News

Chipotle Cultivate Foundation awards $500,000 grant to the International Rescue Committee

The IRC's MicroProducer Academy helps refugee farmers adapt existing agricultural skills to an urban American environment and marketplace while improving their access to locally-grown foods.

November 17, 2014

The Chipotle Cultivate Foundation has renewed its support for the International Rescue Committee's New Roots Program with a two-year, $500,000 grant to help finance expansion of the program's MicroProducer Academy.

According to a news release, the MicroProducer Academy launched in 2013 with a previous grant from the Cultivate Foundation and helps refugee farmers adapt existing agricultural skills to an urban American environment and marketplace while improving their access to healthy, locally-grown foods.

In its inaugural year, the MicroProducer Academy had 75 participants in Salt Lake City, New York, and Oakland, California. Participants grew produce to feed their families, and to sell at farmers markets, through community supported agriculture programs, as well as to restaurants. The Cultivate Foundation's initial grant of $200,000 helped establish the MicroProducer Academy in San Diego, Phoenix, Dallas, and Charlottesville, Virginia, and will add Atlanta and Seattle in the coming months.

"Working with the IRC, we are giving refugees access to land, capital and other resources," said Mark Crumpacker, president and board member of the Cultivate Foundation, in the release. "This allows them to provide healthy food for their families and provides employment opportunities in farming, which leverages the skills many of them brought from their native countries."