USDA Farm Service Agency Co-Hosts Spring Skill Share Event with Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden in Philadelphia

Contact:
melissa.webreck@usda.gov

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania, May 1, 2023 – USDA Pennsylvania Farm Service Agency co-hosted a two-day growers’ event with Sankofa Community Farm on April 18-19, 2023, at Bartram’s Garden in Philadelphia. As the oldest surviving botanical garden in North America, Bartram’s Garden offers peace, rest, and connection to the public and spans nearly 50 acres in Southwest Philadelphia. 

More than 200 people and 35 organizations took part in this community led event, which involved several workshops on topics such as beginner level crop planning, spring tonics, mushroom growing and seed keeping.

USDA representatives from Farm Service Agency (FSA), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Rural Development (RD), and National Agriculture Statistics Service (NASS) were at the event to provide education about agency resources for growers and attendees.

“Creating relationships between USDA Agencies and the growers and community members in Philadelphia and urban areas is important,” said Heidi Secord, State Executive Director for FSA in Pennsylvania. “Accessing the resources to grow healthy, culturally preferred food is very empowering. Communities are more resilient when local growing systems provide nutritional food. Supporting these efforts is essential to growth in food sovereignty.”

The event also included a powerful panel on Black food sovereignty, in which panelists dove into the intersections of farming, race, culture, faith and community sovereignty. The event closed with the first Rooted Revival in Philadelphia history where attendees cultivated relationships and celebrated the spiritual and cultural connection to the land and food.

“Agriculture in the city is not just about growing food to provide better access to communities that historically and intentionally have been separated from their right to local, nutritious, chemical-free, culturally relevant, affordable produce. It is about the spiritual and cultural connection of people to the land, their food, and their communities,”, said Tyler Holmberg, co-director of the Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden. “Thanks to this event, attendees left filled with inspired energy, new skills, strengthened relationships, and feeling supported by the network of resources from all the organizations present.”

To learn more about programs and services for urban agriculture, visit farmers.gov/your-business/urban-growers or contact your local USDA Service Center .