Editor’s note: This story is part of an ongoing “Sowing Change” series about urban farming.
For many Portland, Ore., residents living with food insecurity, urban farms like Growing Gardens and The Side Yard Farm are lifelines providing fresh, locally grown produce to communities with limited access to healthy food.
But as these farms battle increasingly unpredictable weather patterns, frozen funding and shifting policies, their ability to serve those in need is at risk. The challenges these farmers face aren’t unique to Portland; urban farmers across the country are struggling with similar issues, raising urgent questions about the future of food access in U.S. cities.
In November 2024, Oregon State University’s Policy Analysis Lab reported that the state’s food insecurity rate rose to 12.8% from 2021-2023. The report showed that 221,000 households — about 530,000 individuals — experienced food insecurity each year during that period.
Growing Gardens and The Side Yard Farm are working to make a dent in the food mirages located throughout the city, but like in many cities, the federal funding freeze by the Trump administration is creating uncertainty. Still, these farmers plan to continue their fight against food insecurity.
Growing Gardens
Growing Gardens has been an integral part of the food landscape in Portland for nearly 30 years, creating what Executive Director Jason Skipton calls “garden-based interventions.”
Growing Gardens has three core programs: Home Gardens, designed to cultivate a healthy and more equitable Oregon; Lettuce Grow, a hands-on, garden-based education for incarcerated students; and Youth Grow, a program that works with Portland public schools to provide learning gardens and hands-on education.
The goal for Home Gardens was to reduce as many barriers to residents growing their own food, as well as being active as possible in the food system to help residents access food via home gardens.
“That’s when we got the idea to put a garden in someone’s yard, whether a backyard, side yard or patio, because we wanted to reduce as many of those barriers as possible to create access to growing food,” Skipton says.
The idea was to build a network of growers across the city, across neighborhoods and in different households, he says. Ten community organizers spread across the city work with individuals during the three-year program.
“We provide everything that you would need to be successfully growing food in your backyard: providing soil tests to make sure there’s no lead, providing all of the plants, all of the seeds, all of the tools that you would need to be successful,” Skipton says.
For the Lettuce Grow program, the nonprofit works in 14 correctional facilities across Oregon offering a year in horticulture education backed by local universities.
“These are college-level courses that people who are incarcerated go through to create job credentials,” Skipton says. “They receive certificates of completion once they’ve finished the training, but another important aspect is they get a chance to get outside to cultivate, to put their hands in the ground.
“Through the program, we’re building skills and workforce development for people to then fill jobs in agriculture and nursery work in our state,” he adds. “But we also help grow about 350,000 pounds of produce every year that goes back into correctional facility kitchens for people who are currently incarcerated to have access to healthy food.”
Skipton has seen dozens of success stories from the program, but one stands out to him.
A woman incarcerated at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility went through the program and was particularly interested in the art aspect of gardening. She began painting plants and eventually learned to create murals while still incarcerated. After she was released, Skipton says she painted a mural on the outside of the Growing Gardens building to highlight not only her skills but also the connection to agriculture.
Growing Gardens’ Youth Grow program is in place at 11 elementary schools across four school districts.
“It’s connecting and engaging with kids in a tactile learning environment,” Skipton says.
“It gets them outside, helping to build a garden at their schools, getting their hands in the soil, but also connecting math and science into the garden as well,” he adds. “We’ll have math problems to solve in the garden. There are science experiments all throughout the garden, and they get to help grow and maintain the garden.”
That produce then goes back into the school for schoolwide cafeteria tastings and student vote on which vegetables they like best. Students also take home education and culinary kits that include vegetables and a recipe they can use to cook with their families.
Challenges
One challenge unique to Portland is the city’s urban growth boundary.
“These are basically government lines that say where development can happen and where agriculture needs to happen,” Skipton says. “So, working inside the urban growth boundary then makes land and land access extremely expensive and hard to come across. Having access to land with water rights is a really big barrier for people trying to do urban agriculture inside the city limits of Portland.”
In addition to land and water access, another obstacle to urban agriculture is climate change.
“Farmers tend to use climate history to determine future plans for planting,” Skipton says. “What happened last year and how do we predict for next year? Climate change has entirely thrown a wrench into using historical climate knowledge to plan for the future.
“One example: Three years ago, we had the wettest April on record. Fields were flooded, and all these things were happening such as farmers couldn’t get into their land because there was too much water,” he continues. “Fast forward 12 months: The next April we had the driest April on record. So, farmers were preparing for a wetter than normal spring, and now they’re laying irrigation in April because we didn’t get any water at all.”
And like the climate, Skipton says federal funding has become difficult to predict.
Two federal funds for Growing Gardens were both frozen and then became inaccessible, leaving the organization unable to invoice on about $200,000, a large amount for a small nonprofit, Skipton says. Not only has there been a funding freeze for current and already allocated and awarded grants, but the process for grants that have been submitted has been basically stopped, he says.
In addition to the lack of funds available, Skipton says the insecurity makes it difficult to project budgets moving forward.
One thing Skipton says hasn’t been talked about is that not only has there been a funding freeze for current and already allocated and awarded grants, but the process for grant applications already submitted is not moving forward either.
The Side Yard Farm
Stacey Givens, farmer, chef and owner of The Side Yard Farm and Kitchen says the farm feeds upwards of 15,000 people each year through community-supported agriculture, restaurants, donations and on-site catering and farm events.
Givens has won the Local Hero Award, been featured on Food Network’s “Chopped,” Time magazine, NBC’s “Today Show” and more. In 2013, Givens acquired a 1-acre plot that was a side yard of a resident, who offered it rent-free until it was established. Givens was able to purchase in 2020 through a USDA loan for women farmers.
Like Growing Gardens, the farm faces challenges like land access and climate change, which affect productivity and costs. Despite this, the farm sustains itself through multiple revenue streams, including catering and events. It also supports the community by donating produce and hosting events like grief support groups and yoga sessions.
Givens says she didn’t have a farming background and came upon the opportunity by chance. With a background in the culinary arts, Givens was working in restaurants and happened to be employed at one with a rooftop garden. Givens asked to help the master gardener at the rooftop garden and learned about small-scale container gardening and interplanting to maximize space.
When the restaurant closed, Givens realized, “I need to find a plot of land somewhere.”
Givens began knocking on doors in the Cully neighborhood, where the farm is now located.
“I was knocking on doors asking if I could farm their side yards. The neighborhood is known for tiny houses with huge plots of land,” Givens says. Ideal for a 1-acre farm.
One couple said yes in 2009, and Givens started a farm on a quarter-acre down the street from the current location. Givens began by selling produce to friends in the restaurant industry. Within a year, the farm included chickens and goats. Next came pop-ups.
“I started doing some pop-ups, but pop-ups weren’t a thing yet, so we just called it like an underground supper club — and it was word of mouth, sliding scale,” Givens says. “We held brunches first, which we still do today, and used all the eggs from our chickens, everything from the farm. And people just dined on the farm, and it started getting pretty popular.”
Within a few years, a couple came to brunch and offered Givens a vacant lot down the street. The couple didn’t charge Givens rent until the farm was established. With a lot of work to be done, Givens says the community helped out as well.
“We started building beds, building fences, taking some trees out, and slowly started building up the farm. I knew I needed a kitchen there, so it was kind of perfect timing that I was asked to be on Food Network’s show, ‘Chopped.’ I actually won and so that money went towards the barn, which cost exactly the amount I’d won — $10,000. The rest is history,” Givens says.
In 2020, when Givens purchased the land, the USDA women farmer’s loan was originally denied because the property was residentially zoned.
“I didn’t take that for an answer and said, ‘hell no.’ I’d been doing this for too long and felt like I deserved the property,” Givens says.
“I took it to my congressman, Earl Blumenauer, who’s now retired, but basically it took a year of fighting with USDA to the federal level. They finally said yes after a year and changed all the terms for urban farmers moving forward with USDA, so now anybody who’s a woman farmer, or any farmer could have a loan for residential property,” Givens continues. “It’s a game changer, because urban farms are disappearing left and right these days in a lot of large cities.”
Like Growing Gardens, Givens says there are two big challenges to urban farming in Portland: land access and climate change.
“Finding land is the No. 1 problem in this city. I was lucky that someone offered me this land,” Givens says. “I wish our city would preserve green spaces instead of it being developed with apartments and housing. I understand we need housing, but we also need urban acres preserved, because it’s not just education, it’s having your food source right there.”
The second challenge, Givens says, is climate change.
“There are days when it’s super-hot and farmers can’t work more than a couple of hours. We’ll start early, then have to take off by 11 o’clock. The workers lose hours, and I can’t afford to pay them,” Givens says. “There needs to be some sort of grant or fund that helps with something like that — almost like sick pay but coming from the government.
“And if it’s too smoky, because fires are such a thing, it’s another reason we can’t be outside. Then we had a crazy last January where it got down to 14 degrees — and a sheet of ice that didn’t go away for at least five days. That’s not common for us,” Givens continues. “For us, everything died on the farm, and for a lot of my farmer friends, same thing. [Climate change] is a really scary thing.”
And if not for the catering business and events, Givens says it wouldn’t be possible to farm.
“The catering company and events help me pay my farmers a living wage,” Givens says. “Urban farmers these days have to have another source of income coming in to be able to farm.”
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