NYC Mayor's Office of Urban Agriculture

Thanks to all who came out this weekend for the Agriculture Impact Summit 2026 presented by Uptown & Boogie Healthy Project, where NYC Mayor's Office of Urban Agriculture Executive Director Qiana Mickie moderated a Fireside Chat: Creating Economic Opportunities for Growers & Farmers in New York! Special thanks to NYC Council Member Gale Brewer and local food specialist SJ Peterson for an illuminating conversation regarding challenges around local food procurement, values aligned purchasing, and creating economic opportunity for our our local farmers.

📣 Check out our new policy brief: 'Values Aligned Purchasing in NYC', exploring the ways in which New York City’s food procurement process can advance a more equitable, resilient, community-centered food system.

Read the policy brief at the link in comments!

JOIN US this Tuesday February 10th, 4:30-6:30 PM, at Adlai Stevenson Educational Campus Library for: 'Growing What's Possible: Food, Land, & Community in Soundview'! In partnership with Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, the NYC Mayor's Office of Urban Agriculture will be convening neighbors, students, and local partners for a conversation to learn more about food and agriculture in the Soundview neighborhood of the Bronx. We'll be raising important topics and discussing ideas for creating green space and healthy food access in Soundview. Community members are encouraged to share their ideas and vision for the future of food, and actions they would like to see in the Bronx.

Refreshments will be served!

NYC Food Policy Center: "The Mayor’s Office of Urban Agriculture (MOUA) isn’t a household name. Given what it’s quietly accomplished since it was established in 2022, with limited city funding and just two full-time staff, it probably should be.

Three years in, the office is delivering on its full mandate. It built its own relationships with community leaders and advocates, launched education programs connecting students to working farms, opened pathways for small farmers to sell to city institutions, mapped the city’s urban agriculture landscape, and pushed for procurement reform that could redirect how the city spends its food dollars. The office is working to change how eight million New Yorkers grow, buy, and think about food, using urban agriculture as a lever for climate action, environmental justice, food access, workforce development, and economic resilience."

Congrats to the new team at NYC Food Policy Center, and many thanks for this terrific piece on the work of the MOUA through its first 3 years!

Read the full article at the link in the comments, below!

The City's 2nd annual Urban Agriculture Progress Report is now available for download on our News & Reports page! Highlights from the MOUA 2025 Annual Progress Report include the successful completion of our 2-year Reimagining Farm to School in NYC pilot initiative, successful completion of NYC School Food EATS - the city's first-ever farmer/producer procurement training, the development of the Urban Agrivoltaics Rooftop Pilot program, planning for the School Food Forest at Stevenson Educational Campus, and the mapping of potential food sovereignty infrastructure in the Soundview neighborhood of the Bronx.

Access the MOUA 2025 Annual Progress Report at the link in the Comments section, below.

A big thank you to everyone who joined us for the Urban Agriculture Data Convening last week! Special thanks to the fabulous folks from Esri, Jonathan Kvilhaug and Alana Pogostin, for their terrific presentation, and to our stellar panel: Kwesi Joseph, Nathan Hunter, and Kenneth Reginald Otero-Walker. Special shout out to Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice Executive Director Elijah Hutchinson for his inspiring opening remarks!

We are grateful to the NYC urban agriculture community for all the critical input offered (and still to come), in the launch and development of the Urban Agriculture Data Explorer dashboard. This interactive mapping tool will allow communities to contribute information about urban agriculture sites across the City. The data collected will be critically important in helping to inform NYC urban agriculture policy initiatives in the future.

The NYC Urban Agriculture Data Explorer Hub can be accessed on the MOUA website Home page and at the link below:
https://nyc.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/7d3e668dfcdd4bce93275dae44fcd3dd

We are very proud to announce the release of our inaugural NYC Urban Agriculture Report! This is the first time the city is reporting on plans and progress for urban agriculture in NYC on several fronts, including local fresh food production and access, agriculture education, economic and workforce development, and climate resiliency. Stay tuned as we will be reporting annually to New Yorkers on the progress and work of our office!

The Report is available now on our website: https://www.nyc.gov/site/agriculture/news/news.page

Chalkbeat New York featured Director Qiana Mickie and New York City Public Schools Superintendent Julia Bove in this terrific piece on the D22 Learning Garden in Bergen Beach!

From an abandoned Brooklyn lot to a future hub for student learning and urban agriculture It’s not uncommon for NYC schools to have access to gardens, but the ambitions of the planned agricultural hub in Bergen Beach stretch beyond a single school community.