Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘urban farming’

Feb 2

Salt Lake City launches microgrant to increase food equity in the community

PRESS RELEASE: February 2, 2022

Salt Lake City is launching its first-ever Food Equity Microgrant program to increase resident access to fresh, healthy, affordable, and culturally relevant food.

The grant application is now live and open to individuals, local businesses, and certain community organizations. The initiative is designed to support community-led projects in line with the recommendations coming out of the City’s Resident Food Equity Advisors’ report released in 2021.

“Salt Lake City is committed to listening and responding to the ideas, dreams, and suggestions of our residents,” said Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall. “The Resident Food Equity Advisors is an example of that. They gave us their insight and recommendations on how to strengthen our food system and this microgrant program is one of the ways we’re responding to their report. I can’t wait to see which projects we can support in the community with this funding.”

Administered by the City’s Sustainability Department, the microgrant program has a total budget of $35,000. Individuals may apply for grants of $250 to grow or raise their own food and community grants up to $5,000 are available for organizations.

Read more

Sep 16

Urban Farming Highlight: The Village Co-Op

by SLCgreen outreach coordinator Stephan Sveshnikov

One of the many ways SLCgreen furthers our sustainability goals is through supporting our local food system. Salt Lake City is committed to providing and facilitating funding for local food programs to enhance access to fresh, healthy, and sustainable food. In recent years, we’ve worked to relax ordinances to allow for backyard chickens and beekeeping, expanded the number of community gardens in the city, and contracted with Green Urban Lunchbox to run the SLC Fruitshare program.

Have you ever wondered how much food you could grow in your yard if you took the time to garden? We produced a Food Map that helps you find an estimate of your yard’s food production potential and provides resources that will educate and empower you to grow more food.

Many Salt Lake City locals are already growing thriving gardens. We recently sat down with one of Salt Lake’s urban farmers, Darin Mann, to talk about his garden, water reduction efforts, and food justice advocacy.

Growing Community

Darin Mann calls his neighborhood the “Venice of Salt Lake.” The garden of cabbages, kale, tomatoes, and everything in between, known officially as the “Village Co-op,” is nestled between  Fairpark and Rose Park, in one of the most ethnically diverse places in the state of Utah. On the other side of his farm stands a mosque and, next to it, a Buddhist temple. Just down the street is the Virgin of Guadalupe Catholic Church. An oasis of green in a crossroads of cultures.

Darin knows the neighborhood well. His farm isn’t called the Village Co-op for nothing: “Every single day I have at least 30 neighbors coming and talking to me about my garden,” he says. Add to that number the 200 families signed up to receive produce box alerts and upwards of 300 volunteers this season alone, and you start to see the sort of impact a small urban farm can have on the surrounding community.

Read more

Feb 26

3 Comments

Salt Lake City Says Farewell to Supreet Gill

Food & Equity are critical aspects of our work at SLCgreen. Food exists at the intersection of environmental resilience and community. Our interactions with the food system are complex and made even more complicated by inequities that limit our community members’ access to fresh, nutritious, and culturally-relevant foods.  

Supreet Gill guided SLCgreen’s food and equity work since August 2019.  As Program Manager, Supreet built on our existing programs, dedicating her time to improving community health and well-being by spearheading efforts to improve access to healthy, affordable food. The pandemic revealed just how closely linked food, equity, and climate can be. Despite the challenges of the past year, Supreet worked diligently to alleviate some of the disparities in our food system.  

Supreet has helped shape our department’s food access and equity work, but now it is time to say farewell to our colleague and friend. She and her family are moving out of state. While we hate to see our co-workers go, we’re excited to see what Supreet will do next! And we have a chance to reflect on everything Supreet has done to support our community.  

Read more

Aug 15

4 Comments

Welcome Supreet Gill!

Supreet Gill is SLCgreen’s new Sustainability Program Manager.

SLCgreen is thrilled to welcome Supreet Gill to the Sustainability Department as our new Program Manager!

Supreet brings 15 years of experience in community food systems and a passion for improving urban and ecological resilience through sustainable agriculture and equitable community engagement.

Supreet has engaged in food systems on all levels — as a farmer, program manager for a refugee agriculture project, coordinator of urban farming and farm to school programs, and nutrition educator, to name a few!

In her prior position with Salt Lake County’s Urban Farming and Open Space program, she worked on numerous projects focusing on public lands management and community food systems. She also served on Salt Lake City’s Food Policy Task Force (now Food Policy Council) and has deep connections in the local food community.

As Sustainability Department program manager, Supreet will continue building our existing programs as well as developing new ones to strengthen the capacity of community residents and leaders to enhance the regional food system.

In short, her work is dedicated to improving community health and well-being, as well as making sure all residents have access to healthy, affordable, local food.

That goal entails a deep focus on community partnerships. She’ll continue making connections in the community– with farmers, local food producers, and other stakeholders. She’ll also work to ensure that communities, groups, and individuals with lower-access to resources are involved as deeply as possible in Salt Lake City’s work.

Finally, Supreet’s role will also include bridging with other government entities– within and outside of Salt Lake City– to prioritize strategies related to social and environmental justice, improving the local food system, and fostering equitable access to healthy food.

We’re thrilled to have her on the team!

Say hello when you see her at an upcoming community event . . . or a garden around town!

May 30

Donate Fresh Food and Build Community: Register your Trees or Volunteer with SLC FruitShare

Every summer, across the valley, fresh fruit goes to waste, falling off of neighborhood trees and rotting on sidewalks and in backyards. The good news is that with an abundance of fruit trees, Salt Lake City is in a unique position to cut down on waste and provide affordable access to healthy food.

That’s how the Fruitshare program was born. Salt Lake City worked with the non-profit Green Urban Lunch Box (GULB) to launch this program several years ago with the goal of reducing food waste and providing healthy fruit to residents in need. SLCgreen has also supported the program financially until it became self-sustaining.

Since then the program has expanded beyond Salt Lake City, to include other areas along the Wasatch Front.

In 2017, volunteers with the Green Urban Lunch Box harvested over 50,000 pounds of fresh, locally grown fruit from local trees. Wow!

But they need your help to do even more.

Fresh Plumbs from the FruitShare

What is the SLC FruitShare?

Instead of losing the fruit to the landfill, the SLC FruitShare will bring volunteers to harvest your fruit for you! If you have a tree or orchard that produces an abundance of fruit each year, you can register you trees and help strengthen our local food system.

Here’s how it works:

  • GULB volunteers harvest the fruit
  • FruitShare participants (the homeowners) will receive one-third of what’s gathered.
  • The other two-thirds is split between the FruitShare volunteers and hunger relief programs.
Read more

May 23

Interested in Joining a New Community Garden?

Growing fresh greens at the Gateway Community Garden, which opened in 2018.

Community gardens provide Salt Lake City with fresh, locally grown food and a vibrant space to connect with our neighbors. Salt Lake City’s community gardens are popular locations for everything from volunteering to learning about urban farming. Indeed, in conjunction with Wasatch Community Gardens (WCG), Salt Lake City has successfully developed seven community gardens in almost every corner of the city through our Green City Growers program.

These gardens include the Off Broadway Community Garden, Liberty Wells, Rose Park, Cannon Greens, 9-Line, Popperton Plots, and the Gateway Garden. Not only do these gardens support Salt Lake City’s dedication to increase local food production, they invigorate our neighborhoods by putting vacant lots to use in ways that support community engagement and biodiversity — all while limiting our communities’ carbon footprints.

Salt Lake City’s community gardens activate our neighborhoods, giving residents a space to engage with friends and neighbors and to grow fresh produce. And we just can’t get enough of them!

In order to continue to make community gardens accessible and ensure that locally grown food stays a priority, both Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County have proposed new community gardens to be built in 2020.

But the City, County, and WCG can’t do it alone. We need a strong show of support from nearby residents, indicating that the gardens will receive enough use.

Salt Lake City is working with WCG to establish Richmond Park Community Garden. Similarly, Salt Lake County and WCG are collaborating on a new garden in Sugar House Park. You can read more about the gardens below. If you would be interested in gardening at either of these parks, sign the petitions below to show your support.

Richmond Park

Salt Lake City highlighted Richmond Park for a potential garden. The park, which already has a fantastic playground, is nestled between 500 and 400 East along 600 South in downtown Salt Lake City.

Read more

Mar 20

SLC and Urban Food Connections of Utah Announce Latest Round of Local Food Microgrant Winners!

Photo by Lukas on Pexels.com

Winners of the Cycle Four Local Food Micro-Grant

Many of our local farmers are in business because they love it, but it’s a tough, physically-demanding job with tight financial margins.

Salt Lake City understands the value of healthy, local food as well as the benefit that farmers bring to our local community and economy.

That’s why, in 2017, Salt Lake City launched the Local Food Microgrant Program with Urban Food Connections of Utah, the non-profit organization that runs the Downtown Farmers Market, Rio Grande Winter Market, and Tuesday Harvest Market.



“We’re delighted to partner with Urban Food Connections of Utah to give farmers the critical boost they need to invest back in their operations!” 


Mayor Biskupski

There have been three funding cycles so far (check out round 1, round 2, and round 3 recipients). We’re excited to allocate the latest $15,000 for a running total of $60,000 in microgrant funding to assist local, small-scale farmers who want to expand their operations with sustainability in mind. The microgrant fund is one of SLCgreen’s Local Food programs helping achieve our goal of increasing overall access to fresh, healthy food for all members of the SLC community.

Congratulations are in order for seven Utah farms!

Read more

Jan 23

Salt Lake County Seeking Local Farmers to Develop Agricultural Land

Untitled

Do you know a local farmer or organization that is seeking agricultural land to develop?

As part of Salt Lake County’s vision to create more opportunities for locally produced food, the Open Space and Urban Farming programs are seeking local farmers to manage land at Wheadon Park and Big Cottonwood Regional Park. The three separate sites have a total of 20.3 farmable acres.

The County is soliciting proposals from qualified firms “Proposer / Contractor” to provide management and operation of commercial farming enterprise at Big Cottonwood Regional Park (7 acres) and at two parcels at Wheadon Park (3.4 and 9.9 acres).

Read more

Jan 22

4 Comments

Round Three of Funding for Sustainable Farming Now Open

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 22, 2018

Salt Lake City and Urban Food Connections Announce Round Three of Funding for Local Food Microgrant Program

 

BUG

BUG Farms, a recipient of the first funding round from the Local Food Microgrant Program.

Applications are now open for local commercial farmers to seek assistance in expanding their operation and production of more organically-grown fruits and vegetables.

Salt Lake City launched the Local Food Microgrant Program in February 2017 in partnership with Urban Food Connections of Utah, the non-profit organization that runs the Downtown Farmers Market, Rio Grande Winter Market and Tuesday Harvest Market. The Salt Lake City Council, on the recommendation of the Administration and its Sustainability Department, in 2016 set apart $85,000 to initially fund the program.

The program offers funding to local farmers who want to expand their operations with sustainability in mind. The grants help farmers access technology, education, tools and equipment to grow more sustainable produce.

“Our goal is to increase the amount of healthy, locally-grown, organic food available in Salt Lake City,” said Mayor Jackie Biskupski. “By providing small grants to farmers, we are also supporting local, ecologically sustainable agriculture and the City’s economy.”

The third funding round is now open and will award $15,000. The microgrant program has so far generated substantial interest among small-scale commercial farmers. Read more

Aug 1

4 Comments

SLC FruitShare: Saving Fruit That Would Otherwise Go Unpicked

By Brooke Taylor

Salt Lake City works in partnership with The Green Urban Lunch Box, a local nonprofit organization aimed to “empower people to engage in local food production by using the resources available in their community” to operate FruitShare. Volunteers help pick fruit from residents’ registered trees, then distribute the harvest 3 ways:

1/3 goes to homeowners, 1/3 goes to volunteers, 1/3 goes to hunger relief (Utah Food Bank, local food pantries, shelters, health clinics, and anti-hunger organizations)

1

Read more

« Older Entries