Agraria Journal Winter 2021

MELROSE ACRES URBAN AGRICULTURE CENTER A Neighborhood Grows Its Local Food System BY AMY HARPER 34 AGRARIA JOURNAL 2021 Tucked away down a quiet neighborhood street in South Springfield is a seven-and-a-half acre plot with two orchards of young newly planted fruit trees and shrubs. White netting encloses the tender new leaves at the top of each young plant like a gauzy glove, protecting it from insects, frost, and the ever-present, voracious deer who roam the neighborhood. When mature, they will yield apples, pears, and cherries, paw paws, raspberries and blackberries. Planted earlier this year, the orchards are just one indication of the growth taking place since the establishment last year of Melrose Acres Urban Agriculture Center. A $400,000 USDA Community Food Project grant enabled Agraria to purchase the property as well as an adjoining house. Agraria is partnering with the nonprofit Springfield Urban Plant Folk (SOUP), which is leading development of the property. Sherry Chen, a local food activist and educator, is the force behind SOUP. She and her husband have been raising pasture animals on their small farm for 22 years, she helped restart and co-managed the Springfield Farmer’s Market, and she was farm manager for two USDA-funded Farm to School programs in the Springfield City Schools. Guiding the development of Melrose Acres as its farm manager was a natural fit for her. She and a few neighborhood women, who joined with her to form SOUP, had been raising vegetables on a small portion of the property—and contributing the produce to neighborhood farm stands—for four years before its purchase by Agraria. The project builds on their efforts to increase food security in the neighborhood along with resilience and self-reliance of neighborhood residents. The area has a higher-than-average poverty rate and a long history of food apartheid. The only full-service grocery store moved out in March 2020, exacerbating the already existing lack of food sovereignty and access to fresh, healthy food. The purchase of the land and house allows SOUP to expand production to include fruit trees, bees, and chickens (eventually), and once the adjoining house is renovated, to offer food-related educational programming that will serve both school-age kids and adults. Work on the house is expected to begin in November. Covid-19 has slowed the development of Melrose Acres, but not stopped it. In addition to establishing two orchards, they have continued to grow and secure food for farm stands, are reclaiming beds that have gotten out of control, and have installed a few beehives tended by a neighborhood volunteer from Sustainable Options for Springfield, a group affiliated with a local church. The cover crops they planted this fall are just one of the regenerative practices they use. “I’m so excited,” said Sherry during a recent tour of the Center’s garden. Every bed is deep mulched with straw or hay or covered with a weed barrier. “We use no-till on everything,” she said. And they’ve seen an increase in soil organic matter and water retention. She’s also planning to experiment with different methods of amending soil, including jeevamrut, a traditional Indian biopesticide and organic manure produced through a fermentation process. AMY HARPER The garden on the Melrose Acres Urban Agriculture Center will be able to expand as a result of the purchase last year by Agraria of the land on which it is located.