This story is published in partnership with BridgeDetroit.
A day after the first National Urban Agriculture Conference took place in Detroit to foster collaboration between the United States Department of Agriculture and urban farmers, the director of Detroit’s highly anticipated USDA urban farming office resigned.
The USDA’s Detroit Urban Service Agency was established earlier this year as one of 17 in cities around the country to host centers focused on connecting urban farmers to federal resources.
In July 2022, USDA officials held a listening session at Eastern Market to hear from Detroit farmers about what they wanted from the office. Farmers said it should be centrally located in Detroit and accessible by public transportation.
In February 2023, the office launched with the hiring of Jamal Thomas to direct the center. But since then, the office has operated out of Ann Arbor with no timeline for moving to Detroit, and has fallen short on expectations for local farmers, including Thomas.
“It wasn’t what I thought it was and I wasn’t prepared to wait for it to catch up to the narrative,” said Thomas, who is also Highland Park City Council President. Four days a week Thomas said he found himself having to commute to Ann Arbor to do the job.
Detroit farmer Malik Yakini also expressed concern about the location in a keynote address during the three-day conference last week, which organizers noted was hosted in Detroit because of its importance in the urban agriculture movement.
“USDA – I’m a little concerned because the Detroit urban service location is based in Ann Arbor,” said Yakini, former executive director of the Detroit Black Community Food Sovereignty Network and founder of D-Town Farms. “I just want to be clear, Ann Arbor is not Detroit.”
USDA urban farming conference attended by hundreds
The conference was hosted by Virginia State University College of Agriculture, To Improve Mississippi Economics, Inc., and supported by the USDA. It kicked off with tours of Detroit farms including Drew Farm, Georgia Street Community Collective, Beaverland Farms, and D-Town Farms.
Two days of panel discussions and presentations provided hundreds of attendees information on all things urban farming, including USDA programs to assist urban growers, farm-to-school programming and farming amid climate change. Democratic U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow and U.S. Rep Elissa Slotkin attended and gave remarks.
“Detroit has definitely been one of the pioneers and pathway pavers to urban agriculture,” said conference organizer Briana Stevenson, national urban agriculture coordinator for Virginia State University. “We chose to pay homage and collect the wisdom that is here.”
The USDA has no timeline for moving the “Detroit” office to Detroit, according to Christina Salenbien, acting state executive director of the USDA farm service agency in Michigan.
“We continue to seek our opportunity to be here, physically present in Detroit,” said Salenbien, adding that the decision to move lies within the U.S. General Services Administration, not her department. A representative for the GSA couldn’t be immediately reached.
Before he quit, Thomas played a crucial role, she said.
“Jamal Thomas has been a fantastic connected point… in terms of reaching the community and us learning about what the needs truly are,” Salenbien said.
Beyond representation and gathering feedback, Salenbien said the office has helped with an uptick in people seeking farm numbers and with the noninsured assistance crop program.
Jon Kent, co-founder of Sanctuary Farms on Detroit’s east side, said when he first heard about the Detroit office he was excited to learn about USDA programs that his farm might be able to utilize.
“A lot of times there is this disconnect when speaking to some of the folks that are in the USDA that only have knowledge as it relates to rural farming,” said Kent.
But Kent said he never connected with the office, in part because it was in Ann Arbor.
Andy Chae, vice chair of the Michigan Commission of Agriculture and Rural Development who has used some USDA programs for his Fisheye Farms in Core City, said he didn’t know if a Detroit office was necessary as many things could be done by phone or email. Keep Growing Detroit also hosts events for the USDA, he added.
“I don’t think the FSA office has been much help to Detroit farmers yet,” he said, because the FSA is mostly a lending institution for bigger farms. “I think it’s great that they want to help and are recognizing UA as a legit source of food production, but I don’t think the policies have caught up,” he said by email.
Still, the conference held significant meaning for longtime urban farmers, like Nefer Ra Barber, who farmed in Detroit for decades.
A founding member of the Detroit Black Community Food Sovereignty Network, she’s since moved to Atlanta where she founded Women Who Love To Grow, an organization that removes barriers for female farmers.
Barber flew in from Atlanta for the conference.
“When I first started going to conferences and telling people that I was an urban ag farmer, they literally laughed me out the room, these big farm guys,” said Barber, “Now to see an urban ag conference in a major city like Detroit is amazing.”
Stevenson said the future of the conference and whether there will be a second is based on USDA grant funding.