Just Roots Chicago
Urban agriculture is a powerful tool for systemic change at the community level. However, starting an urban agriculture project can be extremely challenging. Even if an organization has reliable access to land, water, and capital, they often lack the technical knowledge to effectively design, build, and manage green space. The Just Roots technical support program provides long-term relationship-based support to organizations within the geographically focused area where Just Roots runs a successful urban farm and has strong relationships in the community. This targeted technical assistance can ultimately create a hyper-local urban agriculture area and facilitate aggregation, coordinated food distribution, and growth. FLO supports the program with the goal of increasing its scale and building a sustainable technical support model.
NeighborSpace
Access to locally grown, affordable produce is an urgent community need to address the health and well-being of Chicago residents. The burgeoning interest in establishing urban/neighborhood farms is focused primarily in communities on Chicago’s South and West sides. These neighborhoods have few full-service grocery stores with fresh fruits and vegetables. NeighborSpace is an urban land trust dedicated to preserving and sustaining community managed open spaces. NeighborSpace has developed 40+ urban agriculture sites in recent years and honed its expertise in addressing the many facets of establishing and stewarding farm sites in the City of Chicago. Of the 143 NeighborSpace protected sites, 86 grow some food and 43 are larger, high-yield sites including community gardens and neighborhood farms. FLO supports NeighborSpace’s Urban Agriculture Coordinator to serve new and existing sites through all stages of land acquisition and remediation, construction, activation, and ongoing management.
Farms Fund, The Conservation Fund
The Farms Fund is a first-of-its-kind national conservation program established in the Chicago region by The Conservation Fund in 2022 to address secure and affordable access to farmland. Specifically designed to enable talented and diverse growers to scale production to meet institutional demand for local food, the Farms Fund protects critical at-risk farmland and offers a path to farmland ownership as the basis for business resiliency and inter-generational wealth creation. The long-term vision is thousands of acres of permanently protected farmland around metro Chicago producing healthy food and contributing quality-of-life co-benefits, including social equity, clean air and water, wildlife habitat, and climate resilience. FLO supports effective operations and dedicated staff capacity for the Farms Fund’s work in the Chicago region and investment in the farmland acquisition revolving loan fund.
Good Food Catalyst
Local and organic food is a fast growing industry, and the market for Good Food is expanding rapidly, especially in the Midwest. Local food producers and entrepreneurs need help developing skills that foster the success of their enterprises, such as financial planning, business fundamentals, and access to markets. Businesses seeking to succeed in underserved communities face significant structural/systemic impediments including access to financing, supply chain logistics, service providers, and entrepreneur development. Good Food Catalyst is committed to expanding the production, marketing, and distribution of locally grown and responsibly produced food in order to enhance the social, economic, and environmental health of communities. Through Good Food Accelerator programming, Good Food Catalyst builds the market for sustainable local food by helping food and farm businesses establish themselves and grow. FLO supports the Accelerator program, addressing specific skills of entrepreneurs at various levels of business growth and development.
Farmers Rising
In a dynamic and changing food system, programs that focus on farm finance, business management, and farmer-to-farmer education evolve to address the needs and interests of farmers. Farmers Rising helps local farmers achieve the skills they need to have a successful farm business. Farmers Rising’s Regenerative Livestock Incubator offers access to land, technical assistance, and operational support. The Farmers Rising Farmer Network hosts field days at the incubator space and offers other field days and farmer–specific educational events—such as Midwest-specific climate-change education classes—across the region. The Farm Beginnings program has a proven track record of successfully teaching entrepreneurial skills and creating a supportive cohort of farmers. FLO supports Farmers Risings’ broad range of educational opportunities.
Illinois Stewardship Alliance
Illinois agriculture is heavily focused on single-crop farms, with 90% of Illinois farmland used for corn, beans, wheat, and hay. Lacking subsidies and access to credit, markets, infrastructure, and insurance, small and mid-sized farms growing vegetables, fruits, field-grown grains, and livestock to market locally are at a disadvantage. Illinois Stewardship Alliance grows farmer membership and expands the base of eater-supporters in the Chicago foodshed and statewide, raises the visibility of local food, and shifts policy to support local and regenerative food systems. FLO supports Illinois Stewardship Alliance’s model of serving the needs of—and addressing the policy barriers identified by—members to facilitate effective policy change, which makes a difference to producers and local food businesses.