Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture
By Brianne Boysen
The Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture (CCUA) is a not-for-profit organization that strives to demonstrate, educate, and advocate for urban food production. The organization was established in 2008 when it began a composting program; collecting food scraps from a University of Missouri Dining Hall and composting them in various community gardens in the area.
Since then, CCUA has stayed busy offering different activities and services, including:
- Tours of their Demonstration Garden
- Classroom gardening activities
- Farming at their 1.3 acre urban farm
- Selling local foods at a market located on their farm
- Providing internships and apprenticeships
- For-hire edible landscaping services
- Opportunity Gardens, a program that provides raised-vegetable beds to schools and low-income families.
CCUA has been working with PedNet and the Columbia Housing Authority this year to implement gardening projects in Columbia’s Public Housing. The organization has 4 full-time employees, but relies on hundreds of volunteers to help out.
The organization is bike friendly, and likes to encourage their employees and volunteers to use active transportation: “Being in an urban setting, it is easy for us to get between our sites on foot or bicycle. We have a bike trailer which we use to make deliveries and to transport tools between worksites,” said Sales and Marketing Coordinator Billy Polansky.
In addition, the CCUA office has bike racks for their employees, volunteers, and visitors to use to cut back on motor vehicle transportation.
If you are interested in CCUA, you can email Billy Polansky at donate@columbiaurbanag.org or visit the CCUA website at ColumbiaUrbanAg.org.
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