DETROIT (FOX 2) - At D-Town Farms at Rouge Park on Detroit's west side, they are making some adjustments this summer.
Instead of their usual farm stand - their seven acres of fruits vegetables and herbs are going online, partnering with Oakland Avenue Farms on the north end, to feed people.
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D-Town Farms starts food co-op
They are calling it a model of community self-reliance in a community too often forced to be reliant on unhealthy food from elsewhere.
"People can order our produce online and we'll have contactless curbside pickup," said Malik Yakini.
Yakini is the executive director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network. He says COVID-19 has changed food for all of us.
"People have been shocked into a new awareness by seeing empty grocery store shelves by seeing hundreds of people lined up at food banks and people are realizing how fragile the current food system is and they're seeing disparities," he said.
To that end, Yakini says they're working on an even bigger project - in a city with no Black-owned grocery stores, they're building a Detroit People's Food Co-op at Woodward and Euclid - it will be called the Detroit Food Commons.
"People can see how we can work on our own accord with our neighbors to create ways of growing food, distributing that food and selling that food on the retail level," he said.
And anyone from Michigan can be a member.
"So you actually are an owner of this business because it is a cooperatively owned business," Yakini said.
Yakini called it a model of community self-reliance in a community too often forced to be reliant on unhealthy food from elsewhere.
"People are interested in what we can do ourselves on a community level to at least begin to provide some of the food that we consume," he said.
Which brings us back to D-Town farms - where hundreds of volunteers are usually hard at work this time of year. The farm had to close down for a whole month due to COVID-19 - these crops are just now getting ready to go in the ground.
And they will be bringing back some of those volunteers to help - following COVID-19 safety protocols of course.
"We're behind - a month behind where we usually are, so we have less produce now than we usually have at this time of the year," he said. "But we do have some things that are ready and we'll be selling those in the next few weeks."
Check D-Town Farms' Facebook page in the coming weeks for more information HERE and learn more about it by going to the website HERE.