Our Commitment to Equity

Common Good City Farm’s (CGCF) mission is to create a vibrant, informed, and well-nourished community through urban farming. We are a place where community members can source fresh food, see sustainable urban agriculture in action, and gain exposure to concepts and skills to lead healthy lives. We are committed to being an organization that engages all members of our diverse community and creates opportunities for connection, contributing to the vibrancy and sense of place in our community.

CGCF believes that equity is an essential component of a healthy and vibrant community. We acknowledge that our country’s agricultural history was founded on inequity and that many inequities still exist in our food system. We recognize that systemic inequities are often interconnected, resulting in our city and our community experiencing inequities not only in the food system, but in housing, education, employment, the justice system, and beyond.

We also recognize that urban agriculture has been seen as a determinant of gentrification. As Common Good City Farm is located in a gentrifying neighborhood, we must be cognizant of this. We recognize that it is our responsibility to ensure that our organization serves the community equitably. While accessibility and inclusiveness guide CGCF’s work, we acknowledge that removing barriers to access is not sufficient to ensure equity. We must incorporate equity principles into all aspects of our organization. To that end, we are committed to continually providing avenues for input, representation, and decision-making for all community members, especially those most impacted by food injustice, to furthering our own education on how to build an equitable food system, and to creating an equitable organizational culture.

As an urban farm, promoting equity and self-sufficiency in regards to food access is central to our work. While the food system is our area of work, we can use this spirit of community self-reliance and independence from an unjust system to support our community in other areas in which they experience inequities. As such, we are committed to: connecting diverse individuals to each other; fostering connections between marginalized community members and local representatives and community groups; and informing ourselves and others about policies, laws, regulations, or decisions that may negatively impact our community.

Creating an equitable organization and local food system is an ongoing process. We view this as a working document from which to build concrete steps and evaluate our progress as we work towards honoring our commitment to equity.