Authors: Rose Jennings, Sheriff Aliu, and Patrick Baur

The JUST GROW Providence hub, currently investigating how to better center equity in governance and policy networks for urban agriculture, made a fun and informative site visit last weekend to the African Alliance Rhode Island (AARI)’s pop-up farmers market in Roger Williams Park. Three members of our University of Rhode Island team were present: Patrick Baur, site and project lead; Rose Jennings, postdoc fellow; and Sheriff Aliu, doctoral candidate.

This was the first pop-up market of the 2024 season, with more scheduled throughout Providence and neighboring cities to connect the community farmers who grow at AARI’s Bami Farm, located a few miles outside of the city center, with urban communities who want access to fresh, healthy fruits and vegetables. These lively pop-up markets, which provide other services such as health screening information and nutrition tips, highlight how urban agriculture is deeply intertwined with the fabric of urban places and peoples beyond the borders of the farms or gardens themselves.

The farmers at Bami Farm live in the communities that the pop-up markets serve. Julius Kolawole and other organizers with AARI shared some stories about the origins of Bami Farm, one of our community partners, inspired by the desire to create healthy spaces in nature for women in their community to address persistent mental health issues while also providing healthy food.

We learned that the Bitter Ball is not an eggplant! Such ‘misnaming’ or ‘misclassification’ may seem trivial on the surface but it contributes to a larger, more significant issue – the gradual loss of the cultural and food identity of immigrant communities. Cultural sustainability is a key topic for JUST GROW, and the Kyoto University hub is leading this aspect of the research, investigating the cultural sustainability dimensions of urban agricultural intensification in the Keihanshin region.

Finally, our very own Sheriff took home some beautiful veggies as a trophy for being the fastest plantain peeler at the market! Events such as this friendly competition to see who could prep three green plantains the fastest help foster connections across distinct communities, including Afro-Caribbean, West African, and Latin@ immigrants, through recognition of shared cultural affinities for foods like plantains.

We are grateful to the African Alliance Rhode Island for sharing some of their experience creating more equitable access to land and healthy food produced on this land. As we head into the next phase of the project, learning about communication pathways and regional networks that facilitate equitable knowledge production and decision making processes, these site visits really enable us to see different dimensions of the story.