Urban Farming Takes Root in Atlanta

When most people think of farming, they may envision sprawling open fields, heavy-duty industrial equipment, and rural back roads. Still, within more densely populated areas, farming can mean a wide range of things. In cities and suburbs around the world, many people find unique and unconventional ways to participate in agriculture through urban farming.

What is Urban Farming?

According to Unity Environmental University, urban farming is “the practice of cultivating crops, livestock, or types of food in an urban environment.” Urban farms can take the form of community gardens, community farms, commercial farms, or institutional farms and gardens. Many of the benefits associated with urban agriculture are centered around local sustainable food production, redevelopment of unused land, and community building.

Though urban farming may seem easy to define on paper, it holds far more meaning and significance among its practitioners and their communities than can be summarized in a single paragraph.

Kalia Henry, a grant and resources manager for the Food Well Alliance, an Atlanta non-profit offering support and resources to local farmers, stated that urban farming can vastly differ from conventional rural agriculture.

“Conventional farming [is] kind of one thing — it’s food production. But urban farming can be a range of [things],” Henry stated.

While Henry acknowledged that one of the main focuses of urban agriculture is sustainable and healthy food production for urban areas, she expressed that urban farms can serve in more capacities than just food sources.

“There are definitely production growers that are growing food for local distribution,” Henry explained. “But the farms themselves can vary a lot in the different values that they provide to the community.”

Henry explained that urban farming can improve both a community’s diet and strengthen its relationship with its food.

“It allows people to have more of a connection with their food [and] acknowledge where their food came from and what they’re eating,” Henry stated.

This is true for Gabrielle LaTora, the agriculture and natural resources agent for the Fulton County UGA Extension office, whose unexpected lifelong dedication to agriculture was sparked after exposure to urban farming.

Though she planned to become a wetland ecologist during her undergraduate years, she discovered a passion for agriculture after working at a local farm.

“I honestly don’t know why I took that job; I wasn’t interested in agriculture at the time,” LaTora said. “But I tasted vegetables and food that was more delicious than anything I had ever tasted before… and I just fell in love with small-scale vegetable farming.”

After a year on the farm, LaTora found that she was not suited for farmwork herself, but she left knowing she wanted to pursue a career in agriculture.

“I went back to grad school and got my master’s in entomology, but my goal throughout that whole time was to be able to serve farmers,” LaTora said.

Now, two years into her position with the UGA Extension Office, LaTora is overjoyed to be able to help all farmers within Fulton County.

“I’ve made a big effort to get to know the farmers in the county: urban, suburban, rural — everybody,” LaTora said.

LaTora explained that the city of Atlanta and its surrounding suburbs make Fulton County a unique place for agriculture.

“In other, more traditional counties, you’ve got commercial and residential [agriculture], and those are cut-and-dry categories,” she said. “But in Fulton, the lines are a little more blurry.”

LaTora has spent the last two years compiling a directory of all agricultural producers within the county to help better visualize the ‘Fulton County agriculture scene.’ By networking and meeting with local agriculturalists, LaTora has counted at least 30 produce farms, 53 horse farms, nine nurseries, eight beef cattle producers, one dairy cattle producer, one winery, and hundreds of community gardens — all of which she is certain is an undercount.

Along with these more traditional farmers, LaTora has also encountered many people she has come to call “specialty producers.” These “specialty producers” are people who find ways to participate in agriculture through more untraditional means, including indoor mushroom gardens, vertical micro-green production, using plastic containers to raise mealworms for protein powders, and black soldier fly raising for waste management and composting.

Because of the diversity of what is produced in the county, LaTora refers to local urban farmers as ‘growers.’

“I think ‘grower’ is a more inclusive term that covers some of these cool off-the-wall things that people are producing in this area,” LaTora said. “‘Farmer’ has implications of somebody outside cultivating the land, growing vegetables or corn, [but] there’s so much more to agriculture than that.”

The Purposes of Urban Agriculture

Urban agriculture is diverse in both practice and purpose. LaTora pointed out that many farms in Fulton County, rather than serving solely commercial purposes, seek to educate the public on urban agriculture, gardening, and small-scale home food production. She cites the Truly Living Well Center for Urban Agriculture , an Atlanta organization offering classes and programs in urban agriculture, as a prime example.

Urban farms can also serve as sites of agritourism, providing visitors with agricultural experiences. Places such as ‘U-Pick’ farms and wineries, like Painted Horse Winery and Vineyard , are among the agricultural sites in Fulton County that fit this purpose.

Other urban farm organizations, such as Concrete Jungle , seek to grow fresh produce to donate to fight food insecurity.

“[Concrete Jungle] has a farm… called Dog Head Farm in Adair Park [where] they’re operating a small-scale farm,” LaTora said. “But they don’t sell that produce; it’s given out through various programs into the community.”

Though urban farming is not limited to food production, one of the practice’s central themes is promoting food security and health. This theme prompted the Good Samaritan Health Center to start an urban farm on its downtown Atlanta campus in 2013.

Nobie Muhl, farm manager of The Farm at Good Samaritan Health Care Center, often simply referred to as The Good Samaritan Farm or The Farm, said the idea came when health center workers noticed that many of the illnesses they treated stemmed from poor diets.

“The Good Samaritan Health Center realized that a lot of the patients that were coming through were struggling with … health disparities [and] health issues [such as] hypertension [and] diabetes,” Muhl said. “Digging deeper, they realized that it was more complex than just the diet; it was about food access.”

Areas with low access to fresh produce, known as food deserts, are a common issue in many cities across the country, including Atlanta. Rather than only giving patients dietary advice, the health center wanted a more direct solution.

“Initially, they wanted to do a brick-and-mortar market on the property … so that the doctors and dieticians could help direct the patients to easier food access,” Muhl explained. “But the route they ended up going was turning about an acre of land here on the property into an urban farm so that we could grow the food ourselves and do a market.”

The health center operates ‘The Market at Good Sam’ Monday through Thursday to give customers easy access to healthy and affordable food. The market strives to be accessible to all, offering reasonable prices and accepting cash, credit, and ‘double SNAP/EBT dollars’ — a fact that Muhl strongly stresses.

“That’s a big benefit to customers that come shop at our market and any market in Atlanta that’s participating with Wholesome Wave ,” Muhl said. “They can come and use their SNAP dollars and double them, so if they were going to spend $10 at our market, they can use their SNAP card and only spend $5.”

While the farm sells its produce, it also serves an educational purpose. Alexis Haggerty, the assistant farm manager, expressed that in addition to the market and dietary cooking classes, having a farm at the health center offers other unique opportunities for Atlantans.

“A cool thing about urban farming is you’re bringing the farm closer to the people. You’re bringing it where everyone lives rather than growing it far out of sight and shuttling it in on a big truck,” Haggerty said. “We get to have opportunities here where kids who have grown up in the city get to come and take field trips and see where the food’s growing.”

This opportunity to expose city dwellers to organic food production has opened Haggerty and Muhls’ eyes to the importance of agricultural education.

“One kid came during the summer, saw the cucumbers growing, and asked … ‘Where’s the plastic?'” Muhl shared. “So being able to talk through: ‘This is the cucumber skin; it is its protection,’ [has] been an eye-opener to me.”

Seeing the excitement and engagement of youth and adults who visit the farm gives both women a sense of fulfillment and purpose. Muhl and Haggerty, like LaTora, had intended to pursue different careers in Human Resources and Communications, respectively, before being exposed to agricultural work through farmhand jobs and garden work.

While some in urban farming discover their love for agriculture later in life, Christopher Lemons, proprietor of Gratitude Botanical Farm, has viewed it as a core part of his life even before he was born.

As a fifth-generation farmer, Lemons views urban farming as more than just a sustainable way to produce food. It is a way to honor the legacy of his ancestors and the African American community.

“When we look at the definitive expertise of what has made the Western Hemisphere run, it’s from the people of Africa,” Lemons said. “Our ancestors… weren’t brought over here just as physical grunt labor. They were mathematicians, scientists, doctors, and people with understanding of philosophy. Even when you look at agriculture … it’s a comprehensive science.”
Lemons notes that Black excellence can be attributed to the expertise and knowledge required to cultivate crops such as cotton, indigo, and beans, which played significant roles in the development of the Americas. His family passed much of Lemons’ knowledge and passion to him directly.

“I learned about farming from land [owned by] my grandfather that his grandfather purchased,” Lemons said. “So we [are] looking at a legacy…a point of self-sufficiency and resiliency for members of my family in the past.”

Using what he learned growing up and from the UGA Master Gardener Extension Program, Lemons partnered with Desmond Baskerville to co-found Gratitude Botanical Farm in 2018. The two answered a call from the City of Atlanta for citizens interested in managing sites to grow food through the Aglanta Grows-a-Lot Program.

At the heart of Gratitude Botanical Farm is a mission to produce healthy food to fight food insecurity, educate the public, and promote “approaching life from a spirit of gratitude and abundance,” Lemons stated, attributing the farm’s name to Baskerville.

The Botanical portion of the farm’s name refers to its reliance on native species and flora in its agricultural practices rather than introducing foreign and unnatural materials to the ecosystem. A few ways Lemons utilizes natural alternatives to manufactured goods include cultivating wild-grown elderberry for herbalism and raising rabbits for natural manure.

Lemons also uses the visual aesthetic of the farm to stimulate cultural conversations.

“Being able to farm creatively and with a visual aesthetic that is appealing to people …we [can] talk about Southern black culture,” Lemons shared.

He mentioned that cultural discussions can be started through simple acts such as taking “those blue bottles that your grandma had and [putting] them up in trees …[to] talk about spiritual protections.”

Through his farm and conversation, Lemons hopes to reconnect Atlantans with both their agricultural and cultural roots.

“I think a lot of us have gotten disconnected from that excellence that we were brought from,” Lemons said, referring to the African American community. “We look at urban agriculture as a way of keeping our roots … It’s part of our culture and what we’ve always done.”

Difficulties of Urban Farming

Although urban farming can provide a unique opportunity for creativity and innovation in agriculture, it also comes with unique challenges that are not often associated with rural farming.

One major threat growers in urban areas face is theft and vandalism. While urban farms’ proximity provides city dwellers with valuable access to food and nature, it also provides opportunities for some to steal.

“We have dealt with [theft] very significantly,” Muhl acknowledged. “We went through a period of time where, for about a year, people were coming in and doing full harvests and just taking everything that they could carry.”

Muhl also noted instances of farm equipment, such as hoses and greenhouse fans, going missing and the door to a shed being removed.

The threat of theft and trespassers can lead to fear among some growers.

“We get in at 6 a.m., and sometimes it makes you feel a little unsettled,” Muhl confessed. “You’re hoping you don’t come across somebody who shouldn’t be there when it’s that early in the morning.”

For Lemons, coming face to face with a vandal is more than just a fear.

“I’ve been stabbed out there on the farm before,” Lemons said, recounting an encounter he had back in 2020. “[A woman] had gone off her medication [and]…she was on the farm chopping down my sunflowers. I walked back there to take the saw from her [and] she hacked back [at me] and got me good on my hand.”

He echoed that farming in urban environments makes growers more susceptible to trespassers. While getting to a rural farm can require traveling an extended distance, urban farms can be reached by simply walking down a street, Lemons commented.

Another challenge to urban agriculture is the nature of a city environment. Muhl noted that air quality and pollution are concerns at ‘The Good Samaritan Farm.’

“The air quality can be a challenge,” Muhl said. “Sometimes we’ll be outside, and we realize it is very smoggy out here [or] somebody across the street’s burning a lot of stuff they probably shouldn’t be.”

Alexis also added that pollution and junk-filled vacant lots could attract rodents, which can also threaten many urban farms.

A particular type of pollution specific to the city is noise pollution, which Muhl also stated can affect farm work.

“[It] can drain you when you’re having helicopters flying over you or a lot of sirens going off in the background,” Muhl said. “When it’s been going on for about five, 10, 20 minutes , you can’t talk to each other.”

Lack of financial support can also be a stumbling block to urban agriculture.

The city-sponsored program that led Lemons to co-found Gratitude Botanical Farm initially began with five farms and three community gardens, but few of them have survived.

“Gratitude Botanical Farm and Outdoor Fresh Farm are the only two farm sites still active at this point in the city’s program,” Lemons shared.

Lemons stated that he had to keep his day job at The Home Depot Corporation to support the early days of his farm.

“It would be where I get off work, drive down to the farm site, and start working on it,” Lemons said. “From a financing standpoint, [it was] taking the money you earn from work and putting it into your dream – building a small business.”

Muhl mentioned that being part of a non-profit organization helps the Good Samaritan Farm not have to worry about fighting for financial support.

“Because we belong to ‘Good Sam’… [we] have an in-house fundraiser,” Muhl explained. “She raises funds and [finds] different grant opportunities …that can fund the whole clinic, [and] parts [that can be] allocated towards the farm specifically.”
Community Resources

A sentiment echoed among many urban farmers is the importance of community and local resources in starting urban farms.

Muhl stated that many resources and organizations are available to urban farmers in Atlanta. One that she noted in particular is the Food Well Alliance.

Kalia Henry, who formerly served as the agriculture education coordinator for the Food Well Alliance, attests to the many ways the organization strives to assist urban farms and community gardens in Atlanta.

Since its founding in 2015 as part of the Atlanta Community Food Bank, the Food Well Alliance has worked towards “providing resources to growers to equip them to work on production, community building, and to distribute their food to the community,” Henry explained.

The non-profit provides financial support to local agricultural sites through annual farm grants and labor support stipends. Henry emphasizes that financial support for labor is a big need among many urban farms, which are very labor-intensive in nature.

“Urban growers are unique in the sense that they’re very high-intensity growers. They’re not doing the big mono-crops like conventional [agriculture] where they have big tractors, and they’re growing one thing,” Henry explained. “Urban growers are growing such a variety in such a small space, so it takes a lot, [especially] trying to do it without pesticides and herbicides.”

Food Well Alliance also assists local growers with tangible needs such as labor support services with local contractors, composting services through organizations such as Compost Now and Soil Free, and installation of agricultural infrastructure such as irrigation systems and high tunnel greenhouses through organizations such as Eco-Paradigm.

In addition to physical support, organizations like the UGA Extension Office provide agricultural knowledge and information to farmers of all styles.

“We’re sort of the science translators for the university,” LaTora explained. “We’re essentially an outpost of the University of Georgia in every county… to be a connecting point between all that knowledge and information produced at the university and translate that to the people who live and work in the county we serve.”

LaTora stated that outside of information, the UGA Extension office is predominantly known for providing soil testing and the 4-H Youth Development Program.

Henry has noticed that urban agriculture has gained more recognition from government organizations in recent years.

“If we’re looking at it like a movement, [urban farming] is gaining traction in the sense that federal agencies are starting to acknowledge the importance of it,” Henry stated. “Groups like the U. S. Department of Agriculture didn’t acknowledge urban farming for a really long time, even though it’s been happening… since city centers have existed.”

Though both work for large nonprofit organizations to aid local farmers, Henry and LaTora stated that the urban agriculture community itself is one of the most valuable resources for local growers.

“We have a pretty robust education program, …but we also like to focus on the farmer social aspect,” Henry explained. “People are so creative in the urban ag-space. So, it’s really important to provide spaces where people can just meet together, build community, and share their knowledge and experience with one another.”

While boasting many health, educational, and environmental benefits, urban farming has been found to possess many positive social benefits – not only feeding those in the community but bringing them together.

Muhl fondly remembers social gatherings among Atlanta urban growers.

“It’s a funky bunch,” Muhl said of the urban agricultural community. “Before Covid, once a month, everybody would get together to meet at Wrecking Bar to talk about what they got going on and troubleshoot problems.”

The community surrounding urban farming is not limited to agricultural producers but also includes consumers. For Muhl and Haggerty, the support they have received from the local agriculture community comes from fellow farm workers and those who purchase the produce they grow.

“With urban farming, you have such a smaller community of your clientele,” Muhl explained. “[Among] our customer base, there’s an extra level of excitement [about] this access that they’re getting to enjoy. They love to tell us how hard we’re working and motivate us as two female farmers — it’s been really great.”