Image: “urban farming,” by Elizabeth Lloyd on Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
Growing food in urban and peri-urban environments has many documented and diverse benefits, including enhancing food sovereignty and building community. But the high market value of city parcels means that finding and staying on land is a top challenge for urban farmers, according to a 2024 California Food and Farming Alliance grower survey.
In California, the state’s flagship policy to address stable land access for urban growers has had limited impact. The 2014 Urban Agriculture Incentive Zones Act empowered local governments to give tax breaks to private land owners who put vacant lots into agricultural production for at least five years. However, few cities and counties implemented the law and very few land owners have applied for the incentive.
Instead, many urban farmers and their supporters have focused their efforts on cultivating land that’s owned by public entities such as counties, cities, park districts or public utility districts. That’s approach of farms such as:
- Dig Deep Farms, which leases one site from the East Bay Regional Parks District
- The International Garden of Many Colors, which has an MOU with the City of Sacramento
- Sunol AgPark, which leases land from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
Public policy is increasingly reflecting the importance of public land for agriculture. A team of researchers found that, of the 40 most populous U.S. cities, 36 had active policy related to accessing public land for farming as of June 2020 – with the majority of policies addressing city-run gardens and adopt-a-lot programs. Few policies offered pathways to more secure, long-lasting land access, however:
Programs enabling more secure tenure through simplified sales mechanisms (23% of cities with at least one land access mechanism), leases (20% of cities), and land trusts (17%) were less commonly offered. Additionally, 23% of cities offered an inventory of available land that could be used for UA through one of its other land access mechanisms.
Of those programs offering leases, none offered terms greater than five years. For many farmers, it can take at least five years to prepare the site and soil for production. The research team questioned whether existing policies in “almost two-thirds of the cities examined can meet the needs of growers who are seeking longer-term stewardship opportunities.”
Here in California, a Bay Area collaborative is working on just that. The Alameda County Resource Conservation District (RCD) is leading a project with the City of Oakland, City of Hayward and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to develop an urban ag lease program with extended terms of five to 10 years. Sustainable Agriculture Specialist Colleen Hotchkiss said they hope to create a structured process for cities to identify and list city-owned properties to lease, and then through working with 2-4 pilot sites, design a durable program that could be expanded in the region.
The pilot seeks to answer some critical questions including how the lease program could be funded over time, and whether cities might consider working with a third-party manage lease agreements. The RCD currently works with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to manage the lease for the Sunol AgPark and provide technical assistance.
RCD Resource Conservationist Courtney Coon said their team is currently in the site selection process. Evaluating which lots have urban ag potential has been eye-opening, she said. The City of Oakland properties under consideration resemble other urban farms: standard lot size, in a residential area, flat and with utilities. On the other hand, the City of Hayward is including more unconventional properties: steep, with heavy vegetation and potentially more expensive to manage. Largely paved lots could be a match for nurseries or aquaponics operations, too. By expanding the criteria for urban ag lots, the RCD hopes the inventories will be more robust.
While their project is underway, Coon recommends interested parties look to the City of Baltimore’s urban agriculture policies and specifically its Homegrown Baltimore Land Leasing Program as an example.
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