And so it Begins...

Construction begins at the North Richmond Farm!

And so it begins...

After 9 years of planning, community engagement, stewarding the land, creating interim infrastructure and fundraising, Urban Tilth finalized our first construction contract and began the first phase of work on the North Richmond Farm!

From June - August 2023 construction teams will clear weeds from the land, complete rough grading and install all of the underground utilities needed for the final design of the North Richmond Farm. By the end of August the site will finally be connected to the sewer and storm drain systems as well as being fully wired for electric service.

About the North Richmond Farm Project

New possibility begins with a seed. The seeds we plant today will impact what grows for our communities for generations to come.

Our home – North Richmond, California, is an unincorporated community of primarily Black, Brown, and Indigenous people with a long legacy of agriculture and social justice organizing. Yet decades of divestment and criminalization leaves many residents struggling to find healthy food, living wage jobs, or pathways to prosperity.

Dreamed of, built, and led by the community, our North Richmond Farm is a demonstration of the power of food as a catalyst for transformation, resilience, and equity in today’s urban communities. By cultivating our land into a thriving, healthy, living space, the farm will not just be a hub for food but a space for people to build power and prosperity for the entire community.

Urban Tilth is ready to seed real transformation.

The new North Richmond Farm is so much more than an urban agriculture project... [Read Full Article]

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Making Verde Garden BLOOM!

This year Urban Tilth is concentrating its efforts to revitalize Verde K-8 School Partnership Garden, a 0.6 acre plot in North Richmond’s ONLY school.

In the face of a growing climate crisis and in a community where 98% are at risk of asthma and 75% are living below twice the federal poverty level, Verde Partnership Garden is the only safe, accessible green space in students' daily lives.

The garden staff provide a unique bilingual, culturally relevant education to create a transnational cultural bridge that fosters a sense of place, belonging, and social and environmental responsibility. [Read Full Article]

Land, Love, and Liberation: The Rudy Lozito Fellowship

The Rudy Lozito Fellowship Program is a new paid opportunity for West County adults to gain access to the skills and resources necessary to pursue a career in agriculture. In a climate where the average age of farmers is reaching 60 and farmers of color are in the minority, it’s important that we create avenues for young farmers in our community who don’t have access to the knowledge and resources needed to become successful. In this way, a just food system within our community is inevitable.

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Sowing Seeds of Resilience

Seeds are a big part of our food system that have been privatized and taken from our communities over the years. The Seed Saving Project is an effort to reclaim seeds and seed saving practices, to create a more sustainable and personal approach to agriculture that strengthens our community’s resilience and that is accessible to community members and moves our city towards food sovereignty.

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2023 Annual Fruit Tree Giveaway

and announcing the launch of Orchard for ALL!

Urban Tilth celebrated its 5th annual Fruit Tree Giveaway event this past spring and gave away another 400 fruit trees to local residents, along with compost and root guard baskets!

We are so grateful to connect with our Richmond community and work together to build a beautiful Richmond together!

This summer we are looking forward launching our new Orchard for All! Program which will offer jobs to local youth helping to care for some of the hundreds of fruit trees we've helped to plant in Richmond over the past 5 years. This new free service will be available to Richmond Fruit Tree Owners in exchange for sharing some of the fruit their trees grow each year with community members in need through our FREE Farm Stands program.

Learn more about how we are building on the power of this beloved annual fruit tree giveaway to make a distributed community orchard across the back and front yards of hundreds of Richmond residents. [Learn More]

*We could not have done this event without the support of the Patterson Memorial Fund of the Marin Community Foundation.