Urban Agriculture plays a vital role in fostering community connections, increasing access to fresh and local produce in underserved areas, promoting sustainable food systems and local resilience, and providing economic opportunities for the communities they serve. Supporting urban agriculture means improving community level knowledge about agriculture and land stewardship, reducing food insecurity, creating wildlife corridors and green space, improving soil health, and making use of abandoned or undervalued land for agriculture. 

Urban Agriculture refers to the cultivation and distribution of food in urban, peri-urban, and rural areas, where the products produced are intended to serve the local community, rather than distant markets. 

Urban agriculture can encompass a wide range of operations including small to mid scale market farms and ranches, community gardens, school gardens, and more. These operations, in addition to production, can sometimes also serve as a tool for education, community engagement, and awareness of agriculture and food production, which may otherwise be inaccessible to certain groups of people. 

How Can Conservation Districts Help? 

Conservation districts are uniquely positioned as locally led entities that can help support urban growers on the ground. Districts can create new programs to support urban agriculture, build urban growers into their existing programming, or act as a resource for urban producers. 

Funding Opportunities

Interested in starting a new urban ag program? Check out the funding opportunities below!

• Village & Wilderness

  • Village & Wilderness is currently accepting applications for their 2026 Incubator Grant. This grant supports the creation of robust, new, community-based microhabitat programs—practical, on-the-ground efforts that restore nature in many small sites (such as yards, school grounds, roadsides, or other small spaces) across a fragmented landscape.