Boston ploughs stimulus money into urban farms

Working in the Cottage Street farm. Photo by Patrick Holian, CSREES-USDA

Food Project is getting $600,000 to renovate a deserted greenhouse in Roxbury and build 400 backyard gardens

By Patrick Lee
Globe Correspondent
July 9, 2010

Excerpt:

Less than two blocks away. halfway between Dudley Square and Uphams Corner, 20 or so of Arsenault’s fellow teenage interns work on an urban farm to produce vegetables and fruits for local shelters and farmers markets. US Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius visited the site today, after she met with city officials about local public health initiatives that had been awarded federal funding in March.

Boston is one of only seven communities nationally to get stimulus money for battling both obesity and tobacco use. Of the city’s $12.5 million in grants, the Food Project is getting $600,000 to renovate a deserted greenhouse in Roxbury and build 400 backyard gardens in Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan, the neighborhoods with the highest obesity rates in Boston.

The rest of the two-year federal grant will support a variety of initiatives, ranging from expanding bike share programs to reducing soda consumption and limiting tobacco access. In the process, the city expects to create up to 50 temporary full-time jobs and 250 summer positions for local youth.

“We like to think of the first lady, Michelle Obama, as now the most famous vegetable gardener in the country, but you all are a close second,” said Sebelius of Boston’s work supporting local and sustainable food sources. “It really is us learning from you a model that we can take and replicate around the country.”

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