ECO City Farms

Mission:
ECO City Farms is a nonprofit urban teaching and learning farm in Prince George’s County that grows great food, farms and farmers in ways that protect, restore and sustain the natural environment and the health of local communities. Working with area children, youth and adults, ECO educates and trains the next generation of urban farmers and eaters.

Quick Facts:

Founder and CEO: Margaret Morgan-Hubbard

Production Type: Urban Agriculture

Farm Size: The first location in Edmonston is 1.5 acres. The farm in Bladensburg is about 4 acres and the new incubator farm in Upper Marlboro is 11 acres.

Years in Production: Since 2010

Website: www.ecoffshoots.org/

ECO City Farms started in 2010 with a 1-year lease on a parcel in Edmonston. The farm was established within a few weeks using recycled materials, and were at market within the first year.

The first year was successful, and the Maryland- National Capital Park and Planning Commission offered more land for the farm to use and a 15-year lease.

Since then, ECO City has established a second location in Bladensburg and is starting an incubator program for new farmers in Upper Marlboro.

With a mission that’s as focused on developing new farmers and educating youth as it is to producing quality food, ECO City runs a number of beginning farmer programs, apprenticeships, field days and more. A new incubator farm continues to expand training opportunities and support for new farmers in the area.

Key considerations in conservation planning for urban farms:

It can be a challenge to define “urban farming” because there’s just as much diversity among urban farms as there are urban farmers. ECO City Farms is one outstanding example of an urban farm with a strong vision for its community, robust educational programming, innovative practices and a productive management system. In addition to growing a multitude of different crops, other urban farms may also be larger or smaller, in more or less urban settings, with different operational goals or business models. Generally though, a few things that conservation planners and technicians will want to discuss with urban farmers that they might not address with more conventional farmers include:

Business structure of the farm and funding constraints- for example, is the farm a nonprofit organization?
Mission and purpose of the operation
Checking for soil contamination issues
Water access is often an issue- either no access or expensive if the water is supplied and metered by the local jurisdiction
Zoning issues that create restrictions on management activities and/or structures
Looking for creative opportunities to create multipurpose conservation practices that offer

Interested in seeing other examples of urban farms? Explore the urban farms listed on the Prince George’s County Soil Conservation District website to learn about the diversity of operations in the county: https://www.pgscd.org/urban-agricultural-conservation/find-an-urban-farm/

Take a Virtual Tour of ECO City Farms

Edmonston Farm

Click and pan around different scenes on the farm. Click on icons to watch interviews and visit links to learn more about different programs and urban agriculture practices employed throughout.

Leading the tour (from left to right):

Michael Atemnkeng, Lead Farmer at the ECO’s Bladensburg Farm
Maddie Ramey, Coordinator of Farm Education and Training
Margaret Morgan-Hubbard, Founder and CEO
Benny Erez, Director of Urban Agriculture and Compost Guru
Kayla Agonoy, Deputy Director
Heather Zdobysz, MDA Conservation Planner
Colleen Kiefer, NRCS District Conservationist
Kim Rush Lynch, PGSCD Urban Agricultural Conservation Planner

Bladensburg Farm

Before and After

Unlike a traditional farm, the historical land use of an urban farm site often presents unique challenges to the farmer. At the Bladensburg Farm, for example, the soil was filled with debris from the multi-family dwellings and parking areas that used to exist on the site.

Below, you can see the site of the Bladensburg Farm as it looked in 2000 (left), compared to what it looked like in 2020 (right). Clearing out debris is a big job and important in order to be able to work the soil. ECO City Farms also discovered asphalt under a thin layer of soil when they built a hoop house and tried to dig garden beds within the structure.

Before After

More Best Management Practices on the Farm

Best management practices on the farm include a mix of practices that meet NRCS practice standards as well as “resource improvements” that ECO City has installed on their own. (ECO City Farms pre-dates many technical and financial assistance programs developed for urban farms.) For a variety of reasons, urban farms often design and implement practices on their own, but conservation partners should provide assistance where they can and ensure that the practices are documented in their Soil and Water Quality Conservation Plans.

Additional BMPs not pictured here include multiple types of irrigation, swales and other drainage management practices, crop rotation, companion planting, compost tea and more.