Boston Urban Agriculture Recommendations Report

In this phase, we engaged Boston residents in the four priority neighborhood as well as food producers, municipal leaders, and stakeholders to gather their feedback on the best methods for expanding urban agriculture in our city. This process took place between November 2022 - March 2024. The result of this phase is the Urban Agriculture Recommendations Report.

ENGAGEMENT METHODS

Neighborhood Engagement: Led by MAPC

The goal of MAPC’s neighborhood engagement was to hear the interests of residents who live and work in the priority neighborhoods (Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, and East Boston) as they relate to urban agriculture. In each priority neighborhood, MAPC assembled a committee of interested residents, and led five committee meetings. In partnership with the committees, MAPC hosted a community data gathering event in each neighborhood.

Municipal Engagement: Led by MAPC

MAPC conducted a municipal engagement effort.  This included a series of coordination meetings with City departments. MAPC interviewed staff from City departments and key community-based organizations. The goal of this engagement was to coordinate citywide systems and programs to better support local food producers.

MAPC met with staff from the following departments: GrowBoston: Office of Urban Agriculture; Boston Public Health Commission; Department of Public Works; Office of Youth Employment and Advancement; Office of Food Justice; Inspectional Services Department; Boston Planning and Development Agency; Parks and Recreation Department; Boston Water and Sewer Commission; Boston Public Schools; and Assessing Department.

MAPC also met with staff from the following community-based organizations: Boston Farms Community Land Trust; Urban Farming Institute; Trust for Public Land; The Trustees of Reservations; and Massachusetts Urban Agriculture Coalition.

Food Producer Engagement: Led by UFI

UFI led a full day event for 25 farmers and other food producers where they crafted a long-term vision for urban agriculture in the city. The goal of this engagement was to better understand food producer hopes and dreams for the city's food system. Please see Appendix 7 of the report for full details on the vision crafted by farmers and other food producers.

Youth Engagement: Led by GrowBoston

GrowBoston led two focus groups with high-school aged youth. The first group included five youth from the Mayor’s Youth Council’s Streets, Housing, and Neighborhood Development Committee. The second group included five youth from The Food Project. The goal of this engagement was to uplift youth voices and highlight where and how young people are interested in urban agriculture. Their recommendations are integrated on page 12 of the report under the “Youth Engagement Strategies” section. You can find key quotes from the focus group in Appendix 6.

We are dedicated to ensuring the Recommendations Report does not remain solely on the page, but actively shapes our priorities and programs. To do this, the GrowBoston team and Advisory Board conducted an extensive prioritization process, in which we ranked the recommendations in order to best be able to take impactful action.

We have already begun to implement recommendations from the report. Some examples include the list below. Please see this presentation for additional details and photos. 

• Urban Agriculture Ambassador Program (rec 4g.5): designed to provide free gardening education and support to residents in Roxbury, Mattapan, East Boston, and Dorchester. 
• Cross-Agency Working Group (rec 2B): created a quarterly working group to bring together over a dozen City departments to expand urban agriculture efforts across departments. 
• In-person tabling (rec 2d.3): Facilitating seasonal tabling opportunities to engage with residents in priority neighborhoods and provide education on UA.
• UA Director’s Network (rec 2e.5): Shani is participating in a network of UA directors from local governments to advance justice-focused food systems
• Integrating UA with new housing developments (rec 3a.4): In partnership with Neighborhood Housing Development and Boston Housing Authority, we are working to integrate more gardens and farms into both public housing communities and new housing developments.

In this phase, we are taking action, starting with the highest priorities established through our prioritization phase. Some of the action items will include things our office is already doing, some may be one-time projects we will launch, and other items are ongoing work we will incorporate into our office’s programs, processes, and policy efforts. We expect the implementation phase to take place over the next decade.

This page was last updated in March 2026