![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/broadwayfillmorealive.org\/2.0\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/URBAN%2BFARMING.jpg?resize=450%2C383\" "\\"URBAN+FARMING\\"")
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(Maki Becker, Buffalo News) In the spring of 2003, the Massachusetts Avenue Project turned a vacant lot on the West Side into a vegetable garden.<\/p>\n
The neighbors didn’t exactly know what to make of it.<\/p>\n
“They thought it was weird,” recalled Diane Picard, executive director of the organization. “Or they thought: ‘Oh, this is a nice little gardening project.'”<\/p>\n
Ten growing seasons later, urban farming is flourishing in Buffalo, just as it has in cities across the nation.<\/p>\n
A small but growing group of people with a taste for local food, a passion for living sustainably and a devotion to ensuring everyone has access to healthy, affordable food has started urban farms in vacant lots on both the West Side and the East Side.<\/p>\n
This year, urban farming is approaching a new level in Buffalo.<\/p>\n
A group of young people who recently bought up old vacant lots on Michigan Avenue and Peckham Streets has teamed up with other East Side urban farmers to form a farming cooperative. Their goal is to pool their skills and resources so that they can generate enough produce to feed themselves and sell at market stands to the public.<\/p>\n