Construction of the Cranston Food Hub at Urban Edge Farm officially begins this week, marking a pivotal moment in SCLT’s effort to build a more equitable, resilient local food system. We’re creating a 4,000 square foot post-harvest handling, storage, processing, and distribution facility that will fundamentally change what regional farmers can accomplish. This is the moment when planning becomes concrete, literally.
Our Healthy Food Access Program has grown remarkably over the past few years, expanding from $49,000 in farmer revenues in 2021 to $160,000 in 2025. That explosive growth is a testament to the quality and demand for fresh, culturally familiar produce grown by our network of farmers. But it’s also created a problem: our Farm-to-Market Center and Healthy Food Hub in Providence has reached capacity. We’ve maxed out what we can process, store, and distribute from that single urban location.
The underlying challenge is deeper than just needing more space. Rhode Island has the highest agricultural real estate values in the US at $24,059 per acre, six times the national average. This makes it nearly impossible for beginning and historically marginalized farmers to acquire land and build the infrastructure necessary for successful farm businesses. On our managed lands at Urban Edge Farm and Good Earth Farm, more than 75% of farmers identify as Black, Indigenous, and people of color; 66% are women; and 50% live in South Providence. Many are immigrants and refugees from Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Dominican Republic who bring tremendous agricultural knowledge but face systemic barriers to accessing land, markets, and infrastructure.
The Cranston Food Hub directly addresses these barriers. By providing modern aggregation, storage, and distribution infrastructure at cost – infrastructure these farmers could never afford individually – we’re enabling them to increase production, improve product quality, and access higher-value markets. This isn’t just about moving more vegetables. It’s about enabling farmers to build sustainable businesses and claim economic power in a system designed to exclude them.
Construction begins this week. The new facility, funded primarily through a USDA Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure grant, will include modern pack lines for washing and processing, three walk-in humidity-controlled coolers, and a walk-in freezer. Equally critical, the facility will connect to municipal water and sewer systems, replacing an aging well system and failed septic infrastructure that has posed safety and operational challenges for years. For the farmers working this land, this means clean water access, food safety compliance, and a professional-grade workspace that honors the quality of their work.
This winter, SCLT received a significant boost to this project: a grant award from the Growing Justice Fund, a national funder that supports food justice work led by organizations centered on racial equity. This grant will support the buildout of the Cranston Food Hub, deepening our capacity to serve farmers. The Growing Justice Fund places us within a network of organizations doing similar work across the country, all operating from the conviction that food justice requires centering the voices, leadership, and ownership of the communities most impacted by food system inequities.
Construction will be completed by summer 2026, with full facility operations commencing by late this year. The timeline includes steel structure completion by April, foundation and utility work in May-June, interior buildout over the summer, and equipment installation in the fall. In the months ahead, we’ll work closely with our farmers to ensure the transition is smooth, offering training on new equipment and best management practices so they can maximize the potential of this facility.
The hub will be cooperatively managed with external partners to maximize utilization and support the broader farming community. Farm Fresh Rhode Island’s Hope’s Harvest program will glean, process, and aggregate surplus produce for redistribution through emergency food systems. Hope & Main’s Nourish our Neighbors program will source from SCLT growers. The facility will directly benefit approximately 50 local and regional agricultural producers, including the 18 farm businesses at Urban Edge Farm, 6 at Good Earth Farm, 30+ farmers from the Hmong United Association of Rhode Island land access project, and external partner farms across the region.
This facility represents an investment in the middle of our food supply chain, the infrastructure gap that has constrained what’s possible for small, historically excluded farmers. As we break ground this week and move toward spring completion, we’re reminded that this work is essential, this work is possible, and this work has ripple effects far beyond Rhode Island. We’re grateful for the farmers, partners, funders, and community members who made this moment possible.
