We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Farmer Chippy. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Farmer below.
Farmer, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?
As a Biomedical Field Service Engineer, my travels took me to amazing places with fun people and great food but the daily experiences in hospitals, clinics and urgent care facilities, continued to be disturbing. As much as I was interested in being part of a team that provides solutions to the healthcare industry, I had burning desire to explore options that promoted a healthier quality of life for our youngest citizens.
Throughout my career I promoted a Preventive Healthcare solution to improve my community. One of the Physicians I worked closely with, while servicing his surgical microscope said to me “the greatest hindrance to clinical science is the inability of clinicians to embrace innovation that brings cleaner foods to patients.” I became the (Engineer/Farmer) who continue to popularize the benefits of conventional medicine while building “AgriHood Baltimore” – a thriving marketplace, community shared/supported farming and urban agriculture training resource institute, right here in Park Heights.
Farmer, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
The Plantation (PPHUF) was founded in 2014 with another Baltimore vacant lot converted into an Urban Farm. Over the years, The Plantation has been praised for its thorough support and advocacy for urban agriculture. We have been advocating for urban agriculture since 2015. We got urban agriculture added to the Maryland Farm Bureau’s Policy 2021 and attended the American Farm Bureau Federation’s Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia to ensure urban agriculture was added to national policy.
The Plantation has also focused on influencing local and state legislation that would allow the “right to farm” and “agEducation in every classroom. We work closely with our State Delegates and Senator in Annapolis to update current law and to influence prospective legislation for Farmers.
We recently launched our Community Advisory Board (CAB) committee of volunteers to provide feedback on our efforts. Many of our top donors become part of this group to help us plan for now and the future.
We have enjoyed funding from the Pimlico Development Community Athority, but those funds no longer cover all our expenses, much less allow us to ScaleUP.
Over the years, we have found many donors such as yourself who have opened their hearts and pocketbooks to help us to continue providing resources to those who were left out prior to the pandemic.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Providing the array of services these families need cost The Plantation more than $500 per day above government funding allocated for Park Heights.
This money is building “AgriHood Baltimore” our family-friendly marketplace, community supported farming and urban agriculture training resource institute, right here in park Heights. This facility will provide ongoing services that will be crucial for years to come, as we recover from the COVID-19 effects.
In our last fiscal year, we had a $100,000.00 budget. Of that amount, more than 70% came from individual donors and corporate and foundation grants. To continue accomplishing our mission and expanding it to many more Healthy Food Priority Areas in Baltimore, we project that our budget needs to increase by 500% over the next 2 years.
That is an ambitious goal and we know we will get there through our current donors and the Park Heights community of dedicated young farmers. Every dollar we raise will expand our capacity to provide cleaner greener foods to those most at risk in our community.
The Plantation only spends 10% of its revenue on administration and only 4% on fundraising. A full 86% of your gift goes directly to our services and programs for junior urban farmers and their families.
Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?
PPHUF has developed an inter-generational volunteer workforce. In the interest of food security and Urban Agriculture, PPHUF has hosted 20-30 volunteers and trainees from local colleges and the University of Maryland’s Future Harvest Beginner Farmer Program, weekly. Volunteer trainees participated in a total of 40 hands-on training sessions which focused on architectural designs and concepts, growing more food with children, training-up young farmers, saving Druid Hill Farmers Market, expanding local food distribution and using #urbanagriculture as a vehicle to onboard our #CornerBoys.
The lack of leadership coupled with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, increased the level of urgency for food security in underserved communities across Baltimore city. In response, PPHUF expanded its partnership with The Common Market food distribution services and Baltimore City Department of Planning to extended our contract into calendar year 2022. Since the Maryland State of Emergency started, PPHUF has distributed approximately five hundred and fifteen thousand (515,000lbs) pounds of food. Common Market food boxes continue to be distributed at PPHUF, now distributing approximately 300 boxes per week.
The aforementioned initiatives are a high-level overview of the plethora of PPHUF’s accomplishments. PPHUF recognizes the ongoing support, collaboration and challenges with Baltimore City and we are very grateful to have received ten thousand dollars ($10,000.00) from The Frank Family and Baltimore Community Foundation to do this work. We will continue to work with all stakeholders to bridge societal gaps and “move the needle” towards food security in Park Heights. We look forward to a future where we create our own work and manage our own resources through Urban Agriculture in Baltimore.
Contact Info:
- Website: Plantationparkheights.org
- Instagram: @cleanergreenerfoodsinc
- Facebook: @Plantationparkheightsurbanfarm
- Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/in/farmer-chippy-79a6687
- Twitter: @cleanerfoods
- Youtube: Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm
- Yelp: Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm
- Other: TikTok: cleanergreenerfoods
Image Credits
All credits: FarmerChippy – www. cleanergreenerfoods.com