USDA: Extension Efforts Transforming Urban Agriculture

“By integrating education, hands-on training and community engagement, Extension helps urban residents develop and share the skills and knowledge needed to grow food in these areas that face unique challenges including space constraints and soil health issues,”

By Margaret Lawrence
USDA
Dec 29,2025

Excerpt:

Alabama Extension at Alabama A&M University developed the Urban Green to train urban residents to manage landscapes, urban gardens and pests. Its Back-2-Basics online series delivers basic gardening and landscaping practices for people with limited space. About 40% of participants wanted to learn how to start, manage and maintain a backyard or community garden. Extension horticulture programs like Urban Green help minimize negative environmental impacts, reduce food insecurity and increase the intake of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Let’s Grow Together, an Alcorn State University effort, is planting more than crops. It’s cultivating skills, relationships and a sense of ownership in local food systems. The series educates people in everything from soil testing and seed starting to pest management and seasonal planting strategies. It is especially appealing to home gardeners, small-scale growers and community garden volunteers.
Florida A&M University Cooperative Extension and the city of West Palm Beach have partnered to transform area neighborhoods through community gardens. These gardens provide residents with fresh, local produce while teaching practical growing practices such as composting, water conservation and integrated pest management.

Lincoln University Cooperative Extension (LUCE) is helping growers — rural and urban — achieve their farming dreams. LUCE professionals use workshops, farm visits and field days to share research-based programming with urban growers to encourage the use of best farming practices. By producing safe, healthy crops, these farms become neighborhood assets, acting not only as food sources but as community centers and educational venues.

Southern University Agricultural Research and Extension Center provides agricultural training to young people through its innovative Out the Mud Urban Horticulture Program. The program’s objectives are clear: to create therapeutic horticulture experiences for youths in correctional facilities and on school campuses; to promote healthy lifestyles through nutrition education; and to build professional and interpersonal skills that open pathways to careers while strengthening family connections. The dual approach of providing classroom instruction and hands-on activities to cultivate and maintain horticultural garden plots equips participants with technical knowledge and fosters teamwork, responsibility and resilience.

Read the complete article here.