Cincinnati’s Fox 19 recently profiled the Cincinnati Out Reach (COR) Music Project, an after-school program co-founded and directed by CCM graduate students Deron Hall and Louisa Shepherd.

“COR Music Project aligns my professional arena with my personal arena as far as the things I am most interested in,” Hall explains. “I have a really strong interest in using the arts to change lives.”

Read Fox 19′s feature here.

Urban farming is the practice of cultivating, processing and distributing food in, or around a village, town or city. The concept is well-practiced in cities such as Washington DC, Baltimore, Chicago, and Detroit : a city that has no chain grocery markets within its city limits. The difference between urban farming and rural farming is is that it is integrated into the urban economic and ecological system: urban agriculture is embedded in -and interacting with- the urban ecosystem. In other words, urban residents would be the labourers. They would compete for land with other urban functions.

The common good city farm, in Washington DC, has been a success story for urban farming in inner-city communities. The farm not only directly provide fresh food to people, but also provide a safe outdoor setting to learn, grow and nourish. The farm not only provides fresh food to people, but also provide a safe outdoor setting to learn, grow and nourish. . Since January 2007, Common Good City Farm has provided over 400 bags of fresh produce to low-income DC families, taught over 600 DC residents in workshops, engaged over 500 DC school children, and hosted over 1000 volunteers.

Detroit has also been a success story for urban farming. Organizations, such as the Detroit black food security organization, have helped create three farms within the city, as well as over 100 community and school gardens as well as hundreds of family gardens. There are also extensive training programs and support for urban agriculture ranging from bio-intensive growing methods to building a solar passive greenhouse. The organization has lobbied Detroit officials for city codes and laws to allow urban agriculture, food production, and farmers markets on a neighborhood scale. They have encouraged large public institutions such as Wayne State University, local hospitals, and large employers to source their cafeterias from local growers.

If you didn’t know, Cincinnati has begun an urban farming program. Last year, the city took 15 parcels of land in 11 neighborhoods and rented it out to those interested in urban farming. Some of the neighborhoods include Over the Rhine and Northside. Findlay Market has taken advantage of this concept, purchasing land on Elm and liberty street. The urban farmers who grow crop on that land are given the privilege of selling it during market hours.

City council needs to extend this program out to other neighborhoods, especially in the Roselawn/ Bond Hill area. Increasing urban farming will not only create a healther Roselawn and Bond Hill, but also bring economic empowerment. Imagine Roselawn residents growing their own crop in their backyard, providing for themselves or selling it to their neighbors, farmer’s market customers, or even elementary schools. Urban farming could be a solution to grocery stores leaving urban neighborhoods.

Today, an integral part of Roselawn’s neighborhood will be missing. After failed negotiations between Kroger executives and City Council, Kroger will move forward and close their Roselawn store today. There are feelings of outrage by Roselawn’s residents, and community leaders who describe the neighborhood as a “food desert”. After Aldi’s closing in Avondale and now Kroger’s leaving Roselawn, it’s easy to see that fewer grocery stores in urban communities. If you think this is just a problem in Cincinnati, you’re wrong. In Detroit, there are no chain supermarkets within the entire city limits. In Washington DC, lower income wards must travel longer distances than residents in other wards to the closest full-service grocery store. While some cities are facing this problem other cities have found solutions.

San Fransisco has not only given the black community convienent, healthy, grocery food, but they have given opportunity to black farmers. The “Mo’Better Farmers Market” was created to “protect, preserve, and promote the well being of blacks in agriculture, by establishing markets for their produce, in communities that lack access to fruits and vegetables first”. The market has been successful, drawing up crowds of 150-200 people per weekend. In New York, community activist Asantewaa Gail Harris has organized successful black farmers markets, in Brooklyn. With fresh produce being a rarity in her burrough, and with black farmers struggling financially, she thought a black farmers market would be a win-win situation. “We had been around to all of the Green markets in the city and did not see farmers of color,” Harris said.

Black farmers have been struggling financially. This is mostly because of a longstanding pattern of discrimination at the Agriculture Department against black farmers applying for farm loans. They’ve currently been in the news with their racial bias settlement, awaiting for the government to pay up. Arizona farmer, Norvel Clark believes black farmers hold the building blocks for a new inner-city economy. “I want to grow the best stuff and have the easiest market available.”

A farmers market could be a golden opputunity for Roselawn and the tri-state’s black farmers. With the departure of Kroger, Roselawn can be an easy market for black farmers or even Roselawn citizens trying to make an extra dollar. With summer approaching this could give teens and young adults, a chance to grow their own produce and benefit from it. More importantly, a farmers market will promote a healthier community. Let me know what you think, or other ideas you may have to solve the lack of grocery stores in urban neighborhoods.