On a crisp autumn afternoon in East Boston, volunteers gather at Eastie Farms to pack CSA shares: boxes of fresh lettuce, apples, and carrots destined for neighborhood families. The greenhouse they’re in, built with a state food security infrastructure grant, operates without burning a single drop of fossil fuel. Outside, rain barrels catch every drop of water from the roof, ensuring nothing flows into already-stressed storm drains.
This tucked-away “secret garden,” as staff call it, represents a growing movement across Boston. Urban farms are working to address food insecurity while building community resilience in neighborhoods often overlooked by the conventional food system.
East Boston faces stark challenges. Just one supermarket serves over 50,000 residents, making much of the neighborhood a food desert by federal standards. The community sits adjacent to Logan Airport, resulting in elevated childhood asthma rates from pollution. It’s also a largely immigrant community, where many families struggle to find familiar ingredients: produce varieties, spices, and staples that mainstream grocery stories often don’t stock.
“No matter if you pay nothing or the highest rate, you’re getting the same, very good quality” - Morgan Barlin, Eastie Farms
Within this setting,Yet Eastie Farms has built a 337-member community-supported agriculture program that integrates free, affordable, and market-rate shares. Members paying above market rate directly subsidize those who cannot afford anything at all and everyone receives the same high-quality local produce.
“This is very good quality produce that we’re purchasing from local farms, and that we also grow here at Eastie Farm,” says Morgan Barlin, the program manager at Eastie Farm. “No matter if you pay nothing or the very highest rate, you’re getting the same very good quality.”
A Piece of the Puzzle, not the Solution
But urban farms alone cannot solve Boston’s food access crisis. Chris Bosso, a food systems expert at Northeastern University, studies the bigger picture: even combining every urban farm in Boston wouldn’t match the production capacity of a two-acre farm in central Massachusetts.
Urban Farms Cannot Compete with the Scale of Traditional Farming
“You have to be clear-headed about what you want your urban agriculture for,” Bosso says. The economics simply don’t work for large-scale food production in cities where land is expensive and contested. Housing, playgrounds, and farms all compete for the same limited space.
The data tells a complex story. According to Project Bread’s annual hunger report, food insecurity remains persistent across Massachusetts, with rates particularly high in working-class immigrant communities. The Greater Boston Food Bank serves over 600,000 individuals annually, a need far exceeding what urban agriculture can address alone.
Shani Fletcher, who directs Grow Boston for the city’s Environment Department, acknowledges these limitations while highlighting urban farms’ unique contributions. The city’s grassroots program has supported farm development for three decades, providing vacant land and federal funding to convert abandoned lots into productive green spaces.
“We probably won’t ever be able to grow all the food in Boston that we would need to feed everyone,” Fletcher says. “But it does provide a supplement to the supply chain. And when there are crises, it’s good to have backup systems.”
Fletcher emphasizes that urban agriculture deepens community relationships in ways traditional food distribution cannot. Farms become hubs connecting people in need with resources, and third spaces where neighbors discover they live next door to each other.
The real challenge remains economic, not geographic. Boston technically has no food deserts. This is thanks in large part to the efforts of as former Mayor Menino, who deliberately brought grocery stores back to every neighborhood in the 1990s. Yet an The problem is affordability challenge remains. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits help, but with potential federal cuts becoming a new challenge to SNAPlooming, organizations like Eastie Farm provide critical resilience.
Opportunities for Support
Recent state legislation could expand opportunities. Massachusetts State Senator Comerford and State Representative Clay’s Farm Omnibus Bill would require maximizing local food in assistance programs, exactly what Eastie Farm already does. Another proposed bill would fund converting abandoned urban plots into agricultural spaces.
Recent State Legislation Could Expand Opportunities
Massachusetts State Senator Comerford and State Representative Clay’s Farm Omnibus Bill would require maximizing local food in assistance programs, exactly what Eastie Farm already does. Another proposed bill would fund converting abandoned urban plots into agricultural spaces.
Despite these challenges, the farms persist. At Eastie Farm, volunteers receive soup made from produce they helped distribute, a small but powerful symbol of reciprocity. Young people join the Climate Corps, learning green job skills while growing food for their neighbors. Community members who once needed free produce now pay to support others.
The lesson from Boston’s urban farms is nuanced. They cannot replace the conventional food system or solve food insecurity alone. But they offer something equally valuable. They create spaces where community members reconnect with land and each other, where economic mobility remains possible, and where neighborhoods build the resilience to weather whatever storm comes next.
“When you think of an idea, you may not be the first person who came up with that idea,” Thiruvengadam advises others hoping to start similar projects. “Start small. Take the first step. Don’t create barriers for yourself.”
Sources: Project Bread, Grow Boston, Eastie Farms, Greater Boston Food Bank, UMass Amherst, City of Boston Urban Farm Directory.
Information on farms (founding year, size) was aggregated from a variety of sources. View the full dataset here.