Urban gardening spans community plots, rooftop farms, hydroponic facilities, and other forms of food production in cities and suburbs. The figures below show how small the physical footprint can be, how varied the business models are, and how urban farms combine food production with education, training, and local services.
Contents
- What counts as urban agriculture
- The scale of the case-study farms
- Farm size and cultivated acreage
- How urban farms earn revenue
- Grants, certification, and public support
- Community gardens and social outcomes
What counts as urban agriculture
The USDA defines urban agriculture as the cultivation, processing, and distribution of agricultural products in urban and suburban areas. Its examples include community gardens, rooftop farms, hydroponic facilities, aeroponic facilities, aquaponic facilities, and vertical production. That broad definition matters: urban gardening is not limited to one style of plot or one type of structure.
The USDA Forest Service Urban & Community Forestry program serves areas where more than 84% of Americans live, placing urban and community growing within a much larger city-focused environmental and land-use context. For growers thinking about risk, USDA says Federal crop insurance covers more than 100 crops and highlights Whole-Farm Revenue Protection and Micro Farm as options for urban farmers.
The USDA’s National Study of Commercial Farming in Urban Areas focused on 14 commercial urban farms. The full Cornell/USDA study, The Promise of Urban Agriculture, also profiled 14 selected commercial urban farms across the United States. The study used a literature review, informant interviews, and site visits across those 14 farms, so its figures describe a selected case-study group rather than every urban farm in the country.
The scale of the case-study farms
The 14 case-study farms were divided into seven production farms, four hybrid farms, and three training farms. Every one of the 14 participated in community or education events, but participation did not always mean those activities generated income.
The farms began in different years, from 2002 through 2013. Growing Home started in 2002, Mellowfields Urban Farm in 2007, and Our School at Blair Grocery, Wilson Street Farm, Love Is Love Farm at Gaia Gardens, and Springdale Farm each started in 2008. Rising Pheasant Farm, Brother Nature Produce, Side Yard Farm, and Brooklyn Grange started in 2009. Little City Gardens began in 2010, Karen Fresh Garden in 2012, and both Mycopolitan Mushroom Co. and Green City Growers in 2013.
The reported total farm acreage ranged from 0.1 acre at Mycopolitan Mushroom Co. to 5.35 acres at Green City Growers. Several operations therefore fit a distinctly small-footprint pattern, while others managed multiple acres within an urban or urban-connected model.
| Case-study farm | Start year | Total farm acres | Cultivated acres in 2015 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mycopolitan Mushroom Co. | 2013 | 0.10 | 0.10 |
| Little City Gardens | 2010 | 0.75 | 0.33 |
| Karen Fresh Garden | 2012 | 0.50 | 0.50 |
| Our School at Blair Grocery | 2008 | 1.00 | 0.66 |
| Rising Pheasant Farm | 2009 | 0.75 | 0.75 |
| Growing Home | 2002 | 1.50 | 0.90 |
| Brother Nature Produce | 2009 | 1 urban + 7 rural | 1.00 |
| Side Yard Farm | 2009 | 1.75 | 1.20 |
| Wilson Street Farm | 2008 | 1.80 | 1.50 |
| Love Is Love Farm at Gaia Gardens | 2008 | 1.50 | 1.50 |
| Springdale Farm | 2008 | 5.00 | 2.00 |
| Brooklyn Grange | 2009 | 2.50 | 2.40 |
| Mellowfields Urban Farm | 2007 | 3.00 | 3.00 |
| Green City Growers | 2013 | 5.35 | 3.25 |
Farm size and cultivated acreage
The study distinguishes between total farm acreage and acreage cultivated in 2015. Mycopolitan Mushroom Co. had 0.1 total farm acre and cultivated 0.1 acre in 2015. Little City Gardens had 0.75 total acres and cultivated 0.33. Karen Fresh Garden had 0.5 total acre and cultivated the full 0.5 acre.
Our School at Blair Grocery had 1.0 total acre and cultivated 0.66 acres in 2015. Rising Pheasant Farm had 0.75 total acres and cultivated 0.75. Growing Home had 1.5 total acres and cultivated 0.9. Brother Nature Produce reported one urban acre plus seven rural acres, while its 2015 cultivated figure was 1.0 acre.
Side Yard Farm had 1.75 total acres and cultivated 1.2 acres. Wilson Street Farm had 1.8 total acres and cultivated 1.5. Love Is Love Farm at Gaia Gardens had 1.5 total acres and cultivated all 1.5 acres.
At the larger end of this case-study group, Springdale Farm had 5 total acres and cultivated 2.0 in 2015. Brooklyn Grange had 2.5 total acres and cultivated 2.4. Mellowfields Urban Farm had 3 total acres and cultivated 3.0, while Green City Growers had 5.35 total acres and cultivated 3.25.
These figures show why acreage needs a clear date and definition. A farm can own or control more land than it cultivates in a particular year. Brother Nature Produce also illustrates why urban acreage and rural acreage should be reported separately rather than blended into one undifferentiated number.
How urban farms earn revenue
Community and education work was widespread but not universally monetized. All 14 case-study farms participated in community or education events, while only four earned revenue from those activities. Among farms that monetized educational activities, workshop revenue represented 3% to 14% of total earned revenue. Five farms earned 1% to 4% of total earned revenue from speaking events.
On-site events, tours, or land rent were another revenue source. Six farms earned income from these activities, and for two of those farms the category represented at least 25% of total earned revenue. The figures indicate that the same activity can be an occasional supplement for one operation and a major revenue line for another.
Off-site services were also common. Seven of the 14 farms earned additional revenue from services such as landscaping or home-garden installation. Five treated those services as a critical business line and earned 8% to 28% of total annual revenue from them. The other two farms that offered off-site services earned 2% or less of total revenue from those services.
This mix of revenue streams is especially relevant for small urban operations. A farm may sell crops while also earning from workshops, speaking, tours, land rent, landscaping, or garden installation. The case-study figures do not establish a typical revenue mix for all urban farms, but they do document how diversified the selected farms were.
Grants, certification, and public support
Eight of the 14 case-study farms received some kind of grant in 2015. Grants and gifts were particularly important for the training farms: they made up 33% to 67% of total farm revenue for training farms in the study. That range should be read as a profile of the training-farm cases, not as a general estimate for all urban growers.
Only two of the 14 farms were certified organic under the USDA National Organic Program. The USDA’s organic certification cost-share program reimburses up to 50% of certification costs, a support level that may matter to growers weighing whether formal certification fits their market and operating model.
Land policy also appeared in the case studies. Springdale Farm had an agricultural property tax exemption for 4.5 of the 5 acres it owned. In another cited example, a city program gave Mellowfields a three-year rolling lease for $1 per acre per year. The USDA urban agriculture toolkit says a three-year rolling lease model can be used in at least one cited example and notes that a greenhouse could be built for a few thousand dollars or less when salvaged materials are used.
The USDA toolkit identifies several possible support channels. The Farm Service Agency can help urban farmers with working capital or infrastructure development. The Rural Energy for America Program can support on-farm sustainable energy projects in urban and rural areas. The Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program and the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program can support market development, while Value-Added Producer Grants can support marketing research and development. Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education grants support research and education projects in sustainable agriculture, including urban agriculture.
Community gardens and social outcomes
Urban gardening also operates through networks of community sites. Milwaukee County Extension’s urban agriculture programming includes 11 garden sites covering 80 acres and directly serves more than 750 households annually through its garden network. Those measures describe one county program and should not be generalized to all community-garden systems.
The Washington State urban agriculture report provides another geographic snapshot. It says 15% of surveyed farms were on urban land, about 32% of urban and peri-urban farms were nonprofit entities, and 26 urban and peri-urban farmers were interviewed in its qualitative sample. The survey percentage, nonprofit share, and interview count measure different things, so they should be kept separate when interpreting the report.
The case studies also recorded workforce outcomes. Growing Home reported a recidivism rate of around 13% within three years for graduates, compared with 50% for the state. More than 60% of Growing Home graduates had some sort of felony background, and about 90% had some contact with the criminal justice system. These figures relate specifically to Growing Home’s graduates and its comparison with the state measure described in The Promise of Urban Agriculture.
Taken together, the statistics describe urban gardening as a set of overlapping models: production farms using fractions of an acre, multi-acre urban operations, community-garden networks, hybrid enterprises, and training farms. The most useful comparisons keep the geography, year, acreage definition, revenue denominator, and study population visible alongside every number.