Corbin Hill Food Project outlines plans to boost Black and Brown growers, opens Harlem space in April

Ishmael Samad, executive director of Corbin Hill Food Project, said the nonprofit is expanding efforts to connect Black and Brown growers to New York City markets and to give communities dignified access to healthy food. He announced a permanent Corbin Hill site in Harlem at 140th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard that the organization expects to open in April.

Corbin Hill, which Samad said has operated in New York for about 11 years and was founded by Dennis Derrick, works with a coalition of partner groups to support what Samad called a "black farmer ecosystem." He said that coalition includes SoFire Farm, Farm School NYC, Black Farmers United, Black Farmer Fund and Northeast Farmers of Color and extends from upstate New York into the city and other regional markets.

Samad described the problem the group seeks to address as structural: relatively few Black farmers work in New York State and the existing food system excludes growers of color. "So what we're trying to do is have an emancipated supply chain from the land to the transportation to the distribution to the manufacturing and then to the market," Samad said, summarizing the group's goal to build shared infrastructure and protect market access for growers.

Programming at the new site and throughout Corbin Hill’s network will include farm-share sites, a Food Is Medicine initiative supported by a registered dietitian, and community cooking and skill-share sessions led by a community chef (referred to in the program as Chef Yadi). Samad said those programs aim to make healthy food "how they need it"—that is, in ways that preserve cultural food traditions and create dignity in food access.

On funding and partnership strategy, Samad said the organizations coordinate to reduce competition for grants and sometimes apply jointly to secure resources for the broader ecosystem. He described funding as the major challenge to sustaining and scaling the work.

Samad encouraged listeners to visit the Harlem site when it opens and to connect with Corbin Hill online. He provided the organization name for social media as "Corbin Hill Food Project" and a website; the transcript listed a misspelled URL (corbonhill.org); the corrected organization website is corbinhill.org.

The interview concluded with the host thanking Samad and repeating his name and title: "Ishmael Samad, executive director, Corbin Hill Food Project."