How a farm incubator in Prince George’s County is changing who grows Maryland’s food

Prince George’s County has a rich network of farmers providing healthy, locally grown food to their communities. ECO City Farms is an organization making sure the next generation of Prince George’s County growers has the support it needs to start and sustain farms.

The nonprofit organization, based in Riverdale, runs The Urban Farm Incubator at Watkins Regional Park in Upper Marlboro. The program supports farmers by providing them land, business plan development assistance, access to farm equipment and resources to further their business when it’s time to transition out of the incubator site.

The entrance to the incubator is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it turnoff tucked within the park’s greenery. But, once you pull through the gates, you’re met with a grid of half-acre plots, where growers are building their futures from the soil up.

The plots are just waking up after a long, cold winter. It’s hard to tell what’s growing as little green seedlings peek through the soil, but the farmers grow all sorts of cultural crops, medicinal plants and flowers. And there’s excitement brewing as they prepare to open a farmers market.

But these farmers aren’t just working to build financially sustainable businesses. They’re also working to increase access to fresh food for Prince Georgians and to teach young people about health and farming.

“Incubator farmers collaboratively sold their produce to food banks, at farmers markets, as part of ECO City Farms’ CSA and at the incubator itself,” said Margaret Morgan-Hubbard, ECO City Farms’ chief executive officer. “Together, they produced more than 8,000 pounds of the food in the last year, in addition to flowers and herbs.”

The incubator accepted its first cohort of farmers in 2022.

“The people farming at the incubator are already fully incorporated as independent farms,” Morgan-Hubbard said. ”They manage their land and make their own decisions about what to grow, and how and to whom what they grow will be marketed."

Alvina Sutherland is a mom, hairdresser, herbalist and farmer at the incubator. She grows herbs that she sells wholesale. She also uses what she grows in her skin and hair products for her business, Root Down Cleansing, which she describes as “farm to skin.” Before joining the incubator, she was a part of ECO’s apprenticeship program.

“It’s really nice to not be out there on the land by yourself,” Sutherland said. “We’re able to share a lot of the material, like the tools and just knowledge.”

Sutherland points to the scale of the operation as another benefit.

“I don’t have that much land, so it’s nicer to have somewhere and go where I have access to that much land,” she said.

Isaac Zama, who operates Asawana Farms at the incubator, grows African eggplant, bitter leaf, okra, ugu, ewedu and callaloo. Zama, who joined the incubator in 2023, has been instrumental in bringing fresh, culturally meaningful produce to communities in Prince George’s County.

On an overcast Saturday morning on the farm, Zama’s half-acre is a classroom, not defined by perfectly neat rows. He’s showing off his grow bags that he often uses to demonstrate that you don’t need a sprawling farm to get started.

“These are crops that many people in African and diaspora communities know not just as food but as part of a deeper tradition of nourishment, wellness and cultural identity,” Zama said.

When I visit, a group of teen volunteers from an outpatient rehab center is at Asawana. Zama proudly says through a grin, “This is a part of their therapy.”

Asawana partners with University of Maryland Capital Region Health and other medical practitioners to educate people on farming medicinal vegetables and to supply specialty crops.

Like Sutherland, Zama said access to land for growing is the biggest benefit of the incubator program. The cost of land is often a barrier for farmers. And that’s particularly profound for Black farmers.

The number of Black-owned and operated farms has significantly dwindled over the last century. Black producers operate about 5.3 million acres, or less than 1% of the total farmland in the country, according to the United States Department of Agriculture’s 2022 Census of Agriculture. According to that same report, Black farmers operate about only 3% of the farmland in Prince George’s County.

“The incubator created an opportunity that would have been very difficult to secure on my own,” Zama said. “It gave me a place not only to farm but to begin building and testing the vision for Asawana Farms in a practical way.”

Morgan-Hubbard said ECO City Farms and its partners spent over a decade advocating for shared farmland to support new growers before launching the incubator.

“We collaborated to address the barriers to entry for aspiring and beginning farmers in the U.S., particularly BIPOC, economically and/or socially disadvantaged farmers,” Morgan-Hubbard said.

Larry Seals runs Decentra.Farm, where he specializes in growing leafy greens using a technique he calls the ancient deep mulch system, a process he describes as mirroring the way “Mother Nature grows herself”: no chemicals, no tilling and allowing leaves and other plant matter to decompose where it falls.

“I been growing the way I grow since 2018,” Seals said. “Being there, they’re allowing me to go ahead and do so without criticism. They’re accepting and open, even though it’s different.”

Seals was working his plot solo on this day. His rows are so laser straight and meticulously groomed they look as if they were laid out by a ruler. At every turn, he’s looking for ways to save time, reduce waste and maximize “the turn.”

ECO City hopes, when the farmers complete the incubator program, they will buy or lease farmland in the county and continue to be a source of healthy food and service for their communities. There are nine farm-based businesses in the incubator. They are filling a great need for county residents, Morgan-Hubbard said.

“There are high rates of obesity, diet-related diseases, diabetes, cancer and heart ailments in the county, and more than 50% of its residents are food insecure,” Morgan-Hubbard said.

Starting May 30, every Saturday, there will be a farmers market at Watkins Regional Park. It will feature fresh vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers grown on-site and will run until mid-November.