Hands down the most interesting item on tonight’s Decatur City Commission agenda are requests from the Asst. City Manager David Junger regarding the long talked about urban farm on the property of the United Methodist Children’s Home.

For two years, the city has been openly talking about a possible Urban Farm Market on two rare open acres of land owned by the United Methodist Children’s Home, which sits just outside the Decatur city limits.  However, there were many hurdles to overcome.  Who would run such a farm and who would pay for it?

Yet again, it looks like Decatur has found a creative way of bringing parties together to make it a reality.

According to Mr. Junger’s letter – which is on page 33 of the attachments – about a year ago, city staff heard about the urban garden on Sams Street run primarily by refugee women resettled in the United States from Burundi.  (DM first reported on the effort back in June 2010)  The city contacted and met with Refugee Family Services, which runs the Sams Street garden project, who were very excited about the possibilities of the UMCH project and confirmed they had the skills and ability to manage to two acres.

Awesome news! But what about the money?

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Yep.  That chicken (and goat!) story.

THIS is great.

Our Community Farm Project is located at 121 Sams Street in Decatur, GA. We are a start-up, urban farm led by experienced Burundi farmers who’ve come to metro-Atlanta as refugees and supported by a group of Burundi women, joining together to grow food, exchange farming knowledge, and to develop a greater understanding of farming practice in the ATLanta area. The farm will also provide the families who are often facing food security risks with healthy food for their tables.

Our Goal: Working in partnership with Susan Pavlin and Refugee Family Services, our mission is to provide these women with practical farm experience, workshops and trips to local farmers markets in order to create new opportunities in production, distribution and marketing.

Stop by their blog for recent updates and pics – including the one above – of their latest efforts and harvests. 

Thanks to “For the Birds” for forwarding. (for, for, for!)

Dave over at InDecatur notes this quote from Agnes Scott’s Sustainability Director in an interview with the AJC…

But [this week] we’re going to announce a partnership for gardening and food with the city of Decatur, Decatur city schools, Georgia Organics and Oakhurst. What we’re going to do is find multiple locations to [develop] gardens and figure out who does the labor, how it’s funded and how the [produce] is distributed to the community.

The last time I asked the city about the “urban farms” initiative, they said it was still in the planning stages.  But this weekend is the Georgia Organics Conference at Agnes Scott, so this would be a good time to get it all out there.  Hopefully we’ll hear the full details soon!

Also, it looks like there’s still a chance to meet Michael Pollan even if you can’t attend the conference or the farm to table dinner.  Carl sent me a link a few days back from Slow Food Atlanta, which advertised “Cocktails in the Garden” with Pollan at the Oakhurst Community Garden on Friday, March 20th from 6:30-7p.  Tickets are $35 and can be purchased here.