Growing Food Justice in Brooklyn

Over 70 different fruits and vegetables are grown in this urban biodiversity oasis, including specialty crops from the community鈥檚 diverse cultures.

Located in eastern Brooklyn, a culturally diverse and underserved community, East New York Farms! (ENYF!) operates two farms and two community gardens that work to provide solutions to pressing food-justice issues by promoting local, sustainable agriculture and community-led economic development. This pioneering project, founded in the late 1990s, sits under the umbrella of United Community Centers (UCC), a social justice-driven community center that has been serving the East New York neighborhood for more than six decades.

鈥淓NYF! is the only urban agriculture, food justice-led project in East New York,鈥� explains project director Iyeshima Harris. 鈥淲e have started multiple community gardens in the area and help community gardeners with the process of starting their own gardens.鈥� The initiative offers extensive support to new gardeners, providing them with seeds and the option to sell the produce they grow at the ENYF! farmers market. It also offers training opportunities for gardeners in the form of weekly workshops that teach different gardening skills and techniques.

Gemma Garcia in her garden, the St. John Cantius Parish Community Garden, which is supported by East New York Farms! Photo by Valery Rizzo, Urban Farmers, gestalten 2021.

Advocating for healthy eating is an important part of ENYF!鈥檚 mission and the main focus of their community education program. 鈥淲e hire community members, and we train them鈥攑eople who love food and want to learn how to cook,鈥� says Harris. 鈥淭hey then go out into the community and perform live demonstrations, and make recipes from the produce on the farm, or recipes from the farm鈥檚 cookbook. They basically educate the community on healthy eating or different produce that could be used to help combat a disease they might have.鈥� The service is particularly crucial in their neighborhood, which is a victim of the contemporary destructive pattern seen in many low-income urban areas: the harmful combination of lack of access to affordable, fresh produce and the abundance of nutritionally poor fast-food options, both major contributors to high rates of food-related health problems such as obesity or type 2 diabetes. According to data from the city鈥檚 Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, East New York suffers one of the highest incidences of type 2 diabetes in the city, with almost 15% of the population affected.

The two farms operated by ENYF! are both about 2,000 square meters (22,000 square feet) in size. UCC Youth Farm was founded first, in 2000, and is powered mostly by teenagers enrolled in the internship program. Each year, 35 paid interns aged between 14 and 18 who are living or going to school in East New York work on the farms and community gardens with assigned supervisors. Interns have the option to stay in the program until they go to college.

Youth intern Shevanne works at the weekly East New York Farmers鈥� Market. Photo by Valery Rizzo, Urban Farmers, gestalten 2021.

Over 70 different fruits and vegetables are grown at this urban biodiversity oasis, including many specialty crops that speak to the diverse cultural backgrounds in the community. 鈥淲e grow things like karela, also known as bitter melon, callaloo and amaranth, long beans, okra, and jute, due to the culture of the neighborhood and also our staff,鈥� says Harris. 鈥淓ast New York is predominantly a people-of-color community, and we make sure that every crop that we grow reflects the community鈥攚e are very intentional about how we think about and work with the community. We have started multiple community gardens in the area and help community gardeners with the process of starting their own.鈥�

Activities the interns complete include workshops covering ideas around social justice, racial justice, and food equity. They learn farming skills and work at the farmers market, as well as providing hands-on support at fellow community gardens. According to Harris, 鈥淭he main aim of the program is to teach youth how to grow their own food, expose them to urban agriculture, and also create some form of economic stability for them and their family, having them do something positive in the neighborhood.鈥� Interns also lend a hand at ENYF!鈥檚 second farm, built in 2015 and located in the Pink Houses public housing development.

Managed by Kelly Guevara, all the produce grown there is distributed for free within the community. 鈥淲e also distribute produce for free on a weekly basis in East New York to residents who cannot afford fresh, local, organically grown food,鈥� says Harris. 鈥淥ur produce is priced reasonably鈥攖omatoes are $2 a pound鈥攕o we make sure we are meeting the community鈥檚 economic needs as well.鈥�

The East New York Farmers鈥� Market, which also invites local community gardens to sell their produce. Photos by Valery Rizzo, Urban Farmers, gestalten 2021.

The neighborhood also benefits from ENYF!鈥檚 composting facility, which has a 24/7 drop-off site and processes food scraps collected from local residents, the farmers market, community centers, and a food pantry linked to a church they work with. 鈥淲e use the compost we make on the farm, or if folks need compost, they can reach out to us, and we give it to them for free,鈥� Harris says. COVID-19 has disrupted their routines, making farm accessibility a challenge. Some workshops have been moved online and their farmers market, usually held on Wednesdays and Saturdays, now operates just once a week. 鈥淎ll the produce sold at our farmers market is from our farms鈥� youth harvest it themselves and sell at the market,鈥� says Harris. 鈥淪ome of our community gardeners sell their produce there too. Most of our community gardeners are elders, so selling their produce at the market when they don鈥檛 have a steady income, or a fixed income, is a subsidy for them to help with whatever bills they have to pay, or whatever they have going on.鈥�

In the long term, one of the main challenges for ENYF! is finding a way to grow more food. 鈥淭he challenge is how to implement a long-term, sustainable food-access program. We are seeing the pandemic affecting us and our neighborhood, and we want to make sure that our community is getting the best access there is,鈥� Harris says. 鈥淚 know we can鈥檛 do every single thing ourselves, but as long as we are there for our community, that鈥檚 what matters to me鈥攁s long as we can still provide that access.鈥�

This excerpt from by M贸nica R. Goya, edited by gestalten and Valery Rizzo (gestalten, 2021) appears with permission of the publisher.

Valery Rizzo is an American portrait, food, and lifestyle photographer whose work centers around urban life and agriculture. She has been featured in The New York Times Style Magazine, YES! Magazine, T茅l茅rama, D La Repubblica, Der Spiegel, and several other esteemed publications.

M贸nica R. Goya is a Spanish journalist and photographer whose work focuses primarily on the fields of farming, food, environmental issues, and travel and appears in The New York Times, Cond茅 Nast Traveler, and Saveur among others. Her long-term journalistic projects explore the culture of working the land and the intersection of human rights, food politics, and sustainability.