The Food Project: Youth. Food. Community.

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Sustainable Agriculture is the practice of growing food in a way that preserves and enhances the environment, provides economic opportunity and good health for individuals and communities, and connects people to the land around them. It generally avoids chemical pesticides and long-distance travel, striving instead to create fresh, healthy produce for local consumption. Sustainable Agriculture focuses on both processes and produce. It’s about the systems that create our food—who grows it, where, and how—as much as it is about the food itself.

The Food Project strives to create personal and social change through Sustainable Agriculture. We farm in a way that grows the best possible food, and grows the next generation of youth leaders along with it. Please read on to find out how.

Suburban Agriculture

The Food Project Lincoln Farm is currently operated on thirty-one acres of conservation land approximately 15 miles outside of Boston, in the town of Lincoln, Massachusetts. Twenty-seven acres of this are available for vegetable production and the remaining four acres include a composting area, greenhouse, tractor storage area, irrigation pond, and our CSA distribution area. Operation of this site is made possible through a continuing partnership with the Town of Lincoln's Conservation Commision and resident support.

We began growing on our Beverly land during the Spring of 2006. Through a partnership with the Trustees of Reservations we tend 2 acres of their historic Long Hill property. Using sustainable agricultural techniques we have transformed fallow land into a vibrant vegetable garden!

Greenhouse at Glen Urquhart SchoolThrough a partnership with New England Biolabs, we also farm on their site in Ipswich, MA.  This six-acre farm produces enough food to supply a 100-member CSA program and to donate food to hunger relief organizations on the North Shore. 

In 2009, The Food Project entered into a partnership with The Glen Urquhart School to use half of their newly renovated, 7,000 square foot greenhouse. This partnership allows The Food Project to grow seedlings for all our North Shore farms and Community Programs while providing service-learning opportunities for GUS students. Thank you Glen Urquhart!

Urban Agriculture

In Boston, we grow on 3 pieces of land in the city's Dudley neighborhood and manage a rooftop production garden at the Boston Medical Center. The Dudley neighborhood pieces are all within a few blocks of each other and of our urban office. West Cottage is our largest urban site at 1.4 acres. On Langdon Street, we grow on .6 acres. Our Albion site is 3,000 square feet and the Rooftop Garden covers 6,000 square feet. Operation of these sites is made possible through continuing partnerships with the City of Boston, the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI), community residents and the Boston Area Health Education Center (BAHEC).

On the North Shore, The Food Project has partnered with the Lynn School Department and the Lynn Community Development and Housing Corporation to lease two parcels of land in the Ingalls School neighborhood.  These parcels total a little over an acre of growing space.  The food grown on this land is sold at local farmers' markets and is donated to hunger relief organizations on the North Shore.

CRAFT

The Food Project helped launch an agricultural training program for apprentices, interns, and workers on farms in the Eastern Massachusetts area.