We reclaim land for farmers to grow food
Urban Edge Farm
We turn undeveloped, urban and rural properties into farms where first-generation and immigrant farmers grow healthy (chemical-free) produce for wholesale and retail outlets, including farmers markets, restaurants and CSAs. Parcels may be managed by one or more farmers or comprise a dozen farm enterprises, such as Urban Edge Farm in Cranston. SCLT’s affordable leases on farmland enables a growing number of people t0 make a living while meeting Rhode Island’s growing demand for locally grown, fresh produce.
City Farm
The oldest urban farm in Rhode Island, City Farm, is located at 168 West Clifford Street in South Providence. City Farm staff grow and sell chemical-free produce all season long, creating a revenue stream for SCLT. Hundreds of youth, volunteers and beginning farmers learn about planting, growing and harvesting food at the Farm. Over the past three decades neighborhood children have learned about plant cycles and how food is grown there, and adults have benefited from gardening workshops and farm apprenticeships. City Farm produce is sold at weekly farmers markets and to area restaurants featuring hyper-local and organic vegetables, fruit and herbs.
City Farm is changing our food system in four crucial ways, by:
- providing healthy produce to thousands of people every year
- offering workshops on sustainable growing practices that produce high-yield crops in small, urban spaces
- promoting biodiversity, sustainability and community at our annual Rare & Unusual Plant Sale
- operating a composting program that’s kept more than 50,000 lbs. of food and other organic waste out of the landfill since 2013 – in fact, City Farm’s is the second-largest composting facility in the state! (read this great article to learn more)
Galego Community Farm
Galego Community Farm is a large site we manage on behalf of the Pawtucket Housing Authority. It hosts two market growers during the growing seasons, and now has 72 community garden plots. If you’re interested in gardening in one of them, please fill out the waitlist form or contact Andrew Cook at (401) 273-9419, ext.107 or andrew@southsideclt.org. We also offer summer learning and youth employment programs at this site to encourage young people in Pawtucket and Central Falls to learn about growing and eating healthy food, and how to advocate so that all members of their community can access fresh, nutritious and affordable food.
Good Earth Farm
Good Earth Farm (GEF) is our latest land acquisition. This 20-acre property is located a short distance from Urban Edge Farm in Western Cranston. Like UEF, it hosts a variety of small-scale farmers who mostly began growing food on SCLT’s urban community gardens before moving onto larger parcels. Six farm operations, four operated by Hmong farmers and two by East African farmers, are now based at GEF. The farm has two heated greenhouses, automated irrigation, two wells, dry storage, retail space and other shared infrastructure and resources. Farmers sell their produce to farmers markets and wholesale outlets through SCLT’s Farm-to-Market Center. They host a plant and garden resource market on weekends in the late spring.
Manton Bend Community Farm
Manton Bend Community Farm is a combination community garden and urban farm developed in cooperation with the City of Providence’s Lots of Hope project. The farm plots are currently sublet to the African Alliance of Rhode Island. A number of AARI growers raise Central African vegetables, such as bitter ball and amaranth. AARI sells at the Armory Park Farmers Market and the Wintertime Farmers Market.
Sky Hill Farm
Sky Hill Farm in Olneyville is farmed by a single grower who sells his produce at the Armory Park Farmers Market as well as through a CSA.
Somerset Hayward Community Farm
Somerset Hayward Youth Enterprise Farm is a 1/4-acre micro farm located off of Broad Street in South Providence. SCLT’s Providence youth program operates out of the farm from spring through fall, where they learn to seed, tend and harvest crops and learn about urban farm management. They share their harvests with surrounding neighbors as well as use as it in lunches they prepare as part of the summer program. You can read about how the youth farm took shape here.
Urban Edge Farm
Urban Edge Farm comprises 50 acres in Western Cranston, RI, roughly 30 of which are now cultivated. SCLT manages the farm under a long-term lease with the RI Department of Environmental Management. Seventeen farms operate at UEF, employing about 40 people, most of whom are immigrants and refugees from Southeast Asia, Africa and the Dominican Republic. Farmers share equipment, farm infrastructure and other agricultural resources at UEF, and receive technical assistance from SCLT farmer support staff. You can read more about it here.
Wilson Farm
Wilson Farm is made up of two small lots on Wilson Street in Providence. It is farmed by one of SCLT’s long-time partners, who specializes in Southeast Asian crops like chilies, sweet potato leaf and long beans. He sells his produce at a number of locations, including the Sankofa World Market at the Knight Memorial Library on Elmwood Avenue.
In addition to growing on the farms above, many urban farmers lease plots in our community gardens, waiting for farmland to open up so they can expand their businesses. SCLT’s Land Fund enables us to renovate abandoned urban parcels and clear undeveloped acreage at UEF for these farmers. Please donate, if you can, to support this Fund.
