Week 4: Cultivating Equity Through Urban Agriculture in Philadelphia
Philadelphia is recognized for its diverse neighborhoods and historic sites. Still, it’s Ashley Richards, the newly appointed Director of Urban Agriculture, who is cultivating a future centered on community, resilience, and green equity. As the first Director of Urban Agriculture in the city’s Parks & Recreation Department, Richards is helping learn to rethink and act on how Philadelphia utilizes public land, promotes local growers, and preserves neighborhood legacies.
A Passion for People and Plants
Richards holds a degree from the City Planning program at the University of Pennsylvania and began her career in New York City at a time when urban agriculture was gaining momentum. She helped develop an urban farm cooperative comprised of Black and Latinx residents in the Bronx. In her first reporting plan, which focused on community-based leadership and food justice, Richards articulated her opinion that “urban agriculture does not just feature plants, it features people.”
Turning Experience into Action
Before taking on her new position with the City of Philadelphia, Richards worked with the Philadelphia City Planning Commission on development projects in North Philadelphia. She co-chaired the Urban Agricultural subcommittee of the Food Policy Advisory Council, which wrote policies to support equitable food systems across the city.
Leading Philadelphia’s First-Ever Urban Agriculture Plan
In this new position, Richards will lead the strategic development and implementation of Philadelphia’s first urban agriculture plan in coordination with the city’s FarmPhilly program. The team will have a budget of up to $120,000. It will work to support existing community gardens (some of which have been sustained through family efforts for nearly 40 years) and bring additional green space to neighborhoods that are rightfully in need of greener areas.
This endeavor will involve partners such as:
– Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
– Philadelphia Land Bank
– Neighborhood Garden Trust
– Soil Generation and many other community allies
Together, they will demonstrate progress towards improving access to land, clarifying land use, and ensuring that policies reflect community ownership for extended periods.
Why It Matters
Richards’ leadership is taking a proactive stance to address pressing and contemporary issues such as gentrification, loss of green space, and food inequity. As one community member mentioned at a recent meeting, “If you lose these gardens, you lose more than land—but heritage.” Through her strategic and inclusive approach, Richards is developing urban agriculture as a potential mechanism for justice, transforming the concept of public land use and access to tools for health, memory, and sustainability.
