Community farm launches in Newark’s Lincoln Park
Lincoln Park community farm launch attendees enjoy farm-grown produce and live music at the farm on July 14, 2010, in Newark, N.J. Produce is grown on the half-acre brown field using hydroponic and raised-bed farming techniques. Photo: Andaiye Taylor
NEWARK, N.J. – Robert Wisniewski stood under the shed he’d built on top of a half-acre brown field, across the street from historic Newark Symphony Hall.
“How was that okra?” he called out to a man working in an adjacent lot.
“Good, good,” the man shouted in reply, before turning back to his work.
The okra had come from the new community farm that is now sprouting from the field. Wisniewski, sustainability director for Newark’s Lincoln Park Coast Cultural District, was busy shuffling containers and deciding what to do with brown paper bags full of unclaimed tomatoes that Thursday afternoon. The leftover produce symbolized one of the major challenges facing the farm.
In the weeks since its launch, the farm’s managers are looking to overcome key tests whose outcomes will determine whether it will be a long-term fixture in Newark’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. According to Wisniewski, Lincoln Park is a produce desert with no fresh vegetables available within a mile of the farm.
The nonprofit cultural district sees its role as facilitating the housing, educational, cultural and now, the nutritional needs of the Newark residents it serves. To that end, the organization has added the farm to a list of other projects it has launched in the community: its annual, three-day Lincoln Park Music Festival; new mixed-income sustainable housing that will include 32 units; and the planned Museum of African American Music.
The farm sits atop unusable soil, behind the facade of what was once the South Park Presbyterian Church. The crops grow where the building once stood, and the soil’s toxicity stems from pollution from fuel tanks that once powered the building.
To grow crops in the space, farmer Brian Barry brings in outside soil, and also uses a technique called hydroponics, which enables him to grow the produce in a nutrient-rich solution instead of directly in the plot’s native soil.
Weekly shares cost $20, and earn customers a basket of assorted produce, including collards, tomatoes, okra, and assorted herbs and lettuces. When shareholders pick up their food on Wednesday evenings, they also receive preparation tips and instructions on how to properly store and maintain the produce.
While Barry and Wisniewski man the farm during pickup hours, they also employ two seniors, both paid by the Urban League’s Mature Worker program, to tend it up to four hours per day, usually in the mornings.
The worker program, along with a startup grant, were both pivotal funding sources for getting the farm off the ground, but Wisniewski seeks to rely mostly on revenue to sustain farm operations. For that reason, the gap between interest in farm shares and actual sales reveals both the farm’s potential, and the highest hurdle it must clear. The farm can currently feed 20 to 25 families per week, according to Barry, and about 25 people have signed up. However, to make the produce affordable, the district decided not to require consumers to pay upfront for all of their shares for the season. According to Wisniewski, only about eight to 10 people actually show up to retrieve their shares weekly.
The price of the produce is also not affordable for many in an area where nearly half of all families live below the poverty level, according to 2000 census data. The district’s recent mixed-income housing initiatives bring potential customers who are more likely to be able to afford the shares than the average Lincoln Park resident.
Jan Zientek, senior program coordinator at the Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, agreed that building a sustainable business model for the farm will not be easy. “The economics of the project are hard to figure,” he said during a telephone interview. Still, Zientek is skeptical of the long-term prospects for grant-supported farms, and thinks the share-supported model that the Lincoln Park cultural district is trying to build has greater promise for long-term sustainability, despite the startup hurdles they face.
Zientek visited the farm recently, and said he thinks it has a shot. He noted common problems such as blossom end rot on some of the tomatoes, and cabbage that had been nibbled on by moths. But the issues affected only a portion of the produce, and the remedies were simple: lighter-colored boxes for produce to preserve moisture, and cloths over the cabbage to deter the moths.
Wisniewski is clear-eyed about the challenge of building a consistent customer base, and has been considering additional revenue for the farm, including distribution to local restaurants. Back under the shed, perhaps trying to figure the economics of accounting for absentee shareholders, he mulled what to do with his orphaned tomatoes. He decided to try pitching the produce to Allure, a bar and lounge across the street.
The establishment’s chef, William “Staff” Powell, recalled the visit the following week. “They have nice produce,” he said. “The quality is good.”
He mentioned that while it is impractical for him to buy anything but bulk for restaurant cooking, he would consider creating specialty dishes made with the locally grown vegetables. “That type of thing might appeal to customers,” he explained. “Everyone is going green.”
During a recent Wednesday pickup, Vashti White, who owns a trio of health and wellness-related businesses in nearby Montclair, claimed her first share.
“I thought it was great,” she said of the vegetables two days later. “The food was fresh and flavorful.”
While she plans to sample other growers’ produce, White said she is leaning toward partnering with the LPCCD farm for her restaurant, Raw N Simple. “I really like the fact that this is a local effort,” she said. “For that alone, and the freshness of the food, I would lean toward buying there.”
The farm’s managers must contend with other issues endemic to urban farms, including insects and rodents, possible theft or vandalism, and limited space. Wisniewski explained that the cultural district wants to use the farm as a living laboratory to devise solutions to some of these issues. While urban farming is not a new practice, the cultural district is aiming to grow 100 percent of its produce onsite to ensure complete local sustainability.
Kelli Koontz, a writer and drug counselor who lives one block from the farm, bought her first share a couple of weeks after attending the farm’s launch party. “I see it as an investment in this community,” said Koontz in her kitchen, as she cut a tomato that came with her share. “I see the garden as a catalyst for the beginning of change.”
The 45-year-old mother of two said she thinks buying produce from the farm will change her family’s eating habits. “I’m really looking forward to investing time in preparing things a little bit differently,” she said, noting that the farm would help her family eat healthier.
Koontz also looks forward to involving her 11-year-old son in the process, turning the food pickup and preparation into a family project.
The farm fits into the cultural district’s broader plan for Lincoln Park. The district sees the neighborhood as an artists’ hub. In addition to figuring out operational details, its planners also want to achieve syncretism between the neighborhood’s artiness and the farm’s layout. When farm operations resume next year after a winter hiatus, Wisniewski envisions creating an “art farm park” that is both a working farm and an artist space fit for performances and exhibits, in line with the broader Lincoln Park arts milieu.
Additionally, the cultural district is considering redesigning the farm to make a statement about what it means for the urban and the agrarian to exist side-by-side. Wisniewski said the design theme would be the “built environment that grows,” and would feature “cool structures made of natural materials,” that illustrate how urban residents can sustain themselves without having to forgo the benefits of urban living.
While honing the produce growing process, the district is looking to shore up the community aspect of the farm next year by considering programming such as cooking classes and workshops on how to grow food. In fact, the community outreach might be the key to boosting the farm’s shareholder revenue. Three weeks after she’d initially purchased her share, Koontz said she was happy with the produce, which her family used up in a week and a half.
But would she consider prepaying for shares for the entire season?
“Not at this juncture,” Koontz said. While she would invest in a prepaid share if more of her neighbors did it, she said she didn’t want to be out on a limb as one of only a few seasonal shareholders because, “I guess I don’t have enough faith that it’s going to sustain just yet.” If more people invested, though, she said she would “definitely” invest in shares.
Koontz, who likes the change that the farm brings to the community, and hopes it will last, thinks more consistent communication, including regular newsletters and programming, between LPCCD and Lincoln Park community members would increase engagement with the farm.
