From the Ground Up:
Rooted Horizons One-Year Check In
In this follow-up to Larta Institute's report, "Rooted Horizons: Growing Food By and For Angelenos" we witness urban growers in Los Angeles continue their work to tackle food insecurity and climate change through grassroots farming efforts. Meka Boyle picks up the story.
Featuring
Los Angeles County is the perfect setting for urban farmers to thrive, ensuring that nutritious and locally available food is cultivated for our communities. And it provides urban growers a way to connect with food and network with food producers throughout the region and beyond.
Rohit Shukla
Founder & CEO
Larta Institute
In Los Angeles, in-between urban sprawl and suburban pockets, food deserts and Erewhons, small, bespoke farms are growing in unexpected places: random lots, residential yards, school grounds. The region swelters under unprecedented, severe heat waves, and it releases heavy rainfall at greater intensity every year. With this, the cost of living—and of simply coping—increases. The combined effects weigh down heavier on those most vulnerable. Climate change is palpable. Food scarcity, the most basic of issues for communities, calls for urgent, collective action to combat the effects of global warming. In the midst of it all, urban growers are a beacon of hope. These resilient farmers are developing and growing enterprises to meet social needs within their own communities and beyond. In doing so, they offer a leafy, green-lined path forward.
The success and growth of this grassroots effort depends on the support of the county, cities across the region, as well as philanthropic funders, community partners, and nonprofit incubators like Larta Institute. “Los Angeles County is the perfect setting for these urban farmers to thrive,” explains Rohit Shukla, Larta’s CEO. “It has space, even small backyards, that can grow food year-round. It expands economic opportunities for residents. And it provides urban growers and communities a way to connect with food, understand soil, plants and inputs, and network with food producers throughout the region and beyond.”
In order for Southern California’s full potential for urban agriculture to be realized, however, there needs to be a link between institutional and community support. It was out of this need that the Rooted Horizons: Growing Food by and for Angelenos report was born. Larta combined its three-decade-long history of working with agricultural and food innovations with the LA Food Policy Council’s (LAFPC) expertise working on policies around food access and encouraging the growth of markets to address food deserts. A common goal united the two and provided the foundation for the movement: “We need to ensure healthy, nutritious, and locally-available food is cultivated for our communities,” emphasizes Shukla.
The seminal study of community-focused agriculture in Los Angeles County, Rooted Horizons, was produced by Larta Institute in partnership with the LAFPC and the California Community Foundation. It dove deep into Los Angeles’ agricultural ecosystem with five case studies that outlined infrastructural, bureaucratic, and operational challenges—and subsequent ideas for solutions. The results provided valuable information about the agricultural ecosystem in LA not only to government organizations and private funders, but also to the farmers themselves.
Food scarcity, the most basic of issues for communities, calls for urgent, collective action to combat the effects of global warming. In the midst of it all, urban growers are a beacon of hope. These resilient farmers are developing and growing enterprises to meet social needs within their own communities and beyond. In doing so, they offer a leafy, green-lined path forward.
The Status of Food Sovereignty in Los Angeles
While Los Angeles plays a major role in the global food industry, one in four households in the county are food insecure. This dilemma, as outlined in the report, offers a vital space for the local, urban agriculture network to help communities with nourishment, connection, and even new jobs.
“Our focus to build a culture that celebrates food will hopefully impact the future so that the next generation will understand that if land has been sitting vacant and fallow: Why not do something with it?” says Richard D. Garcia, executive director and co-founder of Compton’s Alma Backyard Farms, one of the five urban growers surveyed in last year’s report. Another participant, Jamiah Hargins, founder of the backyard microfarm nonprofit Crop Swap LA, underscores the potential to make something out of what is perceived as nothing. “If you do not cultivate your land, hunger will get you,” he says.
Since the launch of Rooted Horizons, these farmers and their peers have continued to do the groundwork. There has been much to commend in the advance of food sovereignty in Los Angeles, but we are a long way from achieving what may be considered an integrated, well-developed system covering urban farms, let alone urban agriculture writ large. “It feels good to see our network and the potential for impact expand,” says Carmen Dianne, co-founder of Prosperity Market, a mobile farmers market trailer that spotlights Black-owned farms (and a Larta Venture Fellows alumni company) that took part in the report.
“I feel more pressure because the need for the service from both the farmers and for the community is so strong,” Dianne adds, noting some original farmers in their network have fallen off the roster due to weather and financial setbacks. Others, like IGH Gardens’ Charlie Southward had never sold his product commercially until he was connected with Prosperity Market. Now he sells out at every pop-up. “Southward’s mission is to grow food for local families, homeless shelters, womens’ shelters,” co-founder Kara Still shares. “We want to make sure that he is able to generate revenue to support that and has multiple outlets for all of the hard work that he does.”
Indeed, integral to the report is the fundamental need for frameworks that connect community collaborations, philanthropic resources, and government policies. The findings “provided some thoughts about work to be done by the government, by funders, etcetera,” says Lisa Cleri Reale, a philanthropic and nonprofit advisor working with the Annenberg Foundation and a member of the LA County Food Equity Roundtable’s Steering Committee. (Rooted Horizons took flight as the Food Equity Roundtable was concluding its work.)
1 in 4
households in Los Angeles county are food insecure.
Challenges and Developments for Urban Farmers
In the year following the report, the urban agriculture organizations—Alma Backyard Farms, Crop Swap LA, Avenue 33, Prosperity Market, and Moonwater Farms—all emphasize the need for centralized resources and tools. Main areas of concern include land security, bureaucratic hurdles, high overhead costs, and balancing labor with financial constraints. They also unanimously point to the importance of additional revenue streams as they navigate sustaining their initiatives long-term.
Central to the urban farming project in Los Angeles County is the need for increased community outreach, education (especially youth-oriented programming), and the development of direct-to-consumer services that turn produce and property into marketable assets—from mobile units and farm stands to culinary programs and products.
Prosperity Market, for example, is developing its online marketplace and will roll out a farmers’ market on wheels throughout the city early next year. Dianne and Still have also purchased a commercial kitchen to support operational growth, and Property Market’s online shop now runs 24/7, with produce and packaged goods delivered weekly and shipped nationwide.
The Compton- and San Pedro-based Alma Backyard Farms is preparing to pilot three mobile units (a food, flower, and beverage truck) with funding from the Healthy Food Kickstarter Project Grant, a partnership of the County of Los Angeles and Community Services Unlimited Inc., and it plans to expand its popular monthly brunch to weekly. It is also exploring ways to operate a farm stand at its San Pedro location, with tremendous support from LA City Councilmember Tim McOsker who recently introduced a motion to city council to amend the truck gardening ordinance to allow for food distribution onsite in residential zones.
In Africa Town/Leimert Park, Crop Swap LA has installed two new school gardens and one garden in an affordable housing complex. It has also received a county grant to build 15 nanofarms in the community, an easier to implement alternative to its sought-after microfarms. Forced to downsize its staff due to high overhead costs, Hargins has rethought the labor model, incorporating more volunteers, internships, apprenticeships, and community support. To diversify its revenue streams, Crop Swap LA has added tours, virtual consultations, merchandise, and event space rental options. This year, it has received significant support from around 300 donors, including both small and large contributions. In response to its waitlisted food delivery program—which distributes boxes of produce to 70 members doorsteps within a one-mile radius every Sunday—Crop Swap LA launched a weekly farm stand that offers a limited amount of produce for sale a la carte. Hargins also hosts quarterly community workshops including an urban food-grower certification program.
Compton’s Moonwater Farms was awarded a major grant from the Los Angeles County’s Care First Initiative, which invests in community support and alternatives to incarceration. The proceeds will go towards a for-market product made in partnership with system-impacted youth ages 14 to 26. The three-year opportunity “validates all the work we've been doing for the last eight years,” says Kathleen Blakistone, Moonwater’s co-creator, following the farm’s ninth annual farm camp and its biggest yet. While the grant provided money for insurance, a small part-time staff, and commercial equipment in lieu of a commercial kitchen space, “the overhead costs of doing business today are extraordinary,” Blakistone says.
Elsewhere in Lincoln Heights, Avenue 33 launched a robust paid-internship program for high school and college students, which will run for the next few years thanks to funding from CFDA. The farm continues to focus on its Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes, school gardens, and food donation program that gives out approximately 2,000 pounds of produce to school families a week. The funding that covers the affordable CSA boxes will hit its two year mark this December and then be up for renewal. “A lot of the programs that we're doing right now are funded by the American Rescue Plan,” shares Tomassini, noting that the ARP funding is up this year. “Our programming is dependent on labor and labor is dependent on grants,” he says. “We’re asking ‘How do we continue long-term?’ We’re figuring out how to make the things that we’re already doing the most effective and empowering other people in the community to take more ownership.”
Developments are happening on institutional levels too. Larta is organizing a task force with growers throughout the Southern California region, including those from last year’s report, in partnership with the USDA Southwest Regional Food Business Centers (SWRFBC), which seeks to enhance food system resilience and competitiveness by connecting small- and mid-sized producers with wholesalers and distributors and providing technical assistance. Larta is working to help identify the top three challenges and explore funding options that will benefit the farmers, and is also collaborating with other SWRFBC members to provide technical assistance across the country.
This year, LA County launched its Food Equity Grant Program in coordination with the Roundtable and community partners. The first round of funds, announced this spring, totals almost $10 million and includes grants to urban farmers. Ali Frazzini, policy director of the LA County Chief Sustainability Office, underscores how these developments support the mission “of creating a sustainable region and building a more resilient, diversified food system.”
The county has also established a new Office of Food Equity in an effort to foster a more sustainable region and develop a more resilient and diversified food system. The new office will implement recommendations from the report and be up and running by October. “Bureaucracy is a huge challenge for urban farmers as it is not easy to access water, electricity, and other key resources,” says Cleri Reale. As is technical support and land access, “there is no hub or place that provides a centralized toolkit, or lessons learned for those starting up,” she notes. The need for a hub, or hubs, connecting with spokes around Southern California was a major recommendation of Rooted Horizons.
Over the past year, the LAFPC created a new position to tackle bureaucracy based on Rooted Horizons' findings. Funded by a USDA grant, Senior Urban Agriculture Program Associate Nikhita Jain now leads the Cultivating Farmers Program, offering free business advice to address challenges like land access, permitting, startup costs, and sales channels. “Our program is specifically built around offering these services to people of color and veterans,” she explains. The program covers all of Southern California and is run by Jain and Valeria Velazquez Duenas, director of programs and innovation at LAFPC.
“We're trying to do a lot with very little,” Jain says, highlighting the need for more investment and staff to meet farmers' demands. A key issue raised by the communities she serves is the lack of resources and information for applying to programs and grants. Cleri Reale adds that the gap in knowledge goes both ways: “Not enough funders even realize what’s going on in urban farming.”
“We're trying to do a lot with very little.”
Nikhita Jain
LA Food Policy Council’s Senior Urban Agriculture Program Associate
“We really want to be equitable…Look, I don't expect it to be a lot of money, but what if it was? What if we hit it right?”
Katherine Blakistone
Moonwater Farm
“There’s no food security without land security.”
Richard D. Garcia
Alma Backyard Farms
“Our programming is dependent on labor and labor is dependent on grants.”
Eric Tomassini
Avenue 33 Farm
“If you do not cultivate your land, hunger will get you.”
Jamiah Hargins
Crop Swap LA
“I feel more pressure because the need for the service from both the farmers and for the community is so strong.”
Carmen Dianne
Prosperity Market
The Path Forward
Over the past year, the groups featured in the Rooted Horizons report have made significant strides in addressing the challenges of food sovereignty in Los Angeles. Through innovative programs, community engagement, and creative solutions, these farms are building resilient, sustainable models for the future. However, the region has a long way to go to conquer the challenges faced by producers and consumers alike: ensuring long-term, available funding channels, streamlining bureaucratic processes, and expanding access to land. Urban farming and urban agriculture are inherently community-based but institutional support is key. Hence the potential to transform communities is a major driver of interest by public and private channels alike. “There's no mechanism in the city or the county that says ‘Hey, there are a lot of plots of land that are safe to grow on but haven't been used.’ Those mechanisms still need to be built,” says Richard D. Garcia of Alma Backyard Farms. “There’s no food security without land security.”
It is clear that Los Angeles County needs frameworks to increase collaboration between growers, the communities they serve, the municipalities in which they operate, and the funders on whom they depend. Education and building awareness of the efforts that have been kickstarted by local pioneers featured in the Rooted Horizons report are key to taking steps toward stewardship of the urban farming landscape in Los Angeles. As the region navigates its food equity landscape, the commitment and ingenuity of urban growers is a powerful reminder that true food sovereignty is built from the ground up, by and for the people.
DISCLAIMER:
This page is a duplicate of a previously published page from Larta Institute, which has since been removed from their website.
It is presented here for portfolio purposes only.
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