The Michigan Urban Farming Initiative, based in Detroit’s North End community, is an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that seeks to engage members of the community in sustainable agriculture. It believes that challenges unique to urban communities like Detroit (e.g., vacant land, food insecurity) present an opportunity for community-supported agriculture. Its primary focus is the redevelopment of a three-acre area in Detroit’s north end, which is being positioned as an epicenter of urban agriculture. This space is heavily themed by “adaptive reuse of the built-environment” in which it hopes to demonstrate everything from best practices for sustainable urban agriculture, effective strategies for increasing food security, cost-competitive and scalable models for blight deconstruction, and innovation.
