from “le détroit” · the strait
Keep Growing Detroit counts 3,277 farms and gardens across the city as of September 2026, a food-growing culture that traces back to Mayor Hazen Pingree's 1890s potato patches, with a new $494,960 state grant now behind it.
Reporting by Jena Brooker for Planet Detroit. Read the original story.
According to Planet Detroit, Keep Growing Detroit counts 3,277 farms and gardens across Detroit as of September 2026. The outlet traces that growing culture back to Mayor Hazen Pingree, who after the 1893 financial panic helped up to 1,700 families grow food on 430 acres of city land. The same reporting says Michigan awarded the Detroit Food Policy Council a $494,960 grant in September to help distribute more than 1 million pounds of food a year. Strait has not independently confirmed this. 'I didn't know there was a food movement; I knew we were gardening,' Detroit Black Community Food Sovereignty Network co-founder Malik Yakini told Planet Detroit.
Why we're watching: once that grant starts moving food this season, we'll report directly on where it lands and who it feeds.
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