Milwaukee has about 13 food deserts that affect thousands of residents every day.
Food deserts are areas where it’s hard to find fresh, affordable produce. So people often end up relying on unhealthy processed foods. To combat the problem, dozens of urban farms and community garden initiatives are working to provide nutritious foods for marginalized communities.
But what does it mean to run an urban farm?
Milwaukee is a city packed with homes, factories and other businesses, and countless miles of streets and sidewalks.
But some residents have found a way to farm in the city. Take Crops on Top in the Riverwest neighborhood.
The urban farm is nestled among factories and warehouses. Crops on Top grows tomatoes, peppers, herbs, carrots and other produce in more than 20 raised garden beds.
“We do not go into the ground here, so everything here is raised beds, you know. We don't even want to crack into the parking lot," says Joel Lichosik, who founded and operates Crops on Top with his brother Jamie.
"This was, you know, a battery factory for years and years and years, so that was a big challenge to just realize, all right, we're not getting into the ground, we're bringing in our own ground,” Lichosik says.
On the same plot of land, there’s a farm stand that’s open on Wednesdays during the season.
The Lichosik brothers work in the food and hospitality industry. They started Crops on Top when the Covid pandemic disrupted the food supply and highlighted the lack of access to local food and food insecurity.
They wanted a place where residents and local restaurants could reliably obtain fresh farm ingredients.
Lichosik says putting people directly in touch with produce where it’s grown has helped educate them about the food they’re eating. He describes frequent interactions at the farm stand.
"I give them the rundown of everything we have, and I usually get one or two comments about, 'Oh, I don't even know what to do with that.' So that's where I can, you know, explain the different ways you can use kohlrabi and how I use them in a dinner or just for snacking," Lichosik says.
Crops on Top started small but has been growing over the past five years. The brothers recently received the Brew City Match grant, allowing them to buy shipping containers where they’ll set up a hydroponics operation to grow produce indoors.
That’ll extend their growing season. The hydroponics approach swaps soil for nutrient rich water that plants need to grow. About 10 minutes from Crops on Top, the state’s largest hydroponics operation has been using the technique for around four years.
Hundred Acre Farm in the Century City business park was founded by Chris Corkery — another person who saw the potential of urban farming. The operation is in a warehouse, on the former site of A.O. Smith and Tower Automotive.
"Believe it or not, it's much cheaper to transform a warehouse that was producing iron railroad tracks 80 years ago and start growing," Corkery says.
Hundred Acre Farm is in a state of endless summer, providing perfect growing conditions. That means endless production for the microgreens, lettuce and basil. Corkery says it’s exciting and fruitful to create an urban farming operation by reusing an industrial space.
"We designed and built out our farm and had our first test harvest in three months. I mean, imagine doing that to a piece of land that has a bunch of trees on it, maybe some, some environmental issues underneath. We don't have to worry about any of that. We can get up and grow [in] a matter of, you know, weeks not years," says Corkery.
Hundred Acre Farm sells about 40,000 pounds of produce each year to residents, restaurants and schools. But Corkery says when he was getting customers, a few local restaurants needed coaxing that the urban garden would be up to the task.
They wanted to ensure that Hundred Acre Farm could keep up with the demand.
So, Corkery invited Chefs to the farm to see the operation and the quality of the local produce.
"They checked it out and they're like, 'Whoa, yeah, this is very real.' And then they taste the lettuce or whatever and they're like, 'OK, this is very, very real.' Then I tell them the price and they fall back on their chair because at the time we were super, we were a lot more money. And they said, 'Well, hold on to it and let me know how much you throw out.' The answer is basically zero," Corkery says. "You compare that to what you were already buying. Let's say it was half the price but you're throwing out half. Well, that means we're the same price.”
