HEALTH

The National Urban League (NUL) has selected the Louisville Urban League (LUL) as one of two affiliates to receive a federal grant through the U.S. Department of Food and Agriculture (USDA) to develop a National Black Farmer Apprenticeship Program. The USDA has committed to tackling food and nutrition insecurity by focusing on strengthening and building new partnerships with community-based organizations. Health is one of the core pillars of the National Urban League, and this two-city pilot program will support the NUL’s Health and Quality of Life team, specifically on efforts to initiate an urban agriculture fellowship.

Project Kilimo, LUL’s Urban Farming Initiative will work with technical assistance partners, Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden in Philadelphia, to support Black urban farmers in Louisville’s West End community in building space, land access, cultural education programming, and resources for food sovereignty with the neighbors of the West End. LUL aims to work with community members to rebuild and reconnect community via an emphasis on land and farming, develop the skills necessary to create their own community-based food businesses and projects or assist them in shaping and entering the emergent urban food system. Though the initial grant period is for a short period of time, the Louisville Urban League has committed to at least two years of programming.

Access to healthy, local nutrition and chemical-free food is a human right. Agriculture in a city is not just about growing food to provide better access to communities that historically and systematically have been separated from their right to culturally relevant, affordable produce. It is also about the spiritual and cultural connection of people to the land. Their food. Their communities. Their culture. It is about healing wounds and celebrating the victories of 400 years in the Americas, and it’s about communities having control of their food systems. To be a farmer in a city, you need not just know best practices in production, but be intimately connected to the community you are serving and be accountable to the community in recognizable ways. 

​Sankofa Community Farm is a 3.5-acre community-based crop farm, rooted in the experience of the African Diaspora. As a spiritually centered farm, Sankofa prioritizes reverence for Spirit, human beings, and our relationship to the myriad beings beneath and above the soil.

The farm offers over 60 different crops and wild foods for our community’s healing and produces over 15,000 pounds of food annually for local farm stands and other markets. Sankofa Community Farm emphasizes intergenerational connections in learning and is powered each year by paid high school interns working alongside community elders, neighbors, and volunteers.

Project Kilimo is recruiting up to six experienced farmers and educators to serve as fellows to create and grow opportunities for Black urban farmers in the West End, aid and support Louisville’s urban farming community, and provide cultural and educational opportunities for community members and volunteers. More information about these contract positions can be found at Louisville Urban League Jobs in Louisville, KY | Indeed.com. Applications are due mid-September.