Houston Food Bank urges water-rate exemption for small urban farms to support food access

The Houston Food Bank and representatives from the nonprofit Plant It Forward asked the Houston Resilience Committee on April 3 to adopt an agricultural water-rate exemption for very small urban farms, saying the change would help keep neighborhood producers operating and increase access to fresh food in areas with high food insecurity.

"We are an organization whose vision is a world that doesn't need food banks," said Dr. Katherine Byers, government relations officer for the Houston Food Bank, during the presentation. Byers described the bank's distribution network, noting it serves 1,600 partner agencies across an 18-county area and has "a little over 300 partners" inside the city of Houston.

The request responds to multiple pressures on micro-scale farms, presenters said. Rachel, farm program director at Plant It Forward, told the committee that "urban farms operate on razor thin margins" and described fixed costs such as soil and infrastructure investments and water bills. She said a typical half-acre urban farm might gross about $50,000 in produce sales annually, with 40–50% of that revenue consumed by expenses; water bills for micro farms can run "1 to $2,000 a year," she said.

Presenters said USDA grant programs…