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Riverside is embarking on an ambitious agricultural project that will train farmers while increasing the amount crops grown in the city despite climate change.
The Northside Agricultural Innovation Center will cover 7.5 acres and be the first facility of its kind in the United States, according to a statement released last month before the project’s groundbreaking.
The innovation center at 900 Clark St. will be built in phases, with the exact number still to be determined. Phase one will include a 50,000-square-foot greenhouse, and 14,000 square feet of solar panels installed above agricultural fields.
The outdoor panels will cover approximately one acre. Besides collecting solar energy, those panels will provide power to the innovation center, and return about one megawatt of energy to its electrical grid every year.
Combined, both sets of panels will help produce three times the amount of crops a regular farm will produce in a year, while using about 80 percent less water.
The first phase will also include the start of construction of hiking trails for walkers and bicycle riders, better access to open spaces, a tree nursery, community garden, space for a farmer’s market, 450 trees, and a carbon-sequestering orchard.
Carbon sequestering is the practice of capturing and storing carbon dioxide so that it does not enter the atmosphere and contribute to global warming.
Construction of a learning center with classrooms will start during the project’s first phase.
A demonstration kitchen, a 30-plot community garden, and outdoor training facilities for aspiring farmers will also be built during phase one, according to a description of the project on the city’s website.
The project’s second phase will include completion of the learning center, street improvements, restrooms and hiking trails.
City officials have not said how much the innovation center will cost, or how long it will take to build.
Ultimately, the innovation center is about more than upgrading a large piece of land, according to Mike Futrell, Riverside’s city manager.
“This project is about meaningful jobs and our economy,” Futrell said in a statement. “It’s about transitioning from agriculture to climate-smart agriculture, and it’s about preparing for our future. It will be a place where ideas are born, where businesses are launched, and where we can see the future of farming unfold.”
Riverside has secured approximately $10 million in state, local and private funding to develop the innovation center, including nearly $2 million from the California Urban Greening Program, which contributes to projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Besides its agricultural and environmental benefits, the innovation center will give a much-needed boost to the Northside Neighborhood, an area that, historically hasn’t received as much largesse from city hall as has other Riverside communities. The innovation center, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture has called one of the top five agricultural projects in the United States, will also make it possible for the city to produce better crops.
“This project will bring lasting benefits to Riverside’s Northside neighborhood,” Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson said in the statement. “It also will help us as a city, a region, and a state to be more resilient in growing food in an environment that is getting warmer and drier.
“It will do all of that with less water, while creating renewable energy.”
When it’s up and running, the innovation center is expected to train at least 135 people a year, help six to 10 people annually acquire the skills to become farmers, and launch approximately 25 start-up companies during the next decade.
“The center is a game-changing development that will enhance Northside community, the city’s oldest neighborhood,” said Councilman Philip Falcone, whose Ward One includes the innovation center site.
The innovation center began with GrowRiverside, an agricultural project started in 2014 under then-Mayor Ron Loveridge.
GrowRiverside, which is still in place, seeks to create a “robust” food and agricultural system, one that will both involve community members and turn a profit.
In 2017, a group of Riverside officials visited a similar agricultural project in Burlington, Vt and were so impressed they decided to use that as the model for the innovation center, said Joyce Jong, senior project manager in Riverside’s Office of Sustainability.
“It was very impressive,” said Jong, who was part of the delegation. “It had a basic, nuts-and-bolts feel to it that we really liked, but it also had a lot of amenities. We knew right away that was what we wanted to do in Riverside.”
Eventually the innovation center will allow Riverside to take advantage of one of its greater natural resources: a 5,000-acre parcel zoned for agricultural use called the green belt. Located in the Arlington Heights neighborhood, the green belt has little residential development, much citrus agriculture, and is home to the California Citrus State Historic Park.
Between 1,000 and 1,200 acres within the green belt is vacant and should be used for farming, said Scott Berndt, a Riverside farmer for the past 10 years.
“It’s centrally located, and it has its own water supply,” Berndt said of the green belt, which is bordered by Presidential Park to the north, La Sierra South to the west, unincorporated county land to the south, and the county line to to the east.
“It’s pretty unique. We can’t let it go to waste.”
Over time, the innovation center’s greatest contribution to the local economy might be its training people to farm, a category of workers that is vital to the economy, but dwindling in recent years.
“A lot of children of farmers have their own careers,” Berndt said. “They’re not interested in farming, but we still need people who know how to farm. It’s a lot cheaper to grow crops locally, and it’s better for the environment.”
