In 2018, Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (UAIP) became a division of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and for the first time offered competitive grants to initiate or expand efforts of farmers, gardeners, citizens, government officials, schools, and other stakeholders in urban areas and suburbs.
COCG, along with The City of Tampa and IFAS Hillsborough County submitted the first round of the grant in 2019 but unfortunately did not win. In 2020 they resubmitted the grant, focused on expanding upon and replicating the successful Garden Steps & Healthy 22nd Street Model and this time they won! The primary goal is to provide households that qualify as low-income, low access (LILA) access to community garden markets with the following objectives:
- Increase access to fresh produce
- Create jobs
- Establish a local produce supply chain
- Expand School Garden Programs
Through this project, the city will reorganize community gardens into “urban clusters” to increase efficiency service delivery of community level food distribution. Innovations will include utilizing smartphone applications that connect residents in the target areas with their local community garden urban cluster.
The program will also establish garden fresh markets and a free food pantry while creating an education certification program by incorporating job/entrepreneur training and increasing youth education to additional schools.
After building infrastructure and defining the program structure, it also focuses on integrating urban agriculture technology into our community gardens and building additional partnerships to strengthen the initiative into a sustainable and resilient program for the future.
Follow our social media pages to see progress updates on the Grant implementation as we go!