer, mentoring
Summary:
Based on our experience working in Springfield from 2021-2024, we realized that BIPOC community (youth and adults), particularly Blacks, have limited knowledge in agriculture. Almost everyone I came to contact with indicated that they have never grown food in their life which makes it difficult for them to get involved in community garden to produce food. Even though Motherland reserves some of the land for the community to grow vegetables for themselves, there was no interest until the food shortage resulted from COVID-19 lockdown. Since then, there has been an interest in learning how to grow vegetables and how to prepare and consume them. We wanted to capitalize on this momentum and expose more people in the neighborhood to sustainable urban agriculture to grow a culturally relevant food in different. neighborhoods.
Our project provided training that focused on basic agricultural knowledge, including vegetable and specialty crops production. We reserved space in our 3 gardens for participants to practice and implement knowledge learned. We provided cooking demonstrations to taught people how to prepare vegetables and meals from scratch. All this was done with support of the University of Illinois Extension.
The training came in two forms:
- 1:1 mentorship and an incubator training program: Participants in the incubator program have learned a great deal, and many "graduates" are already farming on their own and/or purchasing land to farm on.
- Community garden growing space: Participants started with a very limited space, gained skills, and then expanded to grow more food.
Project objectives:
Our objectives stem from our five-year strategic plan and are as follows:
1. Establish incubation program to inspire and train BIPOC communities/underserved communities on agriculture entrepreneurship as an alternative career to increase. employment and income.
2. Establish a 2 community gardens on the South and East sides of the City.
Approach:
Objective 1.
Establish sustainable agriculture incubation program to inspire and train BIPOC. communities on food entrepreneurship as an alternative career to increase employment. As part of inspiring BIPOC and underserved communities to develop interest and entrepreneurship in agriculture and local food, we plan to establish an incubation center in Springfield. Recently, motherland has secured one a partnership with a local farmer to use an acre of their farmland to train Underserved and BIPOC communities' members in the understanding of land access, getting involved in agricultural business, including learning and developing community supported agriculture (CSA) to provide healthy. food for their neighbors while earning income. One of the requirements of this new land is to use. conservation and sustainable agriculture production practices. This requirement is well aligned. with the Motherland philosophy and values of regenerative agriculture production. Beginning farmers will be trained in different techniques, including vegetables production and processing, compositing, mulching, crop rotation, integrated pest management, and no-till or minimal tilling as appropriate. In the next three years, we intend to enroll at least 10 beginning farmers from BIPOC and underserved communities, and immigrants interested in small-scale local food production and marketing. Participant will receive training in production, agricultural business development, including finding niche markets and to provide fresh food to their communities where grocery stores are lacking.
Objective 2.
Established community's gardens in the South and East sides of the City. The needs for accessing fresh healthy and affordable food are critical in Springfield. However, there are many empty plots city and county owned land, particularly in the Black neighborhoods. Motherland purchased its current land from the County and has established a good relationship. with the county officials. We will use these relationships to acquire more land and establish more community gardens in the eastern and northern part of the City where poverty and food insecurity are concentrated. According to the non-profit Feed America, 25 percent of the Black in Springfield is food insecurity compared to 15 percent Hispanic and 11.2 percent White. Most of the underserved communities are concentrated in the 62703-Zip code -east and north of the city, with the east side being predominantly Black. Motherland will use a similar approach. discussed above to inspire community members to learn how to grow food closer to their neighborhoods. This will address issues of transportation that affect low-income to participate in community gardens far away from the neighborhoods.