While there are limitations in our ability to generalize findings to the East Bay urban farming landscape as a whole due to the relatively small sample size, we obtained a fairly representative sample of the diversity of farm types in the East Bay based on our typology of the original 120 farm types . Survey questions fell into nine categories: 1) Background Info, 2) Farm Description, 3) Operating Expenses and Revenues, 4) Land Access and Tenure, 5) Production and Soil Health, 6) Distribution, 7) “Waste” and Compost, 8) Food Access, and 9) Training, Communications, and Follow Up. There were a few open-ended questions allowing farmers to express what they saw as the three largest challenges facing urban agriculture operations in the area, and policy-relevant suggestions for securing spaces for urban farms and increasing community food security. In addition, we interviewed five urban farmers to deepen our understanding of the social, political, economic, and ecological constraints under which their farms operate. These farmers are particularly involved in networking efforts to strengthen urban farm viability in the East Bay. Four out of five represent locally prominent non-profit farms and one subject represents an alternative cooperatively-run urban farm; three interview subjects are women and two are men. Our study complied with UC Berkeley’s Institutional Review Board protocol for the protection of human subjects and all participants gave consent for participation.Farmers reported diversified distribution methods including volunteers harvesting and taking food home , on-site consumption , on-site farm stand distribution, CSA boxes at pick up sites,vertical cannabis and volunteers delivering produce directly to distribution sites . Some gleaning and second harvesting occurs at urban farms and gardens with potential for growth given reported “unharvested” and “wasted” food percentages.
Backyard produce is also exchanged through crop swaps and neighborhood food boxes . Eight operations reported having access to a refrigerated truck for food deliveries, and two are willing to share their truck with other farmers. There is no universally used or city-organized process for distributing produce off of urban farms and into the community, yet there exists great interest in aggregating produce or distribution channels , an unrealized goal of urban farmers in the East Bay. All of the food system stakeholders involved in our study are working towards transformative food system change, focused on increasing equity, food security, and access to healthy, locally sourced food. See Box 1 for a description of one of the non-farmer stakeholders engaged in the food recovery and distribution system, who has recently established an aggregation hub to serve as a network for reducing food waste and channeling excess food in the urban community to those who are food insecure.Farmers in our study stressed the importance of producing non-food related values on their farms, including education and community building. One farmer in particular emphasized their organization’s mission of “growing urban farmers growing food,” or teaching other people how to grow a portion of their food basket, thus unlocking food sovereignty and food literacy while increasing healthy food access. Another respondent reported that their farm is “highly desirable for adults with special needs that need a safe place to be outside,” echoing respondents who point out the intimate connection between food and health . Farms frequently reported hosting educational and community-building workshops, cooking and food processing demonstrations, harvest festivals, and other open-to-the-public community events enhancing the resilience and connectivity of people, communities and ecosystems. Social networks emerged as an important theme for enabling the establishment of urban farms , and sustaining operations through social connections between urban farmers and other food justice and health advocates. Farmers identified three primary challenges: revenue, land, and labor inputs.
Half of all respondents reported farm earnings of $1,500 annually or less, and all four operations receiving over $250,000 in annual revenue are well-funded non-profit operations . Regardless of for-profit or non-profit status, most farms reported multiple sources of revenue as important to their continued operation , with an average of 3 revenue streams per farm. All non-profit farms reported multiple revenue streams except for three, who were sustained entirely by either board donations, membership fees , and grants. The most important revenue sources for non-profits include grants, grassroots fundraising, and unsolicited donations rather than sales. In addition to these monetary sources, all farms reported receiving substantial non-monetary support , which adds to the precarity of operations when these informal support channels disappear.Land tenure arrangements range from land accessed without payment through contracts with City or School District officials, to arrangements where a token fee is paid , to more formal leasing arrangements at the utility-owned Sunol Ag Park, where land tenants pay $1000/acre/year for their plots, ranging from 1-3 acres. Only five of the respondents owned their land , representing a mix of for-profit and nonprofit operations . Challenges around land access, security, and tenure were the most frequently occurring theme in the survey long response and interview analysis process, including consensus that land access is the largest barrier to scaling UA in the East Bay. The cost of labor, and relatedly, access to capital and grant funding to pay living wage salaries, were also extremely significant challenges identified by survey respondents. The majority of respondents stated that most of their labor is volunteer rather than paid, with nonprofit respondents reporting this more frequently than for profit enterprises . The maximum number of paid staff at any operation is 20 , while the average is 4. Many farms reported the desire to be able to hire and pay workers more, but not having sufficient revenue to accomplish that goal. Annual volunteer labor participants on farms ranged from 0 to 1542 with an average of 97 volunteers, representing a significant public interest in participating in local food production. Not surprisingly, amount of paid labor and total farm income are positively correlated . However, volunteer labor is also positively but more moderately correlated with total farm income .The farmers in our study acknowledged many challenges facing urban agriculture, stemming both from the high economic costs of production and land rents, and insufficient monetary returns from produce sales.
They also framed these challenges through a food justice lens, arguing that the current political economy does not fully compensate farmers for the social-ecological services provided from their farms. Farmers articulated many solutions that could improve the viability of their farm operations including: conversion of city parks into food producing gardens with paid staff, government and institutional procurement goals for urban produced foods, municipal investment in cooperatives or other community based food production , and establishment of aggregation hubs and distribution infrastructure.Our survey results describe a highly diversified East Bay Agroecosystem comprising urban farmers and other food system stakeholders that are growing food as well as food literacy, civic engagement, connectivity, and community. Applying an agroecological lens to interpret our findings of East Bay urban agriculture operations reveals the many agoecological practices farms have long been engaged in, as well as the important distinctions of UAE that still need to be explored, and specific threats to agroecology in urban areas. Pimbert suggests that “agroecology’s focus on whole food systems invites urban producers to think beyond their garden plots and consider broader issues such as citizens’ access to food within urban municipalities and the governance of food systems.” We argue that applying an agroecological lens to the urban context also invites researchers and urban planners and policymakers to think beyond garden plots and singular benefits of food production, to consider these sites as part of a larger agro-ecosystem with synergistic social,vertical farming pros and cons cultural and ecological dimensions. We reference the 10 elements of agroecology to illustrate the dynamics of how these elements manifest in practice in this urban context.All of the farms in our survey follow agroecological production practices which include a focus on building soil health through, most commonly, cover cropping, compost application, and no-till practices. These practices produce synergistic effects of adding fertility to the soil through organic matter amendments and boosting water holding capacity. Soil building practices are a response to the impetus to remediate toxins present in urban soils , a prerequisite to intensive cultivation and unique consideration of the urban farm environment. Overall, production practices on our urban farms seek to conserve, protect and enhance natural resources.
Our survey respondents described numerous strategies for enabling diversified, intensive production of fruits, vegetables, and other agricultural products. These strategies span both short and long-term, from planting in raised beds with imported soil, to building soil health in situ via heavy applications of compost, manure, and cover crops for several years leading up to vegetable crop production. There is a growing interest in using no-till practices, which are among the suite of practices associated with “carbon farming” for enhancing soil carbon sequestration . This illustrates a synergistic opportunity for urban food policy and urban climate policy, showing where urban food production and city Climate Action Plans 4 can converge and generate mutual support . Farmers are also engaged in innovative resource recycling and resource use efficiency and other strategies to enhance resilience such as installing rainwater catchment systems in concert with swales and soil health practices to optimize use of this scarce resource. Farms are planting native flowers and shrubs to attract beneficial insects, rather than purchasing chemical inputs for pest management. From a city planning perspective, the impetus to remediate storm water overflows and maintain corridors for essential pollinators are two priorities that can be met through incentivizing and planning spaces for UAE.East Bay urban farms reflect multiple scales and forms of diversity including agrobiodiversity, organizational and participant diversity, diversified sources of capital, labor and land arrangements, as well as diversified modes of exchange. Diversity among operations technically doing the same thing- growing food in cities- signals the fluid, flexible, peripheral, and at times revolutionary nature of urban food production spaces, which may conflict with orresist the institutional, political-economic status quo . Urban farms rely on diverse revenue streams from their diversity of activities beyond sale of produce. These activities, including educational services and community events, are important to elevate in policy conversations. Valuing and therefore protecting urban food production spaces requires thinking differently about them in a context like the San Francisco Bay Area. One stakeholder suggested considering urban farms as museums, providing essential cultural and educational offerings to city residents . The quality of the food and the value of the education, health, and community building, are strong arguments for including urban farms in an urban-agroecological framework for city planning and efforts to improve CFS. The diversity of land access agreements and labor sources used by urban farmers in the East Bay underscores equity considerations in urban agroecological transitions. Even 50% of the for-profit enterprises reported relying on volunteer labor, speaking to both the precarious economics of running an economically viable for-profit food production business in the city, and the interest among young people and aspiring farmers in gaining agroecological cultivation skills through arrangements where they donate their labor free of charge. Volunteer labor substitutes for revenue to a certain degree, allowing farms to exist and distribute food informally without needing to generate much revenue or provide many jobs. In the UA literature, reliance on volunteer labor comes under criticism for being a product of the “neoliberal city,” where responsibility for action falls to the individual rather than the state, and the equity concerns around who is able to volunteer their time are problematized . By reporting the common use of volunteers on East Bay urban farms, we do not seek to promote or valorize this practice, but rather recognize it as a necessary interim step occurring in our study context in the absence of dramatic local government intervention or radical reforms to address community food insecurity: those who are willing and able are participating through civic engagement in urban farms to produce, harvest and distribute healthy food to those in need. Many volunteers are retired or recent graduates, seeking opportunities to contribute meaningfully to their communities. The volunteers we have communicated with generally report positive experiences and enjoyment from their time digging in the soil.