Cleveland's slow but steady transformation from national leader in job loss and foreclosures to national model for urban farming took another major step forward last week in the Kinsman neighborhood. That's where federal, state and city officials introduced the Cleveland Urban Agriculture Incubator Pilot Project.

Six acres of land at East 83rd and Gill, donated from the City Land Bank, will be turned into a farm, thanks to $100,000 grants from the Ohio Department of Agriculture and the City of Cleveland, and $740,000 from the Ohio State University Extension, via the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It's the first urban farm to receive funding through the USDA's Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, now in its second year.

The goals of the incubator are to promote entrepreneurship and access to fresh produce in an area that sorely needs both. If successful, the model will be replicated in other neighborhoods.

The OSU Extension will use half an acre of the land to train aspiring farmers. The remaining land will be leased in quarter-acre plots, beginning next spring.

The project grew in part out of the Urban Agriculture Innovation Zone established by Burten, Bell, Carter Development, Inc., which serves the area, according to BBC programs manager Sherita Mullins. BBC will recruit farmers from the community.

The state funds come from Gov. Strickland's Ohio Neighborhood Harvest initiative, which seeks to bring produce to the "food deserts" found in many low-income urban communities, and to boost local economies. Currently only about 3 percent of the estimated $43 billion that Ohioans spend on food annually goes to Ohio farms.

Source: Burten Bell Carter Development
Writer: Frank W. Lewis