CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KFVS) – A Cape Girardeau community garden hopes to start growing year-round, thanks to financial help from the state.
South Side Farms is taking part in the Food Insecure Cost-Share Grant Program, put on by the Missouri Department of Agriculture.
The program provides farms up to $50,000. South Side is just one of nineteen programs to receive funding.
In just three years, South Side Farms has been able to build two wind tunnels, one greenhouse and much more on the 7-acre facility
Executive Director Maurice Terio said this new money will help the people they feed eat cleaner and greener.
“It revolves around access, access to fast, healthy, nutritious food–and that’s what many communities lack,” he explained. “Here in this community, we lost our last major supermarket in the vicinity of South Side Farms. So, this access and what we are doing here is very crucial and important to providing access to fast, healthy, nutritious food in our community.”
Terio said in their first growing season, South Side produced around 6,000 pounds of food.
Now, with the help of this grant, they hope to harvest up to 15,000 pounds.
“We are just building off the infrastructure; We are going to be purchasing more compost, we are going to be heating this structure,” he said. “You see, we are looking to move toward year-round growing here at South Side. So these funds are very crucial to what we are doing.”
Terio said they plan to start upgrading the farm in the new year.
He added that in the future, he hopes to build both a cafe and a grocery store, offering healthy options as well.
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