Sprout Urban Farms

Programmes

Three programmes, one purpose: making it possible for people in Battle Creek to grow their own food, buy it close to home, and sell what they grow at a price that keeps them farming.

01 · Resource centre

Bright Star Farm

Our resource centre exists to remove the small obstacles that stop a household or a school from growing food. Most of them cost money and none of them should:

What we lend and share

  • Seed, shared from what we save and what is donated
  • Hand tools, from a dibber to a broadfork
  • Greenhouse bench space for starting transplants
  • Compost, and the know-how to make more of it

What we help with

  • Site assessment: light, soil, water, access
  • Bed building and no-till bed preparation
  • Season planning for a school or a church plot
  • Outreach support for a new neighbourhood garden

The farm itself, on North Kendall Street, is where the demonstrations happen and where the tool library lives. Volunteer days run April to October.

Come to a work day
02 · Mobile market

Fresh on Wheels

Some neighbourhoods in Battle Creek no longer have a produce aisle within walking distance. Fresh on Wheels brings the market to them — same produce, same prices, no bus fare.

Where it goes

  • Assisted living facilities
  • Subsidised housing developments
  • Neighbourhoods identified as having no nearby grocery

Why seniors first

A senior who cannot drive and cannot carry a bag two miles is not a customer a grocery chain will chase. A van that stops outside the building is the whole difference between eating vegetables and not.

Ask us to stop somewhere
03 · Wholesale

Sprout Food Hub

Small growers around Battle Creek can grow well and still lose money, because selling twelve cases of greens one buyer at a time does not pay. The Food Hub aggregates:

What we buy

  • Wholesale produce from local farms, alongside our own growing
  • Volume the grower already knows how to produce
  • Predictable orders, agreed before planting

Who we sell to

  • Restaurants and cafés
  • Hospitals and care settings
  • Schools and institutions
  • Households, through the CSA share

If you buy produce for an institution in or around Battle Creek, we would like to quote. If you farm and want a buyer who plans ahead, we would like to talk.

Buy from us Sell to us

SPROUT URBAN FARMS INC · PO Box 888, Battle Creek, Michigan 49016, USA · 501(c)(3) · EIN 45-3707870 · hello@sprouturbanfarms.org