Larta Institute’s Urban Agriculture Task Force Advocates for Urban Farmers in Los Angeles Region
The Issue
As part of the technical assistance plan with the Southwest Regional Food Business Center (SWRFBC) the Larta Institute’s (Larta) Urban Agriculture Task Force (Task Force) was formed. The purpose of the Task Force is to assess the most pressing needs of urban agriculture in the LA region and offer recommendations for addressing these needs.
During Larta’s intake assessments in the spring of 2025, every single member identified engaging with key stakeholders, such as government officials, and access to funding, as pain points. Each municipality has its own rules and regulations that impact permits for urban farms. Without a champion on the governing board (city council, county council, etc), it can be very difficult to navigate the necessary processes including applying for permits, land access, water access, gaining rights to sell or holding a farmers market, etc. Moreover, urban agriculture is often done on leased land, making this an ongoing issue.
When councils are creating the rules that govern urban agriculture, they may or may not understand the value that is being created beyond growing food. Urban farms have an obvious mission of growing food, but they also have a less obvious impact that is harder to communicate: providing safe green spaces for community members to enjoy, supporting and engaging with local schools, helping formerly incarcerated individuals re-acclimate to society and receive on the job training. It is critical that these councils be educated on the significant implications of urban farms. As an example, a city council member may not care about gardening, but they do care about local school children or green spaces.
Supporting Larta’s task force members in better communicating all the impacts and benefits that they create in a community can only help them as they communicate their value to permitting agencies and municipal governments. Creating an impact report that communicates all of the value might help governing bodies make better informed decisions and or regulations regarding urban agriculture. Additionally, as a non-profit Larta understands that many donors and grantors are looking for, if not requiring, measurable impact goals in the causes they support. With the changing landscape of government grants, independent funding sources are increasingly important to our non-profit task force members. For both of these reasons providing a training on how to write an impact report would be valuable to the task force member.
Our Response
Larta developed a training program, deliverable through online meeting software such as Zoom, to create robust impact report development tailored to the needs of urban farmers. The online meetings were recorded to share the training with individuals whose schedules prevented participation, and to allow the information to be disseminated to Larta clients. Follow-up will also be provided to anyone interested. Half of the task force was able to attend the on-line meeting, and there was a great discussion about unique problems faced by urban farmers and how to convey messages publicly. Larta staff discussed how to make impact reports more effective and the audience/target for these reports.
Our Impact
Many of Larta’s task force members are already communicating their impact in various ways, but they are only capturing a portion of their impact, and have not necessarily been disseminating the information to all key stakeholders. Larta was able to tailor feedback in real time during the online meetings, discussing additional areas of impact to capture, and ways to disseminate that information. Due to the enthusiasm generated during the training sessions, one of our members, who is an author, has offered to help each member tell their unique story. The task force group members also asked Larta to arrange another task force meeting in quarter four of 2025 to review the information as they are preparing their reports for the year and provide feedback. Larta will hold a follow-up meeting then, review their reports, and provide the requested feedback.
