Big Muddy Urban Farm connects community members with agriculture education opportunities, advocates for local food system

Juli Oberlander • September 30, 2021

Big Muddy Urban Farm connects community members with agriculture education opportunities, advocates for local food system

Big Muddy Urban Farm staff and City Sprouts interns take a photo at Big Muddy Urban Farm's adventure playground. Photo from the Big Muddy Urban Farm Facebook page

With a focus on agriculture education and community engagement, local nonprofit Big Muddy Urban Farm serves the Omaha area by uniting people through a common love of food.

Executive Director Brent Lubbert says the staff is committed to supporting the local food community through educational efforts.

"Big Muddy Urban Farm is a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to making sustainable agriculture education accessible to all," he says, "by connecting and empowering community members of all ages to build an equitable and resilient community food system."

Lubbert says Big Muddy Urban Farm achieves this goal by growing diverse fruits and vegetables on several urban lots in the Gifford Park Neighborhood. The nonprofit also offers accessible learning experiences through its Aspiring Farmer Residency, Summer Youth Garden support, tool lending and weekly food distribution.

In conjunction with its other programs, Lubbert says Big Muddy Urban Farm staff also provide farm tours to a wide variety of groups, hosting school field trips and company team building events.

"If you stop by for a tour, you may find a group of elementary school students learning about how worms relate to the fruiting of a tomato, or a corporate group bonding over farm tasks like mending a fence at the chicken coop, or a group of medical professionals discussing their research in human health as they help sow cover crop seeds for soil health," Lubbert says.

As part of its programming, Big Muddy Urban Farm also hosts five Aspiring Farmer residents each year, providing a unique educational experience in urban farming, community building and business training, according to its website. The Aspiring Farmer Residency is a immersive program that helps build farming and life skills in a select group of young people. Taking place at Big Muddy Urban Farm's site in the Gifford Park Neighborhood, the program allows participants to complete a full growing season acting as the farmer and learning skills in building a business, planting seeds, bringing food to markets and interacting with the community.

Lubbert says no prior farm or gardening experience is required to join the program, which makes the residency an ideal launching pad for aspiring farmers, urban gardeners, environmental educators and food systems students.

"Participants of the Aspiring Farmer Residency are given the opportunity to build a farm and learn the fundamentals of land stewardship," Lubbert says. "They build their skills while also improving the city environment and provide the surrounding community with a source of fresh food. Their dedicated pursuit of growing food and community organizing in an urban setting is juxtaposed to contemporary issues of food access, climate change and food waste, a transformative experience both personally and with the community."

Through its many programs, Lubbert says Big Muddy Urban Farm has the opportunity to teach Omahans about how food is produced, where it comes from and how to prepare dishes with an abundance of vegetables. As COVID-19 has caused numerous food supply chain disruptions, Big Muddy Urban farm has increased its efforts to teach people about sustainable agriculture.

"An often universal truth between cultures is that food brings people together," Lubbert says. "At Big Muddy, we bring people together and empower community through a stronger, more informed connection to food."

To learn more about Big Muddy Urban Farm and its programs, visit the website and Facebook page.

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Photos from the Big Muddy Urban Farm Facebook page

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