School Farms Target Food Insecurity, ‘Supermarket Redlining'

With technical and financial support from various organizations, farmers in Nepal are transitioning to organic manure and natural insecticides to grow healthier crops and improve soil health.

The Green City Force run by the New York City Housing Authority turns open urban spaces into gardens tended by young adults in the program. The force is meant to prepare members for careers in sustainable industries afterward. The members also educate locals, trade vegetables grown in the gardens for compost, and train in ecoliteracy.

In an effort to protect and promote Nepal’s local, or traditional, crops, the Raithane Koseli Ghar initiative gathers and sells the hard-to-find seeds. The initiative also provides support and education to farmers looking to grow them.

Kids Who Farm, an initiative co-founded by a 12-year-old in the Phillippines, is working to teach young people how to start micro-farms and grow the waning youth interest in agriculture.

The Al Barakeh Wheat Project is working to regain food sovereignty through urban wheat farming in Amman, Jordan, by partnering farmers with families to teach them how to grow and harvest wheat.

Though the overall poverty rate has been dropping in recent years, rural communities in Uganda still lack many basic resources, including access to healthy food, toiletries, and economic opportunity. The Network of Women in Agribusiness and Development was founded by women to empower and support their sisters through educational initiatives, agricultural training, and the provision of items such as pigs and fruit trees to help them break the cycle of poverty.

A Kenyan government initiative is helping a growing community of residents to tackle food insecurity in one of the largest slum areas in Africa, championing an unusual form of urban farming: sack gardens.

Agricultural education programs such as the Windy City Harvest Corps and the Garfield Park Community Council's Youth Garden Corps allow young people to earn an hourly wage for their work while also learning about farming and gardening, building important workforce skills, and contributing to their communities. The Windy City program has enrolled more than 420 participants since its inception, while the Garfield Park program often sees its youth corps interns return for multiple summers.

A Catholic covenant in India, Helpers of Mount Rosary, promotes organic farming to locals and visitors from across the country on 40 acres of farming and training fields.

The Bunmi Adedayo Foundation trains public primary school teachers in new methods and boosts their morale to improve their skills and provide students with a higher quality of education.