Sprouting success with Queens AM Anderson
With food expenses rising and groceries costing more for families across the state, access to fresh food is even more of a necessity than ever. Queens State Assemblymember Khaleel Anderson is responding after being appointed as the new chair of the State Assembly’s food and farming task force, and his passion for healthy food is evident as he tours the state’s farms.
“We have a growing — pun intended — food ecosystem here on the peninsula,” said Anderson, about his district in Far Rockaway, Queens.
He is “beyond excited” to be named chair of the Task Force on Farm, Food, and Nutrition Policy for the New York State Assembly. His journey to this position began more than 12 years ago as a high school student, when Superstorm Sandy devastated his community in the Rockaways in 2012. He dedicated himself to addressing the systemic barriers that create food apartheid in low-income and underserved communities with limited access to healthy and affordable food.
His position fulfills a goal that dates to his election. “When I first got in office, I brought out the chair of this same task force to the farm that I helped build,” said Anderson. “I was thinking that maybe one day, I could lead some of that work for the state.”
During the onset of the pandemic in 2020, applications for food benefits like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) surged. The New York City Independent Budget Office (IBO), in a report published in October 2024, detailed how the city has struggled to deliver those SNAP benefits over the last several years to those in need by its legally mandated deadlines. Making matters worse was the discovery that at least $47.7 million in SNAP and Cash Assistance (CA) benefits were stolen through electronic fraud over the last 16 months.
Food and urban farming initiatives are a more sustainable way to provide access to healthy food, promote the development of locally sourced grocery stores and farmers’ markets in federally designated food deserts, and fight against the harmful practice of “SNAP skimming,” said Anderson.
“After [Superstorm] Sandy, a lot of folks realized that our food system was terrible here. We had no electricity, no gas for many weeks after the storm had hit. People had to figure out ways to eat. Food was coming in, but there wasn’t autonomy (so) folks began to grow,” said Anderson. “I was able to help build a half-an-acre urban farm in Arverne after Sandy, because now people were able to understand building out that self-sufficiency.”
Ariama C. Long photos
Teaching through farming
One example of that understanding is the Far Rockaway High School’s hydroponic farm, where Anderson did a walk-through on Friday, Jan. 24. The school’s farm and kitchen are operated by Teens for Food Justice (TFFJ).
The organization got its start in 2013, said TFFJ CEO/Founder Katherine Soll. Their goal is to build a food-secure environment through youth-led, school-based hydroponic farming — the technique of growing plants vertically using a water-based nutrient solution rather than soil. Hydroponic farming uses less water than traditional soil farming.
“As you can see, we provide an education that’s rooted in a space that mirrors what would happen in a commercial indoor hydroponic farm,” said Soll. “I think we all know that our farming system is broken. We don’t have the natural resources to continue to grow food the way that we do. Our agricultural economy is focused on commodity foods, so we grow a lot of sugar, corn, wheat, and soy, and all of those things are going into foods that are not really healthy for us.”
TFFJ has nine hydroponic farms in New York City, operating in majority low-income schools in food deserts. The farm at Far Rockaway engages 6th- to 12th-grade students from four co-located schools: Queens High School for Information, Research, and Technology; the Academy of Medical Technology; Knowledge and Power Prep Academy; and Frederick Douglass VI High School. The facility is equipped with a germinator bay (plant nursery), Mars Hydro grow tent, water filtration and delivery system, and shallow rack culture (SRC) shelves. They can produce about 7,000 pounds of fresh produce a year, said Soll.
The Far Rockaway students are largely from Black, Latino, South Asian, or newly arrived immigrant backgrounds, said TFFJ Far Rockaway Regional Manager Jessenia Preciado, and often choose to grow plants and herbs that they’ve grown up with or cooked with at home. These include plants like microgreens, Thai basil, cilantro, rosemary, mint, thyme, marjoram, chives, swiss chard, and collard greens. TFFJ then builds a curriculum around those crops over the weeks that it takes for them to mature. Preciado said most of the students’ favorite part is cooking after their harvest and enjoying the food they make.
“It’s really nice because the kids love coming here,” said Preciado. “Teachers as well. They love trimming their herbs. Taking some herbs and putting (them) in their salad. They know they can walk and get mint if they want while they’re cooking.”
The farm and cooking curriculum also encourages students to explore careers in sustainability, technology, agriculture, and ecology, said Soll.
TFFJ was initially funded by a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant, capital funding from Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, and discretionary funding from Councilmember Selvena N. Brooks-Powers. Anderson’s plan is to expand urban farming initiatives, particularly at the Far Rockaway High School campus and Goldie Maple Academy in Queens, as well as throughout the state. He has provided $400,000 for the hydroponic farm at Far Rockaway High School, which supplies fresh produce to local food pantries throughout the peninsula; allocated $100,000 each year for expenses at Goldie Maple Academy for the next two years; and allocated $400,000 for a greenhouse in Rockaway to support the Campaign Against Hunger organization.
As the state finalizes its executive budget, Anderson is also advocating for more resources for traditional Black farmers with farmland upstate.
“You have Black farmers that are always at a disadvantage because of the costs of product, and cost of the tools and materials you need,” said Anderson. “… tractors and equipment are very expensive. You have to take out thousands of dollars in loans to get these tools. Irrigation systems. All of this is expensive.”
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