Urban Agriculture: East New York: Agricultural Organizing

Urban Agriculture: East New York is a documentary video in five chapters that explains how East New York’s urban agriculture movement evolved. Each chapter is dedicated to one piece of a complicated process: a portrait of a veteran local farmer in her garden; a trip to the East New York farmer’s market; a look at asset mapping analysis by the Pratt Center; land transfers from HPD to Green Thumb; and the investment in the neighborhood’s youth made by agricultural organizers and experts.

In this piece, Deborah Greig, Urban Agriculture Coordinator for East New York Farms!, explains the history of the organization in the context of the neighborhood.

For more on East New York’s history since the early 1960s, a good first place to look is Walter Thabit’s 2003 book How East New York Became a Ghetto.

The views expressed here are those of the authors only and do not reflect the position of The Architectural League of New York.