Edible Dallas & Fort Worth Spring 2022

EDIBLE COMMUNITY

Lef t to r ight : Owen Lynch, Morris Moye and Tyrone Day at The Seed- ling Farm at the MLK Community Center

opportunities and training, access to food, and the means to become more resi lient. Our goal was to design a system ap- proach to do these things,” says Dr. Owen Lynch, a professor at SMU and co-founder of Restorative Farms. Dr. Lynch wanted to study the issues surrounding food deserts in order to figure out if there was a viable solution that could include the notion of restorative justice, which emphasizes repairing the harm caused by crime by having the victims, offenders, and com- munity members get together to help decide the best plan forward. As per RestorativeJustice.org “it emphasizes accountability and making amends.” This led Dr. Lynch to put together a coalition of farmers, scientists, entrepreneurs, government officials—and, most importantly, local citizens—dedicated to developing an urban agrisystem in South Dallas. In short, they imagined an integrated, farm-based, hub- and-spoke food system that went from seed to table to seed again, all while employing and empowering the people of the community to transcend the current barriers they face with regards to resource and job scarcity. Some people see urban farm projects like this as building bridges to the community, but Dr. Lynch sees it more systemically: he wants to “smash the f*cking walls down,” referring to these barriers. And that’s the underlying attitude of this project which has gathered some notable partners for doing things differently by applying a systematic, accounting-like methodology to growth on all fronts. “We’re not Facebook Farmers,” notes Brad Boa, another co-found- er, referring to efforts that might have lofty intentions and mis- sion statements but without the infrastructure to remain viable.

“While we applaud everyone who’s started an urban farm, most unfortunately fail within three years. We’re here to calculate and measure every bit of real-world data and turn that into actionable things we can do every day to build and scale something that will last. It’s very hard work to maintain energy, interest, and especially the financial aspect of running one.” The first component was The Seedling Farm at the MLK Com- munity Center a few blocks from Fair Park. The Seedling Farm fo- cuses on germinating the seedlings (young plants). These are then “ I’m f rom r ight h ere a nd I want t o s tay h ere u ntil i t’s done. I w ant t o c reate t he ambition t o g et o ur c om- munity b ack t o t he h ome remedy o f g rowing y our own food.” –Tyrone Day

16 | EDIBLE DALLAS & FORT WORTH SPRING 2022