Chris Grace: Our Local NYC Food Systems Expert

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that one of the most influential people in the burgeoning urban agriculture movement lives among us. 

Christina Grace, or “Chris,” as she’s known to colleagues and friends, is a 3 1/2-year resident of Carroll Gardens, a mother of two young kids, and an integral member of the city’s healthy (and local) food movement.

If your child attends , or the , and enjoys school-garden-grown food as part of the lunch menu, you have Chris in part to thank for it. If you'd like to see locally grown-lettuce on your average deli sandwich, or care about increasing the ability of Food Stamps or WIC participants to shop at farmers markets, Chris is working on these issues, too.

In a word, Chris describes her role as “a connector."

“[My job] is really a food systems planning role. I work to connect food resources – primarily upstate farmers – with people in the city who need those resources – individuals, schools, processors.”

Despite the seemingly exhaustive pile of work on her plate, this sparkly blue-eyed woman remains upbeat while helping to change the face of our local food system via her role as Urban Food Systems Program Manager at the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. When talking to Chris, her obvious passion and enthusiasm leads you to suspect the work is, at least in part, intentionally piled.

“There are lots of fun puzzles to solve in this work – from devising long-term garden protections to establishing a green roof tax credit for urban farmers," she said. "I have the opportunity to dig in and understand how it all works. That’s the fun of the job.”

Mainstream media oftens portrays urban agriculture and the locavore movement superficially – as the hot fad of the moment, a revolution led by young, white college graduates. However, in New York City, there is a decades-old movement of community gardening and food justice, led primarily by people of color who revitalized abandoned lots to create gardens and grow their own food in the face of scant access to healthy, affordable produce. Chris’ work lies at the crossroads of the various faces of the movement. She works with various types of communities -- school groups, farmers, processors, community gardens – to plan and devise strategies, programs and policies to increase access to fresh food, land to grow it on and spaces to learn about it.

Chris works alongside another neigborhood resident, her legendary co-worker, Brooklyn native and Greenmarket co-founder Bob Lewis. Together, they spend their time navigating, dissecting and connecting the lesser-known but indispensable territories that comprise our food system: from Hunts Point terminal market in the South Bronx, to community gardens in the Far Rockaways, from upstate farms in Orange County to large scale food processing plants in Queens.

“I get to learn so much about all the different places and people of New York City…it’s so rich and you get so much history from this work. Food is just one issue of so many, but it’s a uniter – it can bring people together in a room that wouldn’t normally get together," she said. "I’m excited about the potential for community-based planning around food.”

Chris has been instrumental in bringing to fruition is the Garden to Café program, in which NYC schools are supported through funding and technical assistance to expand their school garden initiatives. Now in its third year, the program has expanded to 50 schools, including our own PS 58 and 29 and the Brooklyn New School. The “Garden to Café” schools have increased garden-based education and host Harvest Fair events each year to promote eating fresh, local food. In addition, food that students help grow is harvested and incorporated into school lunches.

“The scale of school gardening is small, but it is not merely a gesture,” says Chris. “While the students can’t grow enough basil to supply more than two major events a year, every student gets to make and taste the pesto that is created with that basil.”

Chris is working on other initiatives, such as the development of New York City’s first large scale urban farm incubator program, and the expansion of the Moore St. Market in Bushwick, an indoor Latino food market similar to La Marqueta in East Harlem. She is also actively involved in gamechanging policy work, such as Farm Bill planning and advocacy for expanding the green roof tax credit to urban farmers.

Chris says she is “typical” of the kinds of people peppering the new urban food systems job sector.

“We’re from all walks of life, we have a love for food, and we want to create access to local, healthy food and remove barriers for the people that want it and for those who want to grow it themselves," she says.

Chris comes from a 14-year marketing and research background. When she left the marketing sphere to attend culinary school in Boston, she encountered a world of professionals engaged in some capacity with local food. When her family returned West and moved to Oregon, she started and managed a new farmers market; her market was the first to set itself up to receive Food Stamps. She then applied and received a research grant from the Kaiser Foundation to study what barriers exist for people who rely on Food Stamps to purchase fresh, local food and what solutions could help overcome them.

Today, she’s come full circle: as part of her job, Chris helps oversee the Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP), which gives free coupons to WIC (Women, Infants, Children) participants for purchasing fresh fruits and vegetables at local farmers markets.

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Chris has lots of love for the neighborhood.

“Trees, front gardens, my neighbors, the Sunday Greenmarket, so many kids, living near many of my food and farming compatriots, the view looking North on Smith Street in the morning when the street is empty, , …” The list went on.

She also sees room for improvement.

“I’d love to figure out how we can create more garden space in the neighborhood,” she said. The pending urban design plan for Gowanus, she said, doesn't include public garden space in its plan.

“Lots of people have yards in our neighborhood, but there are also a lot of people in apartments that wish they had a place to grow things," she said.

Chris would also love to see more visual projects like the planter boxes that have featured corn and cover crops on the corner of Bergen and Smith streets.

In her spare time, Chris loves spending time in Carroll Park with her kids. Her family’s restaurant picks are , , and .

“We’re from Portland," she says, "–Anyone who sells Stumptown Coffee is a friend of ours.”