How South L.A.’s Front Lawn Farm Movement is Fighting Food Insecurity

Crop Swap L.A. is an innovative initiative combatting food apartheid in South L.A. This isn’t just about gardening— it’s a literal grassroots revolution, transforming local homeowner’s front yards into flourishing micro-farms, and challenging the looming issue of food insecurity.

Founded by Jamiah Hargins, Crop Swap L.A. sprouted from his personal quest to feed his family with affordable and nutrient-rich food in a neighborhood where access was scarce or non-existent. Despite humble beginnings, it has blossomed into a powerful movement that not only breathes new life into underused resident lawns, but also brings South L.A.’s communities closer to the freshest local produce.

Tune in and witness how a seed of an idea is reshaping South L.A. and changing lives, one plot at a time.

DONATE TO CROP SWAP LA
http://www.cropswapla.org/donate

GET A GARDEN
https://www.cropswapla.org/watergardens

BOOK A TOUR 
https://www.cropswapla.org/tours

BUY HOT ONES HOT SAUCE NOW: https://fwfea.st/hotsauces

TRY THE HOT ONES BONELESS CHICKEN BITE CHALLENGE: https://fwfea.st/chickenbites

BUY HOT ONES TRUTH OR DAB: THE GAME: http://truthordabgame.com

SHOP HOT ONES MERCH: https://bit.ly/2AIS271

SIGN UP FOR THE HOT ONES MONTHLY HOT SAUCE SUBSCRIPTION: https://bit.ly/2veY50P

SIGN UP FOR THE FIRST WE FEAST NEWSLETTER: http://firstwefeast.com/signup

SUBSCRIBE TO FIRST WE FEAST ON YOUTUBE: http://goo.gl/UxFzhK

MAKE A DIFFERENCE BY DONATING TO COMMON THREADS, THE OFFICIAL CHARITY PARTNER OF HOT ONES: https://www.commonthreads.org/firstwefeast/

Check out more of First We Feast here:

http://firstwefeast.com/
http://instagram.com/firstwefeast
http://instagram.com/hotones/
Tweets by firstwefeast
https://www.facebook.com/FirstWeFeast

Let’s grow food on our yards let’s hire our neighbors let’s preserve and capture and reuse water smartly let’s be about it it shouldn’t be expensive to eat healthy it shouldn’t be exclusive M let’s cut some kale baby oo this is a lettuce that’s awesome it’s so big Tran what else should we add to the salad should we get some of In Los Angeles food insecurity is already bad and it’s unfortunately worsening and some folks call it a food desert which is a really polite term it’s unnecessarily polite because the truth is it’s food apar tide and that means there’s actual intention behind where grocery stores are open and to whom they’re

Accessed in the L mer Park View Park and kensaw District areas of Los Angeles there’s really only two grocery stores that cover that entire area so millions of people have access to two grocery stores it’s sad as I see grocery stores go away there’s just not a lot of

Choices and if you don’t have a car you’re really in trouble trying to get food growing up in this neighborhood 21 years ago it was definitely a sense of really not knowing what Fresh Foods look like and just seeing poor quality food we deserve to eat nutrient dents

Expensive food God isn’t expensive we deserve it right Here welcome to Assante micro Farm what we’ve done here is we’ve converted a front yard into microfarm that grows hundreds of plants composts and recycles water roughly 600 plants are grown here at a Sante microfarm like Roma lettuce heads of lettu uses our goals to grow

Food on unused spaces in a way that creates jobs from using the space we have in people’s yards and other unused spaces we’re thankful to the homeowner who’s letting us use the space in Los Angeles space is usually the limiting factor for new projects so I’d always

Seen these big yards and thought you know what if we could stop growing grass and stop growing succulents that you can’t eat and reallocate that energy and those resources towards something edible and useful what’s also great about the design is it captures rain water so

Anytime it does rain here in La it falls right on here let’s preserve and capture and reuse water smartly let’s grow food on our yards let’s create hyper local Distribution Systems let’s hire our neighbors and then let’s be about It crop swap La began as a result of my daughter being born she was born in 2017 but in 2018 I really started thinking thinking about securing our food for her life I came to this backyard and put a little garden Together oh yeah get some of the Beet grain stepping over food to get food I want to cook okay I’m always surprised you can eat the stocks of plants and the flowers like these our mustard flowers oh look tree our strawberries are coming hey JY you have to see the

Purple cauliflower oh is it coming in yeah yes yes yes this was the point this was the idea to be able to you know have the food on site have the practice of doing it see her excitement when things grow and know that it’s healthy like that peace of

Mind is priceless are we get in on it what is this that’s Australian spinach you should you should nibble it you love it yeah well I mean I’ll have it I’ll have it in the salad too oh interesting I love you Dad love you too little lettuce Cheers Cheers everyone

Did it everyone did it I remember when this backyard was nothing but grass it’s funny to see how your simple idea became something Grand everyone wants their food to be good quality and delicious I’m proud of how you have you know 20 employees now which is like what you’re

Not just sustaining like the planet through sustainable watering practices and all of that this is just one family table but now there are 20 family tables that you’re sustaining through the business man that orange juice is good have you tried the orange juice yet I’m sorry I just it it’s so good they’re

Like perfectly ready today to roll out a micro Farm it begins with finding the perfect yard and the perfect homeowner hi I’m Beverly Lofton I am the owner of Lal microfarm Lal microfarm its theme is love because it’s named after uh the homeowner’s late husband who was a

Caterer and a very Community oriented person everybody loved LEL and LEL loved everybody he would have loved all of you he would have loved everybody I can’t tell you how many people told me after you passed away he was my best friend so he was that person when I met jamaah and

He saw my front yard and he was like wow this is amazing cuz it was just grass it’s like a new chapter in my life because I’m getting introduced to a new way of thinking it makes a lot of sense to me because it is space that is

Ornamental when it could be used for growing food how do we make quote unquote plant-based vegan food tastes good timu is the microfarm manager for L microfarm he completely understands the process from seed to Garden to plates he’s trained as a professional chef and caterer I’m really happy and excited for

The dynamic I bring which is showing the culinary arts aspect and so I made a couple salads from different greens that we grow and from different fruits that we Harvest locally to show like hey this is possible to just open up people’s mind so this right here the kale salad cuz a

Lot of people say hey what do I do with kale how do I eat kale this is one example of how you can combine it with the mint combining with different fruits dates pineapples almonds it’s so sweet and lovely yeah well done thank you this is this is a treat there’s more wait

There’s more right we’re going to be growing watermelons here and cucumbers so this is watermelon cucumbers with some some spearm mint and some spinach as well just add that green and you know being true to La I added a little lime juice and some taheen to the

Watermelons you know we all love the the local fruit man yes wow this is this is rocking we got a nice little Swiss chart here crunchy style better than grass ain’t it significantly we’ve committed our microfarms to give away 10% to the community and then we sell the remaining

90% within a mile and then over here we’ve got a lovely tomato plant doing its best woo this is going to be good I can tell so [Applause] good hey how you doing what the bouquet yes sir look at that holy cow it’s bigger than my head yeah this is all from my backyard and from the microfarms as you know we have two microfarms now holy cow I’m so proud of you I remember

When you have come in here like four years ago when we open yeah with that gleam and aspiration in your eye to do this to see the growth literally literally yeah yeah so U I’m grateful that hot and cool cafe is a vegan restaurant why did you choose that route

Me moving here just to open up this place and not knowing anything about La I realized quickly that we were in the food desert um I lived in l park and at night when I went to go try to go get something to eat I just drove by fast

Food place after fast food place we decided to give the people what was needed and we went forward to bring in a plant-based menu um and it was well received a people that started to come back into Limer Park knowing that they have a place where they can rely on to

Get get a healthy food option that sounds like a mission that captured you and it’s allowing you to lead within it that’s beautiful I think we both had the same idea is to invest in our community and once we invest in our community the health and richness come from there yes

I think U Demetria is going to cook those up I don’t know what she’s going to do she’s kept a surprise but I’m sure it’s going to taste Good so they’re going to be lettuce tacos so we’re going to use these beautiful leaves right here I’m just going to cut it in half hey Buddha hi slicing and dicing so we do around here slice some dice then I’m going to add some walnuts Garden

Tacos got a little guac and then last but not least I’m put some salsa in it you got to have that tomato salsa taste which also has cilantro which is such it just brings everything together so amazing little cumquats on the side okay got some bell peppers onions cilantro

You know what I’m saying colors your colors kid shout out yeah we really believe that growing food and urban farming is a career so this is po hi she’s our microfarm manager at the moment she’s doing some neem spraying so that we can keep our plants healthy

Jamaa is my hero because he’s able to give me a career opportunity of being an Urban Farmer I don’t think many of us could say that what Jah is doing isn’t just about this micro Farm it’s about somebody coming here or driving by here someday then wanting to

Go change their community that is the the real power in a place like this you know everybody’s upset everybody posts stuff all the time how angry they are about food and security but really uh the people that are in the front lines doing the work day after day

After day those for me are the heroes and those are the heroes you never really hear about my goals are to really make a direct impact in this khaw area and to show that we can continue to feed ourselves and eliminate food aparti at the minimum on this mile I hope that

Neighborhoods demand microfarms in their area and in the future Los Angeles could be known as the microfarm City now the onion if somebody can find out a trick to make you not cry when you cut onions please let me know hey what’s up bro how you doing I’m wonderful it’s good to see you all right right on sure the mosquito finds its way somewh

Else go away right the we’re in the outo I know I had to do it it looks good [Applause] Though