Cultivating Farmers

The nation’s first USDA-recognized urban agricultural fellow program yields nine budding entrepreneurs who want to connect city residents with the power and profit that can rise from the ground | Photos by Jay Paul

by Dina Weinstein

January 8, 2018

Alex Badecker, a VCU biology graduate who has worked for years in the food industry, has spent the past year planting and pruning on Tricycle Gardens’ 1-acre urban farm in Manchester — and that work has given him the confidence to attempt making a living off Creighton Farm, a 2-acre property that he purchased in eastern Henrico.

While a member of Tricycle Gardens’ inaugural class of urban agricultural fellows, Badecker has held open house days on his farm and has invited the public to help him form beds, plant cover crops and lay irrigation. On pick-your-own-produce days, he’s sold carrots, squash and eggplant.

“I want to bring people out and show them what you can do with 1 or 2 acres,” says Badecker, who completed the fellowship program in December.

A Dream Realized

Tricycle Gardens’ Executive Director Sally Schwitters developed the Urban Agricultural Fellowship because many of the nonprofit’s volunteers and interns did not have technical farming skills. With classroom sessions and fieldwork, the fellowship program is educating a new generation of urban farmers through the wisdom of an aging farming workforce.

The program has been a longtime dream of Schwitters. Financial support and participation by experts from Virginia Tech, The Rodale Institute, Bon Secours and the U.S. Department of Agriculture meant that a formal 41-week program could be developed. The fellowship also helped Tricycle double its staff and increase its production.

“Growing [food] is a magical process,” Schwitters says. “I love sharing our knowledge and sharing that feeling and opportunity. That is the root of my motivation. We don’t want to be a nonprofit that grows food for everyone; we want to grow farmers who localize food for everyone.”

“Healthy communities are always at stake, especially in the urban areas,” says Albert Walker, Bon Secours’ director of healthy communities. Based out of the Sara Garland Jones Center, where the fellows meet, he serves as a liaison with the program. “We need grocery stores in the city, yes. But putting farms in urban areas is one step closer toward healthier communities.”

Because low-income urban communities are so detached from fresh produce for economic reasons or because of the perception that healthy food is for the rich, Mark Davis, another member of the Tricycle Fellows, views this as a public health problem, what he calls nutricide.

“The community is convinced that farmers are poor,” Davis says. “I want to show them that farming is very viable as a [job] option. But you must know what you are doing.

I want to show them the money they can make growing and selling food.” Land acquisition is the biggest hurdle, he adds. “But farming is about problem-solving.”

Classrooms, Inside and Out

Over the course of the yearlong program, for about 20 hours every week, Badecker and the eight other fellows had many hands-on, hands-on experiences.

A highlight of the program for Badecker was coming together as a group on Fridays to participate in workdays at Tricycle — planting garlic, weeding or making compost. On weekends, the group visited area farms and urban agriculture conferences. They experienced the retail aspect of agriculture, harvesting and selling produce at markets. Finally, they developed business plans for their planned endeavors, which are both for-profit and nonprofit.

Badecker says he has always been into food and an outdoor person, but those interests hadn’t clicked until his experience with Tricycle.

“You can still be a farmer and be successful,” Badecker says. “People don’t understand that there is a lot of math and a lot of science and a lot of engineering involved in agriculture. All farmers are always designing and making something to use on their farms. No two farmers are the same. I’ve enjoyed meeting all the fellows. We’re so different, with such different backgrounds, with different ideas of what we are going to do. I’ve loved bouncing around our ideas of what we want to do and problem-solving things on the farm.”

Fellow Ash Hobson Carr started planting herbs in her backyard to counter the hours she spent sitting and editing photos as a professional photographer. She was drawn to the physical work of gardening. She plans to start a seed-saving and medicinal-herb business.

“One highlight has been to meet all the amazing women farmers in the classes and field trips with an average age of around 58,” Carr says. “They have been so generous with their knowledge. They were figuring out how to do organic farming before there were books and networking.”

Davis wants to develop a market farm made up of quarter- and half-acre vacant plots throughout the city sown by city residents. Davis says his project addresses a crucial problem — the disconnect between urban youth and farming. He’s also not new to urban agriculture. As a student at Howard University, Davis started a community garden on campus to teach people about the beauty of eating food grown by their own hands.

A Plan and a Journal a Must

The fellow program was designed to teach students how to go from seed to sale as they mastered growing techniques, harvesting practices and farm-food safety. The inaugural group had varied backgrounds, from social justice to cosmetology, and they ranged in age from their mid-20s to their mid-40s.

“Agriculture is very regional. It is climate- and-soil specific,” says Chris Lawrence, a Richmond-based cropland agronomist with the USDA who works with farmers across the state. He taught the fellows about soil science. “The class I taught them was refreshing because you do not often think of farmers coming from an alternative angle, but we have a lot in common.”

During a recent Tuesday morning classroom session at the Bon Secours’ Sara Garland Jones Center, Tricycle’s Urban Farm Manager Amy Wilderman quizzed the group on the tenets of crop rotation, soil nutrients and plant parts. She led a discussion on the differences in plant families and what makes plants heavy versus light feeders. Sometimes, she told them, farmers should not rotate crops.

“When you are maximizing small spaces, you have to have a plan,” Wilderman says, holding up a farm chart. “The plan will probably change, but you have to have a plan to start with. I’ve learned in past years to plan for the entire year in winter.” She also tells the group to use a farm journal to write about which crops do not work and record how each crop does each season.

“Take stock,” Wilderman instructs the group. “Then you get to dream about what you want to grow next.”

Through homework assignments, required journaling and a final exam, the fellows, Wilderman says, will ultimately have a firm business plan that they can potentially present to a bank.

A $400,000 grant from the USDA and support from Bon Secours were enough to provide each participant a full scholarship, pay for a new hoop house at Tricycle and cover the cost of speakers who focused on technical points. The grant funding also covers the 2018 fellows, and Tricycle staff fundraising is focused on continuing the program well into the future, with a vision to share it with other cities.

Walker says that Bon Secours’ involvement with the fellowship program connects with its mission to serve the community, but it also got him thinking that it’s a logical move to put in a garden next to the Sarah Garland Jones Center, with a rain catchment system to make it sustainable, and maybe even plant fruit trees.

For fellow Alex Badecker, his participation has allowed him to develop a solid crop plan for when he starts planting in 2018.

“I’m more confident that I will start next spring on the right foot.”

The Rest of the Fellows

Background: Co-founder of An Access In Food Inc., a Richmond nonprofit that aims to serve economically disadvantaged people through nutrition education and food access

Project: Wayside green spaces, gardens for restaurants and a teaching farm in Maine

Takeaway: “We were taught to plant properly by specifications instead of a hodgepodge.”

Background: Created a mobile farm on a truck as a student at William & Mary

Project: Establish and maintain rooftop gardens in the city, where space is at a premium

Takeaway: “I think my knowledge, especially about soil science, will be valuable and will benefit me through the years. Now I have a network of experts I can call on if I have a question.”

Background: A graduate of VCUArts who has worked in restaurants focused on the farm-to-table concept

Project: Create green spaces for businesses and restaurants, as well as teaching gardens

Takeaway: “A highlight of the year for me has been being on the farm and having a full-year experience — winter spring, summer, fall.”

Background: A degree in international studies from VCU and a decade in the food industry, plus alpaca farm experience

Project: Her farm, Owl Creek Heirlooms and Oddities, or OCHO, will offer exotic varieties of plants and animals.  

Takeaway: “With urban agriculture, anyone can do it. Even in containers you can plant what you need.”

Background: Natural hairstylist

Project: She plans to open a natural beauty parlor in the city, with a garden that will act as the source of her hair products.

Takeaway: “I want to show people how important nutrition is in hair care, not just for consumption. In hair care, your scalp is like soil. Your scalp needs moisture and light.”

Background: Has taught gardening to teens at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden and now works at Little Green House Grocery. Was a Tricycle Gardens farm intern in 2012 and helped run the East End farmstand.

Project: Wants to use the knowledge she gained during the fellowship to implement agricultural education in public schools and community centers

The application period runs through Jan. 19. It’s for high school graduates who are interested in getting into agricultural work. Participants need to be prepared for physical labor and to be outside in variable weather. On Jan. 11, Tricycle is holding an open farm volunteer day for potential applicants from noon to 2 p.m., followed by an information session from 2:30 to 4 p.m. For more information, visit tricycleurbanag.org.