If Farm School NYC Closes, What Will the City Lose?

On a humid Friday evening in early September, staff at Farm School New York City (FSNYC), an urban agriculture education organization, called an emergency town hall to share a critical update. They were at risk of closing—as early as the end of the year— and were starting an emergency fundraiser with a $250,000 goal. FSNYC staff shared that federal funding cuts had further deepened their funding gap and put their work with various community partners in jeopardy.

FSNYC equips NYC-based residents with the tools, training, and support needed to practice sustainable agriculture and advance food sovereignty, food justice, and liberation. It is one of the few urban agriculture education spaces that has a sliding-scale tuition model, making it accessible to everyone. With proper funding, organizations like FSNYC equip learner farmers and land stewards with the knowledge to build sustainable businesses, forge food justice movements, and rebuild relationships with the land. If FSNYC is forced to further reduce capacity or permanently close, what historical, cultural, and institutional knowledge will New York City lose?

An Uncertain 2025

This year has been full of questions and meetings for the organization’s staff, board, and alumni network. “At the same time, we are trying to figure out what will happen with our jobs and our programs,” said Frances Pérez-Rodríguez, the program coordinator for FSNYC, in an interview with NPQ.

In 2024, FSNYC applied to several federal programs administered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), including the USDA Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production Grant program, Farm Service Agency Grants and Cooperative Agreements, and the Thriving Communities Grantmaker Program, among other opportunities. Its largest federal grant is part of a 27-organization cooperative agreement.

“We had organizations giving microgrants out to farmers, uncertain if they would get that money back and when,” said Dyaami D’Orazio, FSNYC’s programs director, in an interview with NPQ.

Once the Trump administration transitioned in early January, FSNYC’s grant awards kept getting delayed and were eventually frozen. This put the organization in immediate limbo between January and May. During that time, D’Orazio said, “we were planning our programs and starting to sound the alarm about whether Farm School was going to be able to make it.”

In analyzing their cash flow, staff worried that the organization might have to close as early as August. By early spring, FSNYC had to lay off three staff members, and reduce hours for some of the remaining staff. Fueled by a strong desire not to disrupt programming, FSNYC leaders successfully petitioned the federal government to apply for reimbursements. But while they were able to recover some funds, they are nowhere near being in the clear.

“Our cash flow is still uncertain, and we [still] have a pretty big gap,” D’Orazio said.

FSNYC has been operating at a deficit for some time, still striving to provide good pay and benefits for its staff. Despite these challenges, the organization has been able to maintain relationships and tap into its network.

The Way Forward

The current gap in FSNYC’s funding is $500,000—the amount needed to get them somewhat comfortably into 2026, keeping staff at full capacity with benefits. Most recently, FSNYC received a one-time $100,000 emergency grant, but that is just enough to close the gap for the rest of 2025. The organization’s fundraising campaign remains open for support.

At the emergency town hall, attendees discussed options for the organization’s future that included a possible merger and implementing a subscription model for FSNYC’s offerings.

“People are shocked, worried, and activated to help in ways that they can,” Pérez-Rodríguez said.

One critical part of FSNYC’s ethos is being part of the Black Farmer Ecosystem, a collective working to shift power and ownership to Black farmers in New York through advocacy, policy, and capital. The Ecosystem includes FSNYC, Soul Fire Farm Institute, Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust, Black Farmers United-NYS, Corbin Hill Food Project, and Black Farmer Fund. Pérez-Rodríguez explained that the ecosystem is figuring out how they can better align to further fortify the network.

Within the US context, farming has always been political for land stewards and farmers of color. “We teach urban agriculture but also have a social justice focus,” said Cris Izaguirre, a farmer, cultural worker and facilitator at FSNYC.

While American agriculture has actively sought to erase the knowledge and contributions of Black and Indigenous farmers, the organization makes a point to work in partnership with many queer, trans, and BIPOC growers managing farms and gardens across the city and state.

“No one wants Farm School to close,” Izaguirre said. “Oftentimes we don’t always see the long-term impact of our work, but seeing alumni out in the field, and applying the resources and skills that they learned during their time at Farm School makes it all worth it.”

Existing in the Current Moment

When asked whether FSNYC would apply for government funding again, Pérez-Rodríguez emphasized that “nothing that the government creates is for the benefit of QTBIPOC people.”

The US government, they explained, particularly under the current administration, is actively working to oppress and exploit the bodies and labor of QTBIPOC people.

“That is the framework that most people at Farm School are coming to the work with,” Pérez-Rodríguez said.

The Farm School community has urged the organization to stop relying on government funds because of how quickly it can be taken away. “It is hard to keep asking our oppressor for this when it is owed to us,” said Pérez-Rodríguez.

At the same time, the organization is wrestling with the fact that in the past it was able to leverage government funds to expand its work. The next phase for FSNYC, as for many nonprofits across the sector, is determining how to depend on its network with more creative streams of revenue.

“With the current administration, there are DEI words that we can’t even use in order for our funding to not be cut,” said Izaguirre. All those words, he explained, encompass exactly what the organization does and stands for.

“How do we exist in this [current] world and in these [grant] proposals when the government is clearly saying: You cannot have this money?” said Izaguirre. Along with attacking the agriculture and farming industry, the current administration is taking away basic rights and resources.

“It is so clear to me that the impact of our work is in our students,” D’Orazio said. “The most powerful part of Farm School is that we are helping people understand the reality of what it takes to get food on someone’s table.”

This story also appears on NPQ

Know Your Farmer: Addressing the Heart of Food Insecurity in Kensington

Cities across the United States continue to deal with the lasting impacts of food apartheid, an intentional system of violence perpetrated through disparities in food access. Food apartheid also underscores how other structural injustices, such as redlining and over-policing, have limited the access to fresh, nutritious, and affordable food.

Kensington, a neighborhood in North Philadelphia is a prime example of food apartheid. But one Philadelphia farmer, Christa Barfield, owner of the community farm and greenhouse FarmerJawn, is looking to combat this issue directly with a new farm-to-corner storefront called CornerJawn, aimed at improving the health outcomes and social fabric of the Kensington community.

Barfield began dreaming up CornerJawn after a trip to Martinique in 2018, where she stayed in an Airbnb owned by Black Martinican farmers. Barfield was inspired by them to better understand the origins of food and its actors in her community: “Where are the farms, and where are people getting their food and why?” In her own neighborhood, corner-stores owners were hesitant to sell fresh produce because they were afraid it would not sell. That is when Barfield began to conceptualize a corner store that would offer “food as medicine” to the community.

The Need for Nourishing Food

While there are many places to buy food in Kensington, Barfield points out that there’s a lack of nutritional security. From 2021 to 2024, food insecurity in the Philadelphia area jumped from 13.6 percent to 21.2 percent. Statewide, one in seven Pennsylvania residents used the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in 2024.

“Yes, you can find a mini mart that is selling some kind of nourishment, but is it really nourishing? That’s the true conversation here,” said Barfield in an interview with NPQ. “Localizing the food system is how you get to the heart of nutrition security, and that starts with knowing who your farmer is.”

Read the full story on NPQ

The USDA puts back missing webpages. What happens next?

Patrick Hendry via Unsplash

While the USDA agreed to restore critical USDA webpages that farmers and the entire agricultural industry depend on, what happens next?   

Since the start of the Trump Administration, farmers and the entire agricultural industry have been under siege. Alongside the administration's cuts to critical grants, by mid-February, the USDA had removed essential information from its main website and 18 subagencies, including the US Forest Service and Rural Development (RD), such as grants, technical resources, and interactive tools like the Climate Risk Viewer.  The Trump Administration targeted Inflation Reduction Act-supported programs, as well as those related to regenerative agriculture, organic farming, and climate resilience. However, a swift lawsuit quickly exposed the wrongdoing, and the missing content is now being restored.   

In February, Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, and the First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York (NOFA-NY), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and the Environmental Working Group (EWG). The lawsuit cited that three federal laws were violated: the Freedom of Information Act, the Paperwork Reduction Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. All of these laws require adequate notice before changes can be made to official government websites. The laws also state the right to access key information and documents before they are removed.   

"One harm that has come out of the web page removals is that it significantly undermined an organization's ability to trust USDA, digital resources, to trust that they're up to date, [and] that they're accurate," says Jeffrey Stein, an associate attorney at Earthjustice in an interview. 

Farmers no longer had access to the information they needed to make informed decisions related to climate change risks, such as wildfires, extreme heat, and floods.   

NOFA-NY, one of the leading plaintiffs in the case, said that the removal of USDA webpages immediately impacted organic farmers. It also undermined NOFA-NY's work as an organic certifier. As a certifier, NOFA-NY has the authority to label a food producer's product as organic by verifying whether the producer meets the strict National Organic Program standards. Just as importantly, NOFA-NY acts as a liaison between farmers and federal resources.  The organization's technical advising team, which works directly with farmers in the field, had suddenly lost its ability to advise on specific practices and refer farmers to additional resources.

"Especially for [organic farmers] in meeting and maintaining farming practices through the National Resource Conservation Services (NRCS)—a lot of it was just gone," said Marcie Craig, executive director of NOFA-NY.  While the organization worked to pick up the pieces, "It's really educated us on exactly how farmers are accessing and what resources they're accessing," said Craig. Craig makes clear that these impacts hit farmers across the board.  

What was most unclear from the removal of webpages was the availability of funding. Farmers could no longer apply for or access funding programs. For example, with NRCS funding, farmers are expected to cover upfront costs and then receive reimbursement later following an official USDA inspection. "With all of the layoffs happening, who's going to do that?" Thus far, nearly 59,000 federal jobs have been lost since the start of the Trump Administration, NPR reports. At the USDA, 15,000 positions have been shed, reports DTN Progressive Farmer.    

For the USDA, some employees in mission-critical positions were offered resignation packages with five months' pay and benefits. Just shortly after, the agency began scrambling to fill those key positions. Late last month, a California federal judge blocked the USDA, alongside other agencies, from continuing its unlawful firings and department restructurings. However, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins firmly stands behind the belief that these layoffs will be about "realigning and refocusing USDA around its original intended mission." However, it is clear that many of the agency's moving parts are no longer functioning.   

Critical Webpages Return 

In mid-May, the USDA reversed its decision and restored the critical web pages that it removed. The agency announced its decision in a letter to the US District Court.  The reversal came as both a surprise and relief to the plaintiffs and farmers everywhere. On Wednesday, June 12, the plaintiffs provided an update to the court regarding whether the USDA is restoring the missing webpages in a timely and accurate manner, as promised by the agency.   

"As of right now, the USDA has restored all of the web pages and interactive tools that were identified in our complaint," said Stein. However, Stein explains that the restored web pages have a disclaimer stating that the content is under review and subject to change.   

On June 11, the plaintiffs filed a status report updating the court on the progress of the USDA in restoring climate change-related web content and data. The update also includes two critical requests from the plaintiffs—NOFA-NY, NRDC, EWG, and their legal team — which are for the government to provide a list of all the content that was removed, as well as an explanation for the declaimers.  As of now, the plaintiffs have no information on what the review process, conducted by the USDA, actually entails.   

Currently, the plaintiffs await the next steps.  Despite the uncertainty, the plaintiffs are grateful that there is some light at the end of the tunnel.