City Fresh is a joint initiative between the New Agrarian Center (NAC) and Ohio State University Cooperative Extension. The goal of City Fresh is to build a more just and sustainable local food system in Northeast Ohio. City Fresh seeks to meet the needs of both urban and rural communities by improving access to fresh locally grown food for urban residents and marketing opportunities in the city for local farmers.

The City Fresh program impacts the local food system through the development of neighborhood food centers, nutrition education, urban market garden training, and the cultivation of direct farm to business connections. City Fresh includes a wide range of community partners, including the City of Cleveland Health Department, Heifer International, Ohio Farmers Union, the Great Lakes Brewing Company, the Clark-Metro Community Development Corporation, the Urban Community School, and the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission.

In 2006, City Fresh organized a market garden training program for 19 inner-city residents to utilize vacant lands for urban agricultural production. Five market gardens have been started in Cleveland in 2006. City Fresh has also introduced a youth program with eight youngsters from Lorain and Cuyahoga Counties who will be maintaining small gardens in cities, including Oberlin’s Boys and Girls Club, Save Our Children in Elyria, and the Urban Learning Garden next to Lucky’s Cafe in Tremont.

Updates
From the August OSU Extension newsletter—Nineteen market gardeners participated in the ten week Market Gardener program this spring. The course included small business training and business plan development as well as sessions on urban agriculture. The program provided a variety of skills and resources to help this group of entrepreneurs start their own market gardens and sell their produce to local restaurants and farmers markets. Five of the class participants received seed grants up to $2350 to help cover start-up costs for their new businesses. Many of the class participants have already been successful selling their produce to local markets and restaurants and plan to expand next year.

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