Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture- Our History

Urban agriculture is not new. People have been growing food where they live for thousands of years. Columbia itself has a robust tradition of urban agriculture with legacies like Henry Kirklin’s farm on Switzler Street (started in 1883), Mizzou’s Sanborn Field (started in 1888), the Community Garden Coalition with 40 years of history across 31 gardens, and the historic Boone County Fairgrounds that have become Columbia’s Agriculture Park in recent years. Take a trip down memory lane to see how CCUA has grown over the years.
CCUA started as a project of Sustain Mizzou, an MU student group. CCUA's founders taught a service-learning class that composted food waste from campus dining halls. Food was grown downtown at a property leased from Mark & Carol Stevenson for a rent of tomatoes and eggs. Today, CCUA has grown. The organization relocated to Columbia's Agriculture Park, the Urban Farm became our Veterans Urban Farm, we've launched and expanded programing, our staff is now 22 people strong with 400+ volunteers, 500+ donors, and 10,000+ participants.
Learn more at: ColumbiaUrbanAg.org