“I love working here,” said Anthony Bonds, 25, gesturing to rows of crops at the Gary Comer Youth Center farm. “I started here as an intern in high school because I needed money. I ended up falling in love with urban agriculture and learning as much about this field as possible. I’ve been here now for 10 years.”
Since 2006, the Gary Comer Youth Center has been serving the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood’s children, teens and young adults through many programs, including their year-round youth education farm.
Their urban farm grows nearly 200 different crops throughout the year, which they distribute to nearby food pantries every week in partnership with the Food Depository. The farm also provides paid internships and jobs for youth, giving them marketable skills and needed economic opportunities.
Supporting both farmers and pantries
The Gary Comer Youth Center is one of six farms the Food Depository partners with through an initiative started in 2020 to support hyperlocal farming practices. We purchase produce from small farms in Cook County, and the farms deliver produce directly to nearby pantries, giving more of our neighbors access to fresh, local food.
The program has grown every year, and to date, the Food Depository has helped farms provide more than 100,000 pounds of fresh produce to food pantries – providing local farmers a needed economic boost in the process.
“We love this partnership with local farmers,” said Stephanie Hobson, food pantry manager at Respond Now pantry in Chicago Heights. “It’s good to be able to offer healthy options for people. People that go to pantries deserve good, quality food.”
Respond Now receives produce from Chicago Urban Farm Solutions (CUFS), a farm just minutes away in Lynwood, Illinois. The Food Depository was introduced to CUFS in 2023, as part of a partnership with The Conservation Fund's Working Farms Fund, which provided support for our first large-scale produce purchase from CUFS in late 2023 — 30,000 pounds of healthy, nutrient-rich, hyper-locally grown romaine lettuce.
We are continuing to partner with farms like CUFS with support from the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA, known as IL-EATS in Illinois), which is supporting ongoing purchases through next fall. In October, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced an additional round of funding for LFPA, which the Food Depository hopes will allow us to continue to strengthen and expand these partnerships.
Although LFPA funding is limited, the Food Depository is taking action to ensure we can keep supporting local farmers. In June, advocates from the Food Depository traveled to Washington, D.C. to lobby in support of the EAT Local Foods Act, which would create a permanent program similar to LFPA, providing consistent funding for states and local partners like food banks to purchase food from local farmers.
Investing in communities
Investing in local farmers, particularly Black and Latino farmers is crucial for creating a more equitable food system and fostering economic growth in historically marginalized communities. Black and Latino farmers – who have long faced systemic barriers to land ownership, capital and markets – often struggle to sustain their operations.
By prioritizing investments in these farmers, the Food Depository aims to bridge the wealth gap, increase food sovereignty (the right of people to control their own food systems) and boost local economies. Supporting these farmers not only helps them gain financial stability but also empowers them to provide culturally relevant and nutritious food to their communities, addressing food insecurity in a more meaningful and sustainable way.
“The guests love the produce we get from the farm,” said Hobson of the food they receive from CUFS. “They give us collard greens, green tomatoes, sweet potatoes; all the foods they like to eat and want to eat.”
Consistency is key
The hyperlocal farming initiative benefits farmers by providing them with a consistent revenue source that they don’t always get through other methods of selling their produce. The Food Depository provides the farms with an additional market for their food and pays them what they would charge at a farmers market.
“Stability is a major component,” said Sandra Reno, urban agriculture production manager at Gary Comer. “Selling to restaurants and at farmers markets is great, but it doesn’t necessarily provide a consistent outflow of product or inflow of income. The relationship (with the Food Depository) is helpful to us because it adds an element of consistency that we don’t always get. It makes our jobs a little bit easier.”
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