City Slicker Farms

City Slicker Farms, located in Oakland, California, was founded in 2001 by a group of West Oakland neighbors. The organization empowers community members to work together to produce healthy food by creating organic, sustainable, high-yield urban farms and backyard gardens.

Photo: Children at City Slicker Farms helped plant Seeds of Change organic seeds to provide low-income West Oakland residents with over 9,000 pounds of fresh produce.

When City Slicker Farms was founded, there was nowhere in West Oakland to buy fresh, healthy food. The community’s health and well-being was suffering tremendously because of an absence of nutritious food coupled with pollution, poverty and a lack of contact with nature. The organization’s programs not only offer immediate solutions to West Oakland’s lack of real choice for fresh, affordable, healthy food, but are also having a long-term sustainable impact by changing underutilized urban landscapes into ones that provide healthy, affordable food and improve the environment for generations to come.

City Slicker Farms organizes communities to achieve equal access to fresh, healthy, organic food through the following programs:

Community Market Farms Program
Backyard Garden Program
Urban Farming Education Program
Policy Advocacy Initiative

Today, City Slicker Farms consists of seven Community Market Farms (spaces open to the public), over 100 Backyard Gardens, a weekly Farm Stand, a greenhouse, and Urban Farming Education programs. City Slicker Farms also has a Policy Advocacy Initiative, using its experience to promote sustainable food systems and a green economy on a regional and statewide basis. This organization has provided their community with the means of healthy living and continues on the path of giving from year-to-year. In 2010, they grew over 33,000 pounds of organic food, helped 30 additional families and daycare centers build gardens and introduced the concept of urban agriculture to over 680 individuals worldwide, from Oakland to Bangladesh!

To learn how you can create access to fresh, healthy, organic food in your community, visit City Slicker Farms’ website.