A Letter from Lisa Newcomb, C.R.O.P.S Executive Director
C.R.O.P.S. is thrilled to be included in the Atlantic City Arts Foundation’s Ministry of ARTeriors! C.R.O.P.S. will be ten years old in 2026 and as I reflect on the last few years of our work, this event feels like the perfect celebration of the collaborative efforts of our nonprofit community in Atlantic City. Showcasing a space that will be inhabited by a number of those nonprofits and partners is the cherry on top!
Our mission is to alleviate food insecurity through empowering healthy, interconnected communities by cultivating fresh produce, ensuring access to nutritious food, providing educational programming, and advocating for sustainable food systems and collaborative solutions. We have worked extensively to see this mission through from expanding our farmers market locations to include the WIC office on Iowa Avenue, to building a food hub on Tennessee Avenue to aggregate nutritious food, to piloting a sliding scale Farm Share Program inclusive of SNAP customers to running a comprehensive three year urban farmer training program. All of this in an effort to make sure good food is consistently available to Atlantic City community members.
Farmers Row was born out of collaboration with Chelsea EDC, CARING, Inc., and our very dear friends at Reed’s Organic Farm. We’re big on recycling at C.R.O.P.S., so when Chelsea EDC suggested utilizing existing vacant spaces to provide space for nonprofits to run vital programming, and CARING, Inc. offered to renovate spaces specifically for our growing needs, no pun intended, we were on board.
Farmers Row will provide space to us, Reed’s, and the Green Coalition of Atlantic City, as well as the UCAN Urban Farmers in our training program and other members of the Green Coalition space to grow more food, space to hold, process, and distribute more local, nutritious food, and space to host community gatherings and educational offerings.
Collectively, we are working to highlight the vibrant local food movement and show the world that Atlantic City can be a Food Hub rather than a food desert. We feel the best way to fight food insecurity is to build a food system that is made sustainable by the community it includes. We hope you’ll join us as we continue to build a Farm to Fork Atlantic City!
With thanks,
Lisa Newcomb
Executive Director
Communities Revolutionizing Open Public Spaces (C.R.O.P.S.).
For more information: www.cropsnj.org
Facebook: CROPS Nonprofit | Instagram: @cropsnonprofit
Originally published November 2025, Issue No. 1, The Arts Dispatch.