Starting in 2016, many of Herban Produce’s customers thought they were doing a favor to co-owners Alicia Nesbary-Moore and Barry Howard, pitching in their dollars to support the fledgling two-acre urban farm in East Garfield Park.
“People were like, ‘Oh, we’ll take your lettuce because we feel bad for you,’” Howard laughed. “But we realized they should buy it because we have the best produce in the city of Chicago.”
In a split from the majority of urban farms in the Chicago area, the co-owners are determined to cultivate a true business with Herban Produce. It wasn’t always that way. For two years, the two-acre farm operated as a nonprofit.
“I kind of found myself in spaces where it seemed like I was charity, and I didn’t really like that feeling,” Nesbary-Moore said. “People kept wanting to categorize me as a community garden on the West Side — like, ‘Do business with them because they’re on the West Side.’”
Instead, she insisted: “Do business with me because I provide high-quality product, and it’s hyperlocal, and you’re supporting the local economy.”
So in 2018, the farm at 2900 W. Van Buren St. shifted to become a for-profit enterprise supplying restaurants citywide.
“We wanted to change the narrative away from this just kind of feel-bad-for-you poverty world to ‘Hey, let’s empower, let’s show us trying to create a real business here,’” Howard said. “East Garfield Park has great people and ultimately a lot of vacant land because of the hollowing out of the population.”
Howard, who said he wanted to “demystify” the area for friends, found the vacant lots after exploring the neighborhood when visiting the Garfield Park Conservatory.
Most urban farms opt against operating for profit because the agriculture on its own often is not sustainable financially, Howard said.
Instead of relying solely on growing vegetables and fruits in their 15 lots, Herban Produce also looks to other avenues. They offer tours and rent out an indoor event space, as well as an outdoor space nestled in the two-acre plot.
The farm also rents out an upstairs space on Airbnb, where visitors can have an immersive experience on-site.
Another initiative is their Market Box, sent weekly to subscribers with a handful of the farm’s fresh produce, along with a few pantry staples.
Following the Midwest growing seasons, Herban Produce plans to host a fall festival complete with a pumpkin patch and cider, to give city kids an opportunity to pick their own pumpkins.
The fields also bear flowers, which Herban Produce sells to local florists. Sunflowers grow tall, along with lavender plants and feathery pinkish-red celosias.
“These are interesting because they taste like candy,” Nesbary-Moore said, plucking a ground cherry from one of the overflowing fields. “They taste like pineapple.”
In the produce lots, bright green beans, lettuce and tomatoes grow under Nesbary-Moore’s watchful eye.
“People don’t understand how much labor is involved,” she said. “It really makes you think about the way we take food for granted.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has tested their efforts, though. Previously, the farm held constant partnerships with restaurants, but due to understaffing, fewer are willing to maintain the connection.
Now, Howard says the farm partners with about seven Chicago restaurants.
While the farm is constantly looking to expand and grow, Nesbary-Moore says the amount of pressure placed on urban farms is not realistic in the face of systemic issues across the city.
“One thing about urban farms is we’re so small,” she said. “Two acres in the city is huge, right? That’s unheard of to have this much square footage, I understand that. But I still don’t have the hundreds of acres that my colleagues have downstate. So the idea that these urban farms are going to be able to solve food problems and systemic issues is just unrealistic.”
Ultimately, Howard hopes that businesses that are able to thrive in neighborhoods like East Garfield Park can help revitalize communities.
“I think, ultimately, if a lot of people visited and supported businesses like that, I think you’re now fundamentally solving some of the violence and other issues that are there,” he said. “I’m not going to claim that I’m a sociologist, but violence is a symptom of poverty, it’s not a symptom of people.”
