Strengthening Urban Agriculture
Join the campaign!
Do you believe urban agriculture is important for our communities? Do you think we need more resources, and better coordination to make it possible? Have ideas on how to make that happen? Join the coalition!
At SOFSA, we’ve been dreaming up an Office of Urban Agriculture that could work with farmers and community gardeners to help coordinate essential resources. But if we want to get an office established, we’re going to need all hands on deck to make it happen.
Why an urban ag campaign?
So many people throughout Syracuse and Onondaga County are taking care of community gardens, getting small farms off the ground, and leading educational programs to get more people interested in growing food where they’re at.
Growing food closer to where we live can have so many positive impacts, from building community to providing fresh produce to improving health outcomes.
But urban growers need more support! We need more coordination to ensure we have access to water, soil testing, materials, financial resources, land, infrastructure, and more.
What are the campaign goals?
We want to establish an office of urban agriculture within the City of Syracuse or Onondaga County. The office would help coordinate among different departments and entities to support urban agriculture efforts throughout the city, through zoning, resource allocation, and more.
As we develop the campaign, however, we might find that an office of urban agriculture is not the most effective way to accomplish these goals. The work of the coalition will be to determine if this goal feels adequate to meet our current needs, or if we should be pushing for another framework to support our urban growers.