As often is the case in these stories, there’s a happy ending. What began in one yard has grown into an urban farming movement transforming vacant lots into sources of food and jobs. There’s a Kickstarter:
The City of Memphis faces many challenges. Among them are blighted vacant lots, food deserts, health challenges, and unemployment. North Memphis Farmer’s Collective seeks to take these challenges and turn them into solutions by using what others see as waste as the fertilizer for vacant lots, thereby turning decay and blight into blossoming Urban Farms.
As we expand, we need the use of a tractor, chainsaw, wood chipper, other heavy equipment and garden tools to scale our operation and offer more naturally grown healthy local produce. Currently our Collective grows fruits and vegetables by hand on over four acres of vacant property.
They have just seven days to go towards their $10,000 goal.
They’re awesome people. I buy from them regularly at the weekly market we go to. Really great honey and produce, and they have a model that is reaching into some of the most impoverished neighborhoods in Memphis (which is, per capita, one of the most impoverished cities in the nation).
With so much abandoned real estate and blight in our city, we really need a model like this to start turning things around. Memphis government seems more interested in attracting yet more low-income employers with massive tax breaks (forcing the tax burden onto lower-middle class and low-income households), so our entrepreneurial groups like this are the people who really make the most difference.