VSU Small Farm Outreach Program Drives NUag Forward to Support Urban Farmers and Shape Future Policy
Across the farming and food production landscape, urban farming is often excluded from the agriculture conversation. Urban growers are frequently ineligible for many federal programs that are designed for more rural or larger farming operations. Until recently, efforts to address this issue were localized. In 2023, Virginia State University (VSU) secured $4 million in grant funding, primarily from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) 's Farm Service Agency (FSA) to make a consolidated effort to connect farmers to nationwide services and programs offered through FSA, and understand the needs of, and suggest policies and programs that could benefit, small and innovative producers. Called the National Urban Ag Initiative , or NUag for short, this effort intends to help more urban producers use finance, education, research and outreach resources that would benefit their operations. NUag is now in full swing with 27 pilot cities and Native tribes, under the leadership of Virginia State's Small Farm Outreach Program and partnering institutions, Virginia Tech's Center for Food Systemns and Community Transformation, Cornell Cooperative Extension, and the Jackson, Mississippi-based organization To Improve Mississippi Economics (T.I.M.E.).
[AC1]Linkto:: https://www.ext.vsu.edu/blog/2023/9/13-urban-ag-grants
[AC2]Linkto:
https://nuaginitiative.com/
Virginia State University is the project lead, developing evidence-based resources and best practices for states to develop programs for their small and innovative farmers. While Virginia Tech's role is to research and assess the events, activities, and outcomes of NUag, Cornell is responsible for developing training modules for FSA and USDA staff. These modules aim to enhance their understanding of urban agriculture's history, benefits, and practices, as well as the best ways to connect small and innovative farmers with government programs. T.I.M.E. provides education and resources on urban agriculture, managing the second wave of NUag cities and projects. At VSU, Briana Stevenson works with the Small Farm Outreach Program and is the NUag coordinator. Her job is to coordinate the grant between all the NUag partners, conduct outreach, and support participating coordinators. This summer, she's been on the road touring around the nation, raising awareness for urban agriculture, with youth ambassador Kendall Rae Johnson, the nation's youngest certified farmer. "First, we kicked off NUag with events like the opening conference in Detroit last year," says Stevenson. "Now, we're focusing on establishing resources." The first resource Stevenson and her team are building is an online toolkit for organizations to access through the NUag website.
Cornell has almost finished the first round of educational modules. The team will soon establish a test group cohort of USDA staff to go through the curriculum and provide feedback to further improve the modules. "The modules thoroughly explain what urban agriculture is, growing practices, resources and the unique challenges facing small producers," Stevenson explains. "It's also important for USDA staff to have a better understanding of how policies impact producers in the urban agriculture landscape."
Meanwhile, Virginia Tech is not only evaluating NUag but helping VSU shape the policy-focused actions that the initiative will eventually recommend to USDA. "Virginia Tech's Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation is hosting a lot of community conversations with our partners," says Stevenson. Currently, there are 26 partnering organizations across the country partnering with NUag. "We bring in all 26 organizations to have conversations, which we call learning exchanges, about specific issues we want to address together as a group," says Stevenson. In August, the learning exchange will focus on data collection and the best ways to share impacts through storytelling. Each partnering organization is responsible for recording its work and demonstrating how NUag is improving outcomes for urban farmers.
On the ground, partnering organizations are making headway with their unique projects. Some are working to create a more balanced environment in their cities, where those who need resources can easily find access. Other organizations are establishing resource centers for small and innovative producers. In nearby Richmond, Virginia Cooperative Extension, which is itself a partnering organization for the NUag program, is working to create a small tool bank for urban growers in addition to educational programming, classes and mini-grants for producers. "We've had great success with our first round of mini grants," says Stevenson. "Administering low-barrier funding into actual communities has been one of the most impactful elements of this project; there's been a lot of positive and successful movement with that," she says. NUag initially launched with 17 cities and tribal nations, then expanded to include an additional 10 cities. Stevenson reports that they've successfully onboarded those 10 cities, and they are preparing to disperse their mini-grant funding within their cities. "I'm very excited about the momentum and what's to come," she says.
NUag has made considerable progress since launching just a few years ago, and has no intention of slowing down. Moving into the fall, Stevenson has progress and effort goals that span the scope of the project. "We're working on outreach and curating a network for our newsletter and social media, and we're creating a toolkit based on documented needs from different organizations that will lay out how organizations and producers can better interact with USDA or use their programs and resources," she says. Currently, Stevenson and her team are surveying partnering organizations to understand the immediate needs of producers and how NUag can address these needs in policy and project recommendations to submit to USDA upon project completion. "We're going to have the principal investigator of each organization come together for one big meeting by the end of the project to create one big voice to communicate what needs to be changed to benefit our urban producers," says Stevenson.
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