By Kim Dishongh

Usually when a university president discusses growth, he is referring to academics, student enrollment or budgets. Richard Dunsworth, president of the University of the Ozarks in Clarksville, has plenty to say about those topics — but he might also share updates on his crops. He put in a garden behind the president’s residence on the edge of campus and he regularly enjoys the fruits — and vegetables — of his labor.

In recent years, he has worked to cultivate partnerships geared toward making it easier for everyone in the area to access fresh, locally produced foods, and is now leading a university initiative to open a farm-to-table restaurant and taproom in a historic building within easy walking distance of campus.

“The front of the building will be a place to be able to buy fresh produce and things made and grown here in Arkansas. You can also grab a cup of coffee and a bagel and maybe some ice cream and things of that nature,” said Dunsworth. “But it’s all designed around how to support Arkansas growers and Arkansas entrepreneurs.”

“We’re partnering with our city and our chamber of commerce to locate the community farmer’s market there,” said Dunsworth.

“Let’s say you’re a small farm and you’ve got produce of some kind that you bring into the farmer’s market. You sell everything you can and then you can go into the warehouse and package it for sale in the market, or you might decide to drop it in the dehydrator or the freeze dryer so you don’t lose it,” said Dunsworth. “In many ways it’s all about knowing where your food comes from and being able to shake hands with somebody who you know produced the meat and vegetables you’re eating.”

“Dr. Kim Van Scoy, who ultimately built a sustainable agriculture minor here at the university, started a community garden,” says Dunsworth.

Van Scoy, who retired last year, called it the Food for Thought garden.

“The class decided they wanted to call the garden the Food for Thought garden because we would hopefully help provide food in our local community, which would help with the fact that we were a food desert,” said Van Scoy. One third of the produce from the garden was donated to a school backpack program, serving children in Clarksville schools, where about 70 percent of students qualified for free and reduced lunches. Another third was sold in a farmer’s market and the remainder went to the students who worked in the garden.

Dunsworth explained that the university is better situated to absorb some of the risks that, for small businesses, might be catastrophic.

“What we’re trying to do is lend our knowledge of what we know about running nonprofits, what we know about business and marketing, what we hope our students can learn in this process,” he said. “Let us be the hub that just puts a whole lot of spokes out there and supports small farms that are kind of a side gig, a secondary opportunity for people to make money, and the outcome is for our students, who may not have ever understood where food really comes from to maybe understand a little bit more.”

Camille Wrinkle is the CEO and executive director at the Harvest Regional Food Bank in Texarkana. Through her leadership and experience with Arkansas Community Foundation, the organization is meeting people’s need for food now but investing in future needs too.

The food bank serves a 10-county area and has provided 4.5 million meals in the last year. “We have some of the highest number of children living in poverty in the state,” said Wrinkle. “One in four individuals that we serve is under 18 so we need a robust childhood hunger program. We provide weekend food through our Backpack Food for Kids program on 40 campuses, and we’ve started several school pantries for older students – the pantry helps meet the student’s needs, and that of their family.”

There is no indication that the food desert problem in the area will go away any time soon, so the food bank made the decision to create an organizational endowment at the Community Foundation. With their Harvest Texarkana Endowment, they supplement funding for a variety of programs including a mobile pantry and food for seniors.

“We had a small fund with the Foundation for several years and realized that it was a smart investment based on the rate of returns,” said Wrinkle. “We were looking at CDs and other investments, and we realized that increasing the endowment was the smartest move. It ensures more money in the long term.

“I think a lot of people understand the broad strokes of how a food bank works, but what they may not understand is HOW we do it and what investments are required to be sustainable,” she said. “For example, we maintain a mobile fleet of refrigerated trucks for food distribution, but we also invest in partner agencies and make equipment grants, like commercial grade freezers and refrigerators, shelving and food storage.”

A native to the area, Wrinkle sees her work at Harvest Regional Food Bank as a way to give back to her hometown. But she credits the success of their efforts to local collaboration—from local businesses sending volunteers to help, to the infrastructure support needed for mass food distribution. “We couldn’t do this without our incredible partners,” she said. “We work with local city and county leadership, churches, private donors and businesses, and have a great group of volunteers that make this all possible.”

By: Adena J. White

Overconsumption of processed foods has been linked to the rising rates of diabetes, hypertension and other chronic health conditions. Access and cost are the major barriers. 

To address these barriers and help improve the physical and economic health of Jefferson County, Communities Unlimited was recently awarded an “Access to Local Foods”’ grant from Arkansas Community Foundation to launch a “Food Farmacy” pilot program.

This program will provide enrolled families with access to fresh, nutritious food – as well as education and healthcare services – with the ultimate goal of improving their overall health.

Part rural development hub and part community development financial institution, or CDFI, Communities Unlimited Inc. works alongside rural community leaders and small businesses to create fair access to resources needed to sustain healthy communities, healthy businesses and healthy families.

Brenda Williams, manager of Communities Unlimited’s healthy foods initiative, wrote the grant application for the Food Farmacy project in Jefferson County, expanding upon a similar grant-funded project the organization introduced in Clarksdale, Mississippi, back in 2020. Both projects are personal to Williams, who grew up in Blytheville, Arkansas, and now lives in Mississippi.

“I definitely consider myself a Delta girl or a country girl at heart,” she said. “Every person has the right to access healthy and nutritious foods, no matter where they live.”

Through her role with Communities Unlimited, Williams works with small-scale, underserved growers, mostly Black farmers, to help them build farm capacity as well as connect them with market opportunities where they can sell wholesale. The Food Farmacy program will purchase locally grown produce from small-scale growers to provide fresh produce to families in Jefferson County.

Burthel Thomas, a local grower from Pine Bluff, is one of the farmers partnering with Communities Unlimited on the Food Farmacy initiative. The Dumas native did not grow up on a farm but has always aspired to farm and own land. He turned his dream into a reality and now owns 275 acres in Jefferson County near Wabbaseka and Altheimer.

Through the partnership with Communities Unlimited, Thomas and other small-scale farmers in the area can obtain additional market opportunities while supplying people in their community with healthy foods.

“The Food Farmacy project is a win-win for me and my neighbors who farm because we can partner with each other. It improves our ability to market and provides more food to people on a larger scale,” Thomas said.

Beginning this summer, the farmers will provide an assortment of fresh produce – including sweet potatoes, tomatoes and sweet corn – to select Jefferson County residents through a local healthcare clinic in Pine Bluff. The clinic has identified 20 to 25 patients with chronic health issues to participate in the Food Farmacy program.

The 12-week pilot project will use the “food as medicine” model to address food insecurity and provide patients and their families with a produce voucher to be redeemed at the Food Farmacy for locally grown produce. Similar to a traditional pharmacy, the idea behind the Food Farmacy is to write patients a “prescription” to eat healthy foods to improve their health and help them better manage their underlying health conditions. It will also incorporate services that include behavior-change coaching along with cooking demonstrations by nutrition educators to support patients in the development of healthy eating habits.

“Our aim with this pilot is to help bridge the divide between food insecurity and healthcare by providing healthy foods, clinical services and nutrition education to patients,” Williams said. “We definitely want to provide nutrition education and recipes so that we’re not just giving these families produce and telling them, ‘Now go and eat well.’ The idea is to equip them with the know-how for preparing the produce that is in their boxes.”

To measure the impact of the program on health outcomes, Communities Unlimited will collect baseline labs and biometric data at the beginning of enrollment.

“Our hope is that by providing fresh, healthy foods, we will see changes in behavior that will influence the health of the participants in positive ways while supporting small-scale growers in Jefferson County,” Williams said.

Urban Patchwork and its network of growers promote urban farming across Pulaski County

By Adena J. White

“Growing food is in my blood.”

For Gabe Bland, farming is part of his lineage. The Elaine, Arkansas, native comes from a family of sharecroppers. He calls Little Rock home, too, splitting his time between Elaine and the capital city as a child and eventually graduating from Little Rock Central High School.

Bland’s rural and urban upbringing are what fuels his passion. He uses both the process of farming and the food he produces to connect people. He is building relationships with neighbors and other community members – while educating them about urban farming practices and providing healthy foods.

Connecting the Community through Food

Bland began operating his third urban farm, Turtle Island, in the South End neighborhood of Little Rock, which runs south of Roosevelt to Interstate 30, in June 2022. An experienced property manager, he saw an opportunity to purchase lots that once housed vacant apartment buildings, transforming 3314 South Arch Street into a small farm and roadside food stand.

Through a partnership with Urban Patchwork, Bland plans to expand Turtle Island into a neighborhood food hub and commercial kitchen for growing, storing, selling and socializing around food in the South End. His vision is to bring the community together by hosting block parties, cookouts on a hibachi grill where guests can prepare and eat food grown on the farm, gardening classes and even yoga sessions.

“I want this to be more than just a store,” he said. “We want to bring people together around food.”

Urban Patchwork is a nonprofit network of farmers and backyard gardeners with a shared goal to increase access to fresh food in urban neighborhoods. For the past eight years, experienced growers like Bland who are part of the network have provided materials, tools, hands-on learning experiences, administrative assistance and marketing opportunities to community members. Turtle Island will serve as an educational space centralizing regional resources to help people in low-income, low-access neighborhoods – as designated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture – become more self-reliant.

“The farms that are part of Urban Patchwork are not all large urban farms like Gabe’s,” said Dr. Jimmy Parks, executive director of Urban Patchwork. “Some people have small, raised-bed gardens while others may build a chicken coop in the backyard so they can have chickens and eggs. There is activity going on all over town, and we want to help remove any barriers – either real or perceived – that may prevent people from urban farming.”

While access to healthy food is important, bringing people together around food in the South End neighborhood, or any neighborhood, is an equally big part of what Urban Patchwork is all about.

“Motivating people to eat healthy food is not our objective, but I think if they’re around it, see that it tastes good and are able to have some fun growing and cooking it, they will naturally eat more of it.”

Educating Community Members about Urban Farming

Through hands-on learning experiences, Urban Patchwork aims to equip people of all ages with the skills necessary to practice sustainable urban farming. Educational opportunities include building garden beds and picnic tables, growing mushrooms, preserving food and harvesting chickens.

“We try to turn everything we do into a class,” Parks said.

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Community members who participate in Urban Patchwork’s learning opportunities leave with a better understanding about what is possible to produce on a small amount of land.

“You don’t have to have a lot of space to be able to produce a fair amount of food,” said Urban Patchwork board member Neil Denman. “It can be done in anybody’s yard, apartment patio or terrace, or right outside of an office. You can garden just about anywhere.”

Another benefit to educating people is to help them expand their palate. Bland said that many people buy the same produce because they may not know how to prepare foods they are unfamiliar with.

“I admit that I didn’t know what arugula was,” he said. “Even though I was eating it in a mixed salad. I want to help expose people to different types of healthy foods and teach them how they can pair and prepare them.”

Increasing Access to Healthy Food

Through its network of urban farms across Pulaski County, Urban Patchwork aims to expand access to fresh, local food in neighborhoods that do not have a grocery store within walking distance of their home. One purpose of the project at Turtle Island is to increase the capacity of the neighborhood food hub to provide local food to the 2,300 residents in the South End neighborhood.

When successful, Parks expects that the community will be less dependent on stores and providers outside of their neighborhood. The ultimate goal is that the health of these neighborhoods – both the physical health of the residents and the social cohesion – will improve as more people grow, prepare, eat and share local food.

“One reason people have limited access to local food is that they just don’t know where to get it,” Parks said. “The Turtle Island project is a way to introduce people to one another at food- and garden-related social events in the South End neighborhood.”

Since opening nearly a year ago, Turtle Island has provided fresh, nutritious produce from more than 20 local growers to neighborhood customers. Consistent with its commitment to education, customers receive a recipe card with each purchase on how to prepare the food. The stand at Turtle Island is currently open one day a week for four hours, weather permitting, with plans to expand its hours, recruit more local food producers, and host more events and classes once the commercial kitchen is constructed.

“We want to make it a whole thing,” Bland said.