Nourish Boston — Rooftop Roots, Deep Impact

The Future of Farming is Local — and Sometimes, It’s on the Roof

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Farming the Skyline

When most people imagine a farm, they picture rolling fields or a red barn at sunrise. But in Boston, one of the most hopeful farms in town lives high above the city streets — on top of Boston Medical Center. Nourish Boston isn’t selling produce. It’s healing. It feeds patients, women in shelter, and people relying on the food bank. It turns rooftop soil into a source of dignity, health, and belonging.

Why Rooftop Farming Matters: Food Insecurity in Boston

Boston may appear wealthy from the outside, but food insecurity is a stark and growing reality. According to the Greater Boston Food Bank’s 2025 statewide food access report, nearly 37% of Massachusetts households struggled with food insecurity in 2024, up from 34% the year prior — almost quadruple what it was in 2019. Even more alarming, “very low food security” — when people must regularly skip meals or go without food entirely — has jumped from 6% in 2019 to 24% in 2024.¹

These are not abstract statistics. They are neighbors. They are patients sitting in hospital rooms, mothers in shelters deciding whether to buy groceries or diapers, and families standing in line at food banks. In that context, what Nourish Boston is doing feels urgent, not optional.

How I Found Nourish Boston

It was during a late-night dive into “the world’s most innovative food solutions” that Boston unexpectedly appeared on a global list. I had expected to see examples in Singapore, Tokyo, or Copenhagen — but my own city was up there among the top ten. That discovery led me to Nourish Boston.

I don’t have a green thumb — in fact, I’ve managed to kill more basil plants than I’ve grown. But I love garden-fresh food: the snap of a cucumber picked moments before eating, the fragrance of herbs hitting a hot pan, the bright taste of a tomato still warm from the sun. I wanted to learn. Volunteering at Nourish Boston gave me a way to connect my love of cooking with a deeper understanding of how food can transform communities, not just meals.

My very first volunteer shift happened to fall during a rainstorm. We were drenched to the bone, shivering and muddy, but laughing. There’s something unforgettable about weeding kale alongside strangers who quickly become friends, with music playing over the sound of the rain — everyone united by kindness and a shared purpose.

Nourish Boston: A Rooftop Farm with Radical Purpose

Perched on the roof of Boston Medical Center, Nourish Boston spans thousands of square feet and grows over two dozen crops each season.² But what makes it truly radical is not its location — it’s its purpose.

Scale & Output: The rooftop farm yields several thousand pounds of organic produce each year, ranging from leafy greens to tomatoes, squash, and herbs.²

Health as a Mission: This produce is woven into the hospital’s “food is medicine” program, which integrates nutrition directly into patient care.²

Community Reach: Harvests are distributed not only to patients, but also to a women’s shelter and the Greater Boston Food Bank — ensuring food reaches those who need it most.³

Hands-On Involvement: Volunteers like me join to plant, weed, harvest, and sometimes cook. In the process, we see the entire life cycle: seed → leaf → meal.

This isn’t farming for profit. It’s farming for people.

The Bigger Picture: Who’s Your Farmer?

At Who’s Your Farmer?, we believe knowing where your food comes from is as essential as knowing who your doctor is. Our credit card will make it easier for consumers to support local farms directly — at CSAs, farmers markets, and farm-to-table restaurants. But our long-term mission is broader: we want to connect hospitals, schools, and prisons with local farms so that nutritious, dignified food isn’t a luxury, but a right.

Nourish Boston embodies that future. It shows what happens when food systems are reimagined — when a hospital roof doubles as farmland, when food insecurity is met with creativity, and when a city’s skyline sprouts not only glass and steel, but kale and tomatoes.

Closing Call to Action

Every movement starts with stories. This is our first Feature Farmer spotlight — but it’s more than that. It’s a reminder: change is possible.

When someone asks “Who’s Your Farmer?”, I want everyone — from the person in a hospital bed, to the shelter resident, to the schoolkid’s lunch tray — to have a name and a face to answer with.

If you are someone who loves fresh food, and you want to help change the system:

Join our community. Sign up as a Founding Member to get early access, behind-the-scenes farm stories, volunteer opportunities, and help shape how Who’s Your Farmer works.

For farms and institutions. If you are a farm, hospital, shelter, or school interested in connecting locally — whether to donate, distribute, or partner — we want you in. Let’s build something together.

Because knowing who grows your food shouldn’t be a privilege. It should be a right.

End Notes

Greater Boston Food Bank, 2025 Annual Statewide Food Access Report, March 2025, https://www.gbfb.org/news/press-releases/2025-annual-statewide-food-access-report/

EatingWell, Boston Medical Center’s Rooftop Farm Nourishing our Community, 2025, https://www.bmc.org/nourishing-our-community/rooftop-farm

Boston Medical Center, Food is Medicine Program Overview, accessed 2025, https://www.bmc.org/nourishing-our-community