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Located in Chicago's Bronzeville, the Non-Profit Distributes Hyper-Locally
There are farms within the city of Chicago where, if you face a certain way and squint a little, you can imagine you are out in the country. But there is no mistaking the half-acre plot run by the Just Roots non-profit in the historic Bronzeville neighborhood as anything but an urban farm — not with the CTA Green Line's trains clattering overhead every few minutes.
I visited the farm — located adjacent to St. James Catholic Church at 2936 S. Wabash — recently to learn more about the seven-year-old Just Roots organization from Sean Ruane, its director of operations and development. He noted that the Bronzeville farm is the elder of Just Roots' two farms, the other a larger (three acres) space in south suburban Sauk Village.
Despite their different geographies and growing capacity, the farms serve a common purpose: fostering greater food access and food sovereignty in communities immediately adjacent to the growing spaces.
"Everything stays within a three-to-five-mile radius," Sean said. "We also utilize our spaces for a wide variety of educational programs, anything from cooking demonstrations to nutrition education, therapeutic horticulture, composting workshops, you name it. And then community-building space. We host events. We host farm dinners. We host if people want to rent out the space to utilize it for some kind of meeting or gathering."
He continued, "Our goal is really to try to make the space feel as open and inviting and inclusive of the community as possible. One of the ways that we do that is both of our farms were really built in an intentional way, in collaboration with residents and partners from within the community."
Bronzeville is the heart of the historic "Black Belt," the part of Chicago where those arriving in the Great Migration from the Jim Crow South were long concentrated. While the long-term economic struggles of the community have eased as the prosperity of nearby downtown Chicago has filtered south, there is still significant need that Just Roots works to help fill.
"From the very beginning, our model was donating 50 percent of what we grow and selling the other 50 percent," Sean said.
The organization actually started growing produce a couple of miles south at the Legends Farm, run by Chicago Botanic Garden's Windy City Harvest program. Sean noted that the St. James Food Pantry was the first recipient of Just Roots' food donations, which spurred conversations that led to its current installation on the space that had been vacated when the original St. James church building was torn down in 2013.
Along with its donations, Just Roots maintains a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program that Sean said has 115 subscribers, sells to a clinic that has a Food as Medicine program, and has a farmstand at the Bronzeville location that is open every Saturday through October from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. Like nearly all Chicago-area farmers markets, Just Roots' farmstand accepts food assistance benefits as payment and doubles their value through its Link Match program.
Sean said the organization is also developing some farm-to-school collaborations.
Just Roots started out delivering CSA boxes to subscribers, but switched to having customers pick up their shares at the farm. Part of the reason was to make the farm more of a community hub. Sean explained that doing so also helped maintain the five-mile service perimeter around the farm, as those living farther away would be less inclined to travel all the way to the farm.
Having CSA pickups at the farm also allows subscribers to choose what products to include in their order, rather than having the farm decide for them. Sean said that the farm grows 40 different crops over the course of its season, noting, "Everything that we grow is based on direct feedback from residents, community partners, food pantries." The farm also has five beehives that Sean expects to produce 150 pounds of honey this year.
The motto of the city of Chicago is Urbs in Horto, Latin for City in a Garden. Urban farms, such as Just Roots, turn that on its head as gardens surrounded by the built environment of the city. And, hopefully, Just Roots provides some food for thought to those who see it while passing above on those Green Line trains.
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More photos from the farm:
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