Urban agriculture is critical to supporting and strengthening local food systems, especially in areas where residents are historically underserved and have limited access to food. An urban farm provides the community with economic opportunities, green space, and nutritious fresh food. However, urban farmers may struggle to access the necessary resources to support or grow their operations. Virginia State University's (VSU) Small Farm Outreach Program (SFOP) is finding solutions to this through the new National Urban Ag Initiative.

In 2023, the SFOP received about $3.2 million in grants from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) 's Farm Service Agency (FSA) to support the creation of the National Urban Ag Initiative, or NUag, as it's referred to. "The goal of NUag is to meet the needs of urban farmers by providing the tools and skills needed to access and use FSA and other USDA programs and services to help them improve and develop their operations," says SFOP Director William Crutchfield. Subsequently, the SFOP received a sub-award, bringing the grant funding to $4 million.

VSU has embraced the lead role for NUag and partnered with other institutions and organizations. Virginia Tech's role will be to evaluate the project, and partnering school Cornell University is developing training modules for FSA and USDA staff. "Our goal is to build a bridge between USDA and farmers," says Crutchfield. "Part of what we're doing is looking at policies and regulations that we can recommend to the USDA and FSA to make it more accessible for the urban ag space."

One of the first steps was identifying cities around the country where NUag would establish urban service centers. At first, Crutchfield and his team identified 17 cities. After receiving the sub-award, SFOP integrated an additional ten cities into the project. Each city will have a partnering non-governmental organization (NGO) to facilitate the project. "Our hope is that partnering NGOs have already done work in those localities in urban ag," says Crutchfield.

Only a year into this four-year project, the team has taken significant steps to kick off the project and build a strong foundation. Soon, SFOP will release the request for proposals for potential NGOs to partner for the ten recently added cities. Crutchfield is looking forward to hosting a conference in Detroit in August and is expecting about 700 attendees. The SFOP team is embracing the challenge of planning the conference and integrating the additional ten cities. Crutchfield is confident they'll meet every deliverable for the project along the way. "We may have some turbulence and bumps, but we're going to have a smooth landing and positive outcomes," he says.

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