Save Bed-Stuy Farm

From the Brooklyn Rescue Mission’s letter to elected officials:

Grocery shopping in Bedford-Stuyvesant can be a real challenge. Fast food joints abound, but if you want fresh vegetables and fruits you have to take the subway or bus to other neighborhoods. If you’re an elder or sick, the trip might be more than you can do. If you’re a kid, you probably think food is always wrapped in plastic and full of salt and corn syrup.

The Reverends Robert and DeVanie Jackson were running an emergency food program in the neighborhood. They realized the donated foods they were handing out often weren’t fresh…which wasn’t helping people’s health.

Behind their building lay a vacant lot, strewn with trash. The Jacksons got GreenThumb status from the City and went to work. They cleaned the lot up, trucked in good soil and started planting. Twice, contractors broke the fence at night and dumped truckloads of construction debris atop the cleaned-up lot. The Jacksons were slapped with fines for someone else’s illegal dumping, but they cleaned up again and replanted. Now they have a working farm that produces over 7000 pounds of produce per year and feeds 3000 people a month. It’s called Bed-Stuy Farm and it’s a magnet for the community. It’s also an educational center, offering courses in farming and nutrition. It supplies the emergency food program as well as a farmers market. This thriving urban farm attracts people from all over the world — farmers, filmmakers, restaurateurs, food activists, and a busload of delegates to a UN food conference.

Why Bed-Stuy Farm Is Being Threatened
No longer a vacant lot and a dumping ground, the farm has become desirable to others. It is in danger of being sold by the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) to developers to repay a debt incurred by Neighborhood Partnership Housing Development/Direct Building Management.

How You Can Help
We want 1200 signatures so our elected officials know this farm is important and shouldn’t be destroyed for gentrification. HPD has its choice of many other vacant lots. It would do well to consider them before this lot, which in its current form is contributing to the neighborhood in such a positive and healthy way. Please sign our petition and help us save Bed-Stuy Farm.

Sign the petition.