Beyond Food Security: Cultural Healing Through Urban Farming

Key Takeaways:

Urban farming is often heralded as a practical solution to food deserts, providing fresh produce to communities with limited access to nutritious options. However, in cities like Baltimore, urban farms are sowing seeds that grow far beyond the garden beds.

These spaces are becoming epicenters of cultural revival, community empowerment, and environmental justice, particularly in Black and brown neighborhoods. They are not just feeding bodies; they are nourishing souls and rebuilding the fabric of communities frayed by historical injustices.

As we grapple with the challenges of urban living—inequality, disconnection, and an evolving cultural identity—urban farms emerge as sanctuaries of hope and resilience. They are places where ancestral knowledge is reclaimed, neighbors build powerful networks, and the land serves as a living classroom. The significance of these farms is not measured by the pounds of produce harvested but by the lives they touch and the communities they transform.

“From my perspective, one of the things that I think is remarkable about our urban farmers and our urban farms is the cultural aspect that’s rising to the top,” says NDC Executive Director Jennifer Goold. Jen talks more about this on Next City.

The Neighborhood Design Center (NDC) recognizes the impact of urban farming and supports these initiatives for their multifaceted benefits. The placemaking benefits and cultural preservation that urban farms provide align with NDC’s mission of supporting the growth of healthy and equitable neighborhoods. Urban farms facilitate collaboration and strengthen neighborhood identity by providing venues for social connection and cultural expression, creating environments where traditions thrive and new social ties flourish.

Filbert Street Garden: Responding to the Community’s Needs

Once an overgrown adopt-a-lot, Filbert Street Garden, located in South Baltimore’s Curtis Bay neighborhood, exemplifies the power of community-led transformation. A small group originally rehabilitated the space to become a vibrant community garden, and after many years of petitions defending its existence, it was purchased from the city, securing its future and land sovereignty. This pivotal acquisition has enabled the garden to enhance its facilities and offerings, transitioning into a public access green space with a strong focus on community building and education over the last five years.

Today, Filbert Street Garden has evolved into a vibrant community hub, thanks to the dedication of Black farmers like Brittany Coverdale, a previous employee of Filbert Street Garden. Raised by her grandmother, who instilled in her a deep connection to the earth, Coverdale recognized that traditional agricultural programs often lacked the cultural relevance needed to engage communities of color.

“I like traditional approaches to these things, and because I had learned so much from my grandmother, I knew that there was so much content and a wealth of knowledge that was just held in people,” said Coverdale. “I wanted to figure out how to explore that as much as possible.”

By engaging directly with community members, she ensures that the garden grows not just food but also relationships and cultural understanding. When the local Latino population began to rise, Coverdale didn’t impose a pre-set agenda; she asked residents what they wanted to see in the garden. This responsiveness has made the garden a reflection of the community’s diverse heritage, cultivating crops that are meaningful to its people. “I decided to speak with the people who are coming here every day and figure out what they want to eat and what we should grow,” Coverdale said. “If we can be more responsive to the needs and gaps in what’s available, it will be much more beneficial.”

While the garden naturally attracts children from the neighborhood due to its proximity to local schools, building a sense of inclusion and comfort for all community members requires more than just physical closeness. By actively showing residents that it is responsive to their needs and interests, the farm fosters a sense of belonging and helps create a space where residents feel valued, included, and supported.

Filbert Street Garden provides a setting where traditional approaches to farming are both honored and shared, creating a space that addresses more than just physical hunger. Coverdale recognizes the deeper needs that the garden fulfills and that the role of urban farmers extends beyond food cultivators to be cultural custodians, educators, and connectors, helping to restore and nurture the relationship between the land and the community within the city. “Food brings so many people together,” said Coverdale.

Backyard Basecamp/BLISS Meadows: A Place for Connection and Cultural Healing

In 2017, pediatric nurse Atiya Wells discovered the vacant property in her Northeast Baltimore Frankford Neighborhood where BLISS Meadows (Baltimore Living In Sustainable Simplicity) stands today. Noticing a lack of representation in nature-based programs and understanding the historical traumas that have alienated communities of color from land-based practices, she sought to change that narrative and create a bridge reconnecting Black families to the natural world.  

Wells saw an opportunity for healing, growth, and community empowerment and, beginning with acquiring the vacant lot in 2019, she embarked on the cultural healing project that would become BLISS Meadows, a 10-acre land reclamation initiative. By creating a green space within walking distance for many residents, nature is accessible and relatable. BLISS Meadows offers educational programs, summer camps, and even spaces for indigenous rituals, all aimed at fostering a sense of belonging and stewardship. The space has also become a social center and identifier for the neighborhood, providing a place for residents to reclaim their connection to nature and their community. 

The impact is palpable. Neighbors who once didn’t know each other now collaborate and support one another, strengthening the community network. Events like the Mother’s Day Tea Party aren’t just social gatherings; they’re catalysts for rebuilding trust and solidarity among residents who have shared the same streets for years but lacked meaningful connections. “It’s been really beautiful to see within this neighborhood, knowing who your neighbors are and looking out for them,” Wells said. “I think the change that I’ve seen is people just leaning more towards community again.

Wells and her team recognize the healing when Black people feel comfortable rekindling this relationship with the natural world and their ancestral roots.

The healing and community revitalization that has occurred over the few short years since BLISS Meadows was an abandoned, neglected lot is a testament to the power of urban farming. For Wells, it is incredible to see how Bliss has solidified its space as a neighborhood mainstay. “This is like the community landmark,” said Wells. “Even when I see posts on social media, people will say, ‘Over there by BLISS.’”

Farm Alliance Black Butterfly Teaching Farm: Cultivating Justice, Community, and Sustainable Agriculture

In Farring-Baybrook Park, the Black Butterfly Teaching Farm operates under the ethos that farming is an act of social justice. Supported by the Farm Alliance of Baltimore, a membership organization that supports, advocates for and teaches urban agriculture in Baltimore City. The farm serves as a living classroom where sustainable agriculture meets community activism. The commercial and teaching farm hosts a training program and is developing a business incubator model. The team acknowledges the skilled ancestral farmers who were denied ownership and control over their work, seeking to honor them by reclaiming farming as a path to empowerment.

The farm’s approach to agriculture is as much about honoring the past as it is about building for the future. The team pays homage to ancestral farmers and sharecroppers, acknowledging the skilled and experienced growers who were often denied the opportunity to control their own destiny. “I’m inspired by ancestral farmers who were forced to farm on land that they didn’t own and didn’t have control over what they were growing but came here to this part of the world with expertise,” said Denzel Mitchell. “They were forced to work in a food system that considered them less than human and considered them only as workers. So, we honor them.”

This recognition fuels their advocacy for organic practices, responsible land stewardship, and community-oriented agriculture in their practices as they transform what was once a passive park greenspace into an active community farm. Their vision for the farm includes crops, a food forest full of perennial plants, innovative water management systems, and dedicated areas for training, incubation plots, and community gatherings.

By existing within the neighborhoods they serve, urban farms create a connection between communities and their food sources, something that’s often missing in conventional food production. These farms allow residents to witness the growing process firsthand, develop relationships with farmers, and even participate in the farming process. This proximity fosters a deeper appreciation for the land and the art of farming. As community members connect over shared agricultural spaces, they simultaneously strengthen their connection to their food supply. 

“Traditional farming typically happens in this isolation,” says Myesha. “So with it being in this space, both the consumer and the farmer have an unspoken relationship or understanding…. it also serves as a space of education and knowledge sharing, which you typically wouldn’t get in conventional farming.”

The connection also helps humanize farming, dispelling negative stereotypes and re-igniting an appreciation for the profession. This is particularly important in Black communities where, for generations, farming has come with a stigma stemming from the historical trauma of slavery and sharecropping in the United States. These experiences have contributed to a generational disconnection from farming and a perception of it as a form of oppression rather than empowerment. As a result, farming and agriculture are often seen as reminders of exploitation, loss, and struggle, leading to a reluctance in many Black communities to engage with land-based work. Spaces like Black Butterfly Teaching Farm are integral to shifting the perception and allowing Black and Brown communities to reclaim their connection to the land.

“The negative connection or relationship that Black and brown working-class folks have with the work of farming is kind of dispelled when they see it happening in real-time,” says Mitchell.

Black Butterfly Teaching Farm is more than a place to grow food; it is a space where community members can connect with nature, learn practical skills, and explore the full cycle of food production. The farm has created a model for how urban agriculture can serve as a tool for cultural preservation, neighborhood health, and community empowerment. It offers a tangible, everyday connection to the land, showing that food production can be a shared community effort while serving as a platform for community advocacy. 

Conclusion

What unites these urban farms is their intentional presence within the neighborhoods they serve. They eliminate barriers to access, allowing residents to engage with nature and agriculture without leaving their communities. This proximity is crucial in cities where green spaces are often scarce and inaccessible to those who need them most. This immediacy allows for spontaneous interactions, knowledge sharing, and the gradual rebuilding of trust between residents and the land. It transforms passive green spaces into active sites of community engagement, cultural expression, and collective resilience.

Goold continues: “The embodied practice, in this visible way, is helping wake up a culture that has a spatial impact on the neighborhood, and that intersection of place and embodied practice in agriculture is what can really change the neighborhood. To bring that story forward in a more nuanced way other than just about food deserts and food production, that it’s really about waking up this embodied practice that’s embedded in our places in our human resources in our cultural history, and how magical that is.”

Yet these farms are also part of a larger movement aimed at helping Black and Brown communities address historical traumas, heal generational wounds, and rewrite the narratives around farming and food production. These spaces are rooted in history but are moving toward a future that goes beyond equitable food access, reclaiming culture and empowering Black and Brown communities for generations. And perhaps the greatest aspect of this movement in Baltimore is that you don’t have to look far to find it.

NDC Services Aligned with Urban Farming

Grant Opportunities

Maryland Department of Agriculture

March 3-April 25, 2025

Maryland’s Small Farm and Urban Agriculture Program is now accepting applications for its 2025 Small Acreage Cover Crop Program. This financial assistance program is for urban and small-scale producers who do not qualify for traditional cover crop programs.

Maryland Department of Agriculture

Rolling

Maryland’s Small Farm and Urban Agriculture Program is now accepting applications for its Urban Agriculture Water and Power Infrastructure Grant​s. Approved by the Maryland General Assembly in 2022, this financial assistance program provides the department with up to $500,000 in annual funding through Fiscal Year 2027 to help urban farms and community gardens  purchase and install equipment to access water and electricity needed to sustain their operations.