The Urban Agriculture Subcommittee guides the City of Philadelphia to develop and implement innovative laws and policies to support the conversion of Philadelphia’s vacant and underutilized lands into sustainable community assets that increase food security and sovereignty for all Philadelphia residents. The subcommittee engages diverse stakeholders to inform recommendations and make current policies more transparent.

---

Register for the next Urban Agriculture Subcommittee Meeting

REGISTRATION LINK: Urban Ag Registration Link
Use the link above to register for each monthly meeting. After registration, you will receive a confirmation email containing your unique login. Invites and update emails are sent to people who are actively subscribed to the listserv.

REGISTRATION LINK: Urban Ag Registration Link
Use the link above to register for each monthly meeting. After registration, you will receive a confirmation email containing your unique login. Invites and update emails are sent to people who are actively subscribed to the listserv.

REGISTRATION LINK: Urban Ag Registration Link
Use the link above to register for each monthly meeting. After registration, you will receive a confirmation email containing your unique login. Invites and update emails are sent to people who are actively subscribed to the listserv.

REGISTRATION LINK: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZckc-2srz0tGtFV1UTP8Wun0x2Lh95UeGby

Use the link above to register for each monthly meeting. After registration, you will receive a confirmation email containing your unique login. Invites and update emails are sent to people who are actively subscribed to the listserv.

Truelove Seeds: Preserving ancestral seeds for urban and rural farmers

See the notes from May’s discussion with Owen Taylor, co-founder of Philadelphia-based Truelove Seeds. Learn more on the Truelove Seeds website: www.trueloveseeds.com

Feeding Pennsylvania (Feeding America) PASS and USDA Programs for farmers working with local food banks

USDA National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) technical and financial assistance programs for Philadelphia Farmers

Join us for the February Urban Ag Subcommittee Meeting – 2/23/22 @ 7 p.m.

Join us for the January Urban Ag Subcommittee Meeting – 1/26/22 @ 7 p.m.

What is a Conservation District?

Growing from the Root – Public Meeting 2 is closed for comments; website remains live!

With this virtual meeting, translated in English and Spanish, we asked residents to comment on different policy areas that impact the viability of urban farming in Philadelphia. The official window for public comment closed on June 1, 2021, but the Public Meeting #2 website remains live! There are 10 ‘stations’ or opportunities for learning. Each station focuses on a key topic identified by growers at the start of the engagement process. The virtual format offered residents the opportunity to learn about various aspects of farming in Philadelphia before asking for their input. Topics included:

• History
• Access to land
• Resources for community gardens
• Animal keeping 
• Farming careers and business development
• Education and inter-generational learning
• Cultural practices in growing and gathering
• Food systems and policy 

Residents can spend between 15 and 30 minutes engaging with each ‘station’. The virtual meeting website remained open for eight weeks to engage with residents and growers across the City. The call and response format we’ve built into this interactive website will ensure our urban farming policy is rooted in the knowledge and needs of local growers.

Philadelphia’s Urban Agriculture Plan First Public Meeting

On December 3rd, more than 250 residents packed a room at the central branch of the Philadelphia Free Library to start the city’s first-ever urban agriculture plan. Read more about the public meeting here.

Projects

Soil Safety Working Group

Philadelphia Parks & Recreation’s Farm Philly Program began researching soil safety in an effort to expand gardening programs on city-owned land. Farm Philly identified a national policy gap on this issue, and approached the Urban Agriculture Subcommittee to help develop policy recommendations on soil safety for the City of Philadelphia. The subcommittee convened the Philadelphia Soil Safety Working Group in summer 2014 to bring together experts and practitioners and establish these recommendations. The Working Group met three times throughout the summer, drafted recommendations, and identified potential for collaboration among the Working Group participants on next steps. The subcommittee produced the Philadelphia Soil Safety and Urban Gardening Report that highlights these recommendations.

One of the Working Group participants, Penn State Center Engaging Philadelphia, developed an easy to understand soil safety best practices one-pager that gardeners can start using right now to make sure they and their families are growing safely! En español aquí.

Land Access

The Urban Agriculture Subcommittee supported legislation to create the Philadelphia Land Bank and submitted feedback about the Land Bank Bill and Strategic Plan through testimony. The Land Bank will facilitate a process for acquiring vacant, tax delinquent parcels and returning them for a variety of productive uses. One of the priority uses is for urban agriculture and open space.

One of FPAC’s partners, the Public Interest Law Center, developed the Vacant Land 215 toolkit that explains several pathways for how residents can access vacant land for urban agriculture and other uses. En español aquí.

Contact

The subcommittee meets on the last Wednesday of the month from 4:00pm to 5:30pm on Zoom. If you are interested in getting involved, please contact Jessica Naugle McAtamney and Brenda Hall-Busch at urbanagsub@gmail.com.