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Urban farm takes root
YOUNGSTOWN
A 2.5-acre parcel with a vacant house on Youngstown’s southwest side will be transformed into the city’s first urban farm training facility by early next year.
The Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. announced plans Wednesday for the property at 820 Canfield Road that the agency named the Iron Roots Urban Farm.
“The YNDC is tackling the challenges of urban blight and decay, and being a catalyst to put into productive use [some of] the 23,000 vacant lots in the city,” said Presley L. Gillespie, the agency’s executive director.
With money from various foundations, YNDC will spend about $120,000 to $140,000 to first plant vegetable and fruit fields, a small fruit orchard, install a greenhouse, a vegetable chiller for storage and a solar-power system on the site, said Ian J. Beniston, the agency’s deputy director.
The agency used $45,000 of the money to purchase the property in June from Waiakea Uka Farm Products, a Hilo, Hawaii, farm company that bought the parcel in January 2006 for $48,900 and never did anything with it.
The farm, in the city’s Idora Neighborhood, will be ready by next March, Beniston said.
The facility will serve as a citywide training facility for those who participated in YNDC’s Market Gardener Training program, its Green Jobs Training program, and those interested in developing community gardens and other horticulture and agriculture businesses.
“This facility will serve as a valuable resource for city residents to learn the skills necessary to ignite urban agriculture and vacant land reuse projects across the city,” Gillespie said.
The agency needs about $200,000 to rehabilitate a 2,693-square-foot vacant house on the property with plans to make it an indoor classroom training facility for urban farmers and a place to hold community meetings, Beniston said. YNDC expects to have that work done sometime next year.
The agency doesn’t plan to develop other urban farms. Rather it wants to use Iron Roots as a training ground for residents who would then establish their own urban farms in the city, Beniston said.
Mayor Charles Sammarone said the city government supports this effort, and sees the urban farm training facility as an important way to help stabilize Youngstown.
“Over the years, the city hasn’t been strong in helping with neighborhood issues,” he said. “I want to make sure we take care of our neighborhoods. We want people to be proud to live here and get others to move here.”
The YNDC is a neighborhood development organization that works to strengthen neighborhoods in the city. Its primary focus has been on the Idora Neighborhood, which is in and around Old Furnace and Canfield roads, Glenwood Avenue and near Mill Creek Park.