Richmond, CA
Founded in 2005 to help build a more sustainable, healthy, and just local food system, Urban Tilth has emerged as a local leader, a catalyst drawing together a variety of individual, discrete initiatives into a web of integrated, food- and community-focused efforts. In sum, they farm, feed, forage, teach, train, build community, employ, and give back. They help their community grow their own food; train and employ young people as “home grown experts”; teach local residents about the relationships among food, health, poverty, and justice; and forge partnerships with local small farmers to increase demand for their produce.
For 20 years, Urban Tilth has transformed vacant land in North Richmond into thriving green space—distributing thousands of pounds of fresh produce annually through programs like Free Farm Stand, Veggie Rx, and their sliding-scale CSA. This work opens up opportunities to create jobs for local residents, workshops and programs for youth to develop skills, and the overall emphasis on health and wellbeing. They are creating a thriving, local economy that starts from the land and nourishes their communities.