Brooklyn Urban Farming Program Cultivates Opportunity In The Projects
Brooklyn Urban Farming Program Cultivates Opportunity In The Projects
Linked by Michael Levenston
Paul Philpott preps kale to be packaged and distributed. Photo: Kellyann Petry For The Wall Street Journal.
After graduating from an Urban Farm Corps program, Paul Philpott is running his own hydroponic farm business out of a shipping container in a Brooklyn parking lot
By Anne Kadet
Wall Street Journal
June 12, 2018
At age 24, Paul Philpott wasn’t exactly riding high. He’d just quit a job at Walmart and moved back in with his parents in the projects. So while he had no clue what to expect, he was happy to check out a job-training program suggested by his mother.
“You’re going to farm in the hood?” he recalls thinking after meeting a recruiter. “I don’t think that’s going to work!”
Eighteen months after graduating from the program, Mr. Philpott is running his own hydroponic farm business out of a shipping container in a Brooklyn parking lot.
“Farming in the city is nothing I’d ever thought I’d say I’d do,” he says.
The 40-foot container, with its metal walls and pink LEDs, looks more like a lab than a farm. There’s no dirt. A programmed system dispenses a nutrient cocktail, controls water flow and monitors the temperature. Rows of kale, chard and romaine grow on sliding columns suspended from the ceiling.
Mr. Philpott is not a big greens guy. Lettuce, he says, is best served atop a burger: “If I’m really bored, I’ll eat a salad.”
But the profits on these nutrient-dense greens are lucrative. While growing costs are astronomical—$10 to $15 a pound—high-end restaurant customers pay double, says Mr. Philpott.
“It’s very crazy,” he says. “But we have very premium ingredients, and grow it and deliver it to you directly.”
Customer Patrick Connolly, chef-owner of Rider, a bistro in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, says he’s not a big fan of hydroponic crops, but Mr. Philpott’s greens are exceptional. “The kale has spice to it,” he says.
Mr. Philpott says that despite growing up in the projects, he enjoyed a sheltered childhood. “My mom was extremely protective,” he says.
But then he attended high school far from home and fell in with the wrong crowd. “I can’t lie,” he says. “I did a lot of dumb things.”
There was a lot of drinking and fighting. “I hung around people who went stealing and robbing places,” he says.
He didn’t graduate from school until he was 20, and things went downhill from there. “I’d be on the streets getting drunk all day with my friends,” he says. “Especially if I lost my job. The week after, my check would go to bottles and bottles.”
Green City Force, a nonprofit which recruits young adults from the city’s 15 highest-crime public-housing developments, offered Mr. Philpott a spot in its 10-month Urban Farm Corps program.
Earning a $1,200 monthly stipend, Mr. Philpott learned the basics of farming and tending a produce stand, distributing free vegetables at a housing project in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
Early on, he aimed for a spot on the infrastructure team and initiated projects like repairing a dilapidated greenhouse. “I stepped up and showed I know what I’m doing,” he says.
He soon joined the team building new farms at housing projects in Harlem and Canarsie, Brooklyn.
By the time he finished in early 2017, he had landed a coveted spot in the entrepreneurship program at Square Roots, the urban farm incubator currently hosting his business.
Not all his peers fared so well. Among the 24 trainees in his cohort, only 16 graduated. This year, 28 of 40 made it to the finish line, the nonprofit says.
But these graduates have enjoyed a 95% job-placement rate, in occupations ranging from landscaping to working as a chef’s assistant.
It’s a fine accomplishment considering the 75% unemployment rate among young adults in city public housing.
Mr. Philpott says the experience gave him a new identity as a community leader. When he’s not tending crops these days, he’s giving tours, supervising apprentices and volunteering at a community garden in the Bronx.
When younger guys on the block ask if he’s dealing, he tells them the cash in his wallet is from his business. “I pull out my Instagram and show them the farm,” he says.
Brandee McHale, president of Citi Foundation, which focuses on economic opportunity, says the foundation donated $1 million to Green City Force because it’s not just another job-training program—participants contribute to their community and become role models. “It has a multiplier effect,” she says.
Mr. Philpott’s stint with Square Roots will end in October. What’s next? “I have no idea,” he says.
But it’s a happy dilemma, he adds, induced by the skills he’s learned and contacts he’s made: “The weird thing is, now I have so many opportunities, I don’t know which I want to do.”