Rural to Urban Farming
West Michigan Environmental Action Council
The West Michigan Environmental Action Council (WMEAC) is a Grand Rapids-based nonprofit organization. They currently focus on protecting and preserving Michigan’s water resources–whether that’s through creating volunteer opportunities, educating the public and local students, or taking political action at the state and national levels. WMEAC has worked for the past 50+ years to help pass acts, protect unique natural resources in Michigan, and collaborate with other environmentally focused nonprofits.
New City Neighbors
New City Neighbors focuses on creating hands-on jobs for teens and young adults, all while providing the city of Grand Rapids with affordable, fresh produce from the New City Farm. From the New City Cafe, more food service jobs are created for youth–as well as healthy, fresh food for sale in the community.
Image: https://grcmc.org/grtv/node/34700/npo-showcase---new-city-neighbors
Importance of Urban Agriculture
Source: (Urban Farm in Grand Rapids, Michigan | Urban Farming, Growing Food, Urban Agriculture, 2023)
Urban agriculture is the practice of growing produce and raising livestock in urban areas. It possesses many benefits to society, communities, the economy, the environment, and overall health. It increases access to fresh produce and mitigates food insecurity. A huge importance of urban agriculture is the community development it produces and the benefits that come with it. This development creates educational opportunities, jobs, and promotes overall sustainability within an area. Urban farms also hold environmental benefits. Not only does it increase biodiversity, but it also helps reduce the carbon footprint of food production. Urban agriculture has the potential to significantly improve the quality of life in urban areas.
The Grand Rapids Community
Grand Rapids (as of 2020) has a 19.9% poverty rate, with the median household income being $51k per year. As for racial diversity, 58.2% is White (Non-Hispanic), 17.5% Black or African American, 12.5% Hispanic, and 4.75% Multiracial. The remaining races are Asian or Asian American, and Native American (Data USA).
Food deserts are most prominent in urban areas, where there are more people of color and lower household incomes. Urban areas are far from where produce is grown, and there are limited areas to buy fresh produce–especially affordable produce. Good food means healthy people, which leads to greater productivity and less time spent sick or unwell.
By introducing places of urban agriculture into a community, we can help provide necessary food to people in food deserts. By utilizing programs and grants in the process, it could even be affordable to the community members. Connecting urban places with rural farmers could be a solution to our problem.
The Grant
The Grant for Good has been donating design services to a different non-profit every year.
They have donated grants to help community-focused non-profits elevate their brand and communications by supporting their efforts to expand their reach, raise funds, and promote their cause.
Grant for Good is looking for candidates that want to advance things like progressive causes, communities, and social good.
WMEAC has a purpose to serve the community and do something that will better the lives of those in the community.
Image: https://grantforgood.com/about
Our Prototypes
Source: Ryan Soehren
Physical Flyer
WMEAC holds events to promote inclusion and help build and expand the organization. These events held would be an ideal location to hand out flyers to recruit rural farmers to come and educate and coach urban farmers. “Women, Community, and The Environment” is an event that celebrated “eco-feminism” held at Grand Valley State University. Groups of women gather and share knowledge with each other regarding important environmental topics.
There is also a program called “Green Drinks,” a monthly event to help promote education. Here, individuals from different backgrounds come together and compare environmental issues that are of high interest or concern to them. This encourages connections between diverse backgrounds as well as the overall promotion of education.
Source: Ryan Soehren
Taking it to social media
WMEAC can use social media and the networking that it brings to its advantage. In today's society, social media is a huge part of our lives and almost everyone is part of some sort of platform. By taking this ad to numerous platforms on social media, WMEAC's advertising will be able to obtain the attention that it needs. Again, the goal is to recruit rural farmers to come and educate urban farmers with the resources and information needed.
The internet is capable of spreading and sharing information throughout the entire world and therefore is a great marketing tool for WMEAC to use. Not only will it help to expand and further brand its organization, but it should also provide success in obtaining its goal and reaching rural farmers.
Once Urban Farmers are educated and start to harvest fresh produce for their communities, Where can we find them?
Utilizing Existing Resources
The Local Harvest website is an amazing resource that can be utilized by urban farmers to promote the farms and draw business from people within their communities. To the left is a screenshot from the site that displays the local farms near grand rapids. Local Harvest employs several effective marketing and advertising tactics that can be utilized by urban farming operations including featured listings, call-to-action advertisements, user-generated content, reviews, recommendations, and social sharing buttons to help community members share farms in their area on their social media platforms.
Our Team
Anna McCarthy
Senior- Environmental and Sustainability Studies Major & Urban and Regional Planning Minor
Anna Miller
Junior - Natural Resource Management Major & ENS Minor
Lucas Da Silva
Senior- ENS Major
Ryan Soehren
Senior - ENS Major & Geospatial Tech Minor
Talia Welke
Senior - ENS Major with Psychology & Photography Minor
Resources
Farmhouse Cafe. New City Neighbors. (2023, February 3). Retrieved from https://newcityneighbors.org/new-city-cafe/
Grand Rapids, MI Data. Data USA. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://datausa.io/profile/geo/grand-rapids-mi
GrantForGood. Grant for good. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://grantforgood.com/about
Local farms near Grand Rapids, Mi - LocalHarvest. Local Harvest - Real Food, Real Farmers, Real Community. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.localharvest.org/grand-rapids-mi/farms
Urban Agriculture. USDA. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.usda.gov/topics/urban
The WMEAC organization – WMEAC. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://wmeac.org/the-organization/
WMEAC.org. WMEAC. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://wmeac.org/
