The Urban Farming Institute of Boston, Inc.

The Urban Farming Institute of Boston’s mission is to develop and promote urban farming as a commercial sector that creates green collar jobs for residents, and to engage urban communities in building a healthier and more locally based food system.

The Urban Farming Institute was founded in 2011 out of a global vision for a better food system and the local experience of neighborhood residents in Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan. They foresaw the challenges to a thriving urban agriculture industry in Boston: farmer training, land access, public education and policy.

The Urban Farming Institute brings its vision of a just food system into neighborhoods where it creates partnerships between residents and farmers to create healthy places and healthy people. And UFI continues to honor its local roots in the leaders, staff and participants of the program.

Our goals include:

• Train residents from Massachusetts’ urban areas to become successful urban farmers;
• Acquire and prepare land for farming;
• Educate community, city and state stakeholders in support of appropriate policy changes in regards to land use and urban farming practices.
• Through research and development, document. and map the urban farming industry. As well as understand its impact on social, economic, health outcomes for both practitioners and the industry as a whole in order to create a new paradigm.

In six short years, UFI has graduated six cohorts of urban farmers, developed the first as-of right-urban farm under Boston’s new zoning amendment and founded and co-sponsored three statewide urban farming conferences.

To date, 80% of the graduates of UFI’s training program work in farm and food related businesses in the region; two more farm sites are in development with a third expected shortly; the farming conferences have attracted four hundred participants each year.