An important program of the Delaware Center for Horticulture (TheDCH) is its effort to encourage and improve the availability of fresh, locally-grown food for the citizens of Wilmington, Delaware. TheDCH operates an urban farm in cooperation with local residents in one of city’s areas of most need, to help address this issue and improve access to locally-grown food. As part of broader efforts through the Delaware Urban Farm & Food Coalition, a partnership-based, participatory framework focused on outreach and information-sharing, next steps for this movement involve finding markets for urban agricultural products which may contribute to economic development, job skills training, local marketing and neighborhood empowerment. This project will utilize existing data to analyze and prioritize opportunities for market development and revenue generation of Wilmington’s urban farm and network of community gardens.
TheDCH offers multiple datasets to support the project in table format and ArcGIS layers. These include specific urban agriculture data such as urban farms, community gardens, and school gardens, including data on water access, type of growing space, crop types, and community leadership. These datasets will serve to represent “supply.” We also have datasets that represent “demand” - these include locations and services such as corner stores, groceries, and farmers’ markets, as well as demographic data such as federal SNAP program participants, access to vehicles, and public transportation. Available base layers include municipal boundaries, land use, water features, census and demographic data, and various infrastructure. Through the FirstMap project (http://firstmap.delaware.gov/), the state of Delaware offer many datasets for free download. The three Delaware counties (New Castle, Kent, and Sussex) also offer free and downloadable GIS data for specific land use, parcel, and planning themes.
TheDCH is proposing maps that will incorporate information about existing urban farms and area gardens, as well as land available for this program and outlets/markets for sale of urban products that create opportunities for economic development. Important to the success of this program is community awareness, ease of access and availability of food as well as mechanisms for transporting food produced for sale. Statistical analysis could include information on the location of each farm and/or garden, size of each producing area, crops grown and annual harvest. Additionally, it would be beneficial to the success of this program to have analysis of community participation in the various gardens to include number and age of volunteers, hours worked and daily sales.
The maps and reports will be used for PLANNING, COORDINATION and PROMOTION. The work will provide TheDCH with the ability to better plan its urban agriculture efforts including the selection of sites, improving awareness of the program and increasing the local availability of fresh food. Additionally, it will help in the planning of educational programs including cultivation, nutrition and cooking. It will support increased participation by clearly defining the urban agriculture resources available in the City of Wilmington, and will help in coordination with other coalition partners by avoiding duplication, encouraging more on-the-ground partnership, and engaging new markets.
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