Inspiring Story: Margaret Morgan-Hubbard’s Urban Farm

Margaret Morgan-Hubbard is an environmentalist, educator, and founder and CEO of ECO City Farms, a nonprofit urban teaching and learning farm in Maryland dedicated to growing food that protects, restores and sustains the natural environment and the health of local communities.

Since its creation in 2010, Margaret and her team have changed the landscape of Prince George’s County. They worked to adjust the zoning laws so that urban farming was permitted everywhere in the county, which led to the number of urban farms skyrocketing from zero to 130.

 A lifelong social justice worker, Margaret was the recipient of Bennington College’s 2022 Elizabeth Coleman Visionary Leadership Award.

Why is access to affordable, healthy food so important?

There’s access to food and there’s access to healthy food. Food insecurity has always been a major issue here and has grown as costs have escalated. We have some of the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the country. So, we really emphasize healthy food. We go beyond organic. Everything that we do is based on building soil. Because if you have healthy soil, you have healthy plants, and then you have healthy people.

We’ve been working on not just growing food, but growing nutrient dense food and in ways that not only doesn’t disturb the environment but improves it. Studies have shown that people are healthier when they eat what is native to the area where they live in. I believe that makes a lot of sense because if it can survive, you can too, right?

What advice would you have for other older adults who are interested in starting an urban farm?

There are certainly lots of older folks who have been growing food their whole lives and there are some things that we all get wrong. So, I would suggest that they take a refresher course like ours (which are free).

The value of doing a course is that you meet a cohort of people to work with and it’s amazing. We have graduations and I’ll never forget that one of the graduate’s kids stood up and said, “My mother has a master’s degree and a PhD. But I’m proudest of this graduation because this is what she really wants to do.”

Another thing that our senior folks have said is that it’s critical to work with your own body and not criticize it for what it can’t do. Instead, celebrate what it can do.

What technology do you use as a part of your work at ECO City Farms?

We have a blend of proven and traditional methods of farming. We use as little fossil fuel run machinery as we can and employ techniques that don’t disrupt the soil, because it’s a living thing. It took us years to improve the soil. So, we do a lot of our work by hand or specialized tools.

But in terms of technology, we have solar power. We use internet crowdsourcing to fundraise. We have some tech to monitor the temperature and remote cameras that will tell us if there are creatures or an intruder of any kind. And we use social media a lot. Both to be in touch with people and spread the word.

To chill our food, we use CoolBot. It was started by farmers and it’s a piece of technology that tricks an air conditioner into thinking that it’s a freezer. And so, at the cost of an air conditioner, you can have a refrigerated room.

What’s your favorite food item you grow at ECO City Farm?

I love bok choy these days. And spinach.

Senior Planet’s Motto is “Aging with Attitude,” what does that mean to you?

If your attitude is, “You can’t tell me anything.” It’s not the attitude that I think I want to age with. I want to age with the attitude that says that “I’m grateful that I’m powerful. And I’m not giving up. And that everyone who I encounter has something to teach me and something I can teach them.” Because we don’t know everything. We can’t know everything. But together we can use our wisdom and our accumulated experiences to do things that really matter to us and preserve the planet.

Interested in learning more about how technology can help your garden flourish? Join us on April 29^th at 6pm ET for “Gardening Tech at a Glance.”

Your Turn: What produce would you grow in your dream garden?

Pam Hugi is Senior Planet’s Community and Advocacy Manager. Based in Brooklyn, she is a contributing writer for this site.