Our Story
2009-2010
Led by Corbin Hill Road Farm LLC’s founder Dennis Derryck, 11 majority BIPOC investors come together to fund the purchase of a 95 acre farm in upstate NY, intending for the farm to eventually belong to shareholders in New York City, providing urban communities with complete food sovereignty. The vision of a community-owned and controlled food system that connects upstate growers with NYC eaters, creating wealth for communities of color and low-income communities in Harlem and the Bronx was born.
Partnerships were formed with local farms surrounding Corbin Hill Road Farm and by June, 2010, beautiful Schoharie County fruits and vegetables were being delivered to New York City.
2011
Corbin Hill pioneers the “Farm Share” model, a hybrid-CSA designed to meet the needs of low-income communities through affordable prices and flexibility with sign up and payment options.
In it’s first season, CH has 1,500 Farm Shares serving 200 households through aggregating from rural, small-scale family farms in Schoharie County and delivering to NYC.
CH’s seminal case study is published – Corbin Hill Road Farm Share: A Hybrid Food Value Chain in Practice, illustrating how community-based nonprofits are crucial for building a food system that involves diverse stakeholders, encourages shared governance, ensures transparency, empowers consumers, and supports regional farmers.
2012
Corbin Hill Food Project, the 501c3 was created under the same mission to become a safer investment to foundations, government grantors, and private individuals. The LLC absolved all debt, allowing the nonprofit a fresh start.
2013
The nonprofit continues the operations, serving 800 individuals and families through Farm Share and thousands of others through a second wholesale program, mainly generating revenue through procuring food for food pantries throughout NYC.
Corbin Hill Road Farm receives state recognition and is awarded $180,000 to create an agricultural products hub with a match from Farm Credit East in the form of a grant. At this time, more than a third of Corbin Hill’s sites are wholesale, getting food for 4,000 people a week.
2014
Aggregation is decentralized, Corbin Hill expanded distribution into Queens and Brooklyn.
2015
Farm share and institutional programs continue to grow serving 89,000 individuals through combined programs. In the 2015 season CHFP provided food to 47,634 people, including 20,790 children, 87 percent of whom are considered vulnerable.
2016
CHFP shifts to networked farms and leveraging existing infrastructure through community and institutional partnerships. This year, CH worked with 42 farmers, selling 16,685 farm shares to 65,696 individuals in NYC, 65% who are vulnerable.
2017
Farm Share currently serves more than 600 people at 21 sites throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens. Corbin Hill is featured in a study called “Creating Integrated Strategies for Increasing Access to Healthy Affordable Food in Urban Communities: A Case Study of Intersecting Food Initiatives”
2019
CH serves 20 sites throughout Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens.
2020
The attempt to transfer land-ownership of Corbin Hill Road Farm begins, in collaboration with several other lead organizations including Farm School NYC, the newly launched Black Farmer Fund and Black Yard Farm, a collective of beginning Black farmers. This lays the foundation for the creation of the Black Farmer Ecosystem, a concept that BIPOC-led and stewarded organizations in the Northeast (Black Farmer Fund, Black Farmers United, Corbin Hill Food Project, Farm School NYC, Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust, and Soul Fire Farm), could collectively provide the support for Black farmers to thrive through shifting power and ownership.
COVID 19 Pivot – Corbin Hill Food Project responded to NYC’s COVID-19 emergency request to serve the City’s food insecure. Over a two-month period, CHFP delivered 4,000 boxes of food that translated into 540,000 meals. An equally important measure of success for CHFP was that 25% of every dollar spent went to Brooklyn Packers, a Black-owned coop, and to a Black farmer—a non-extractive economic model that is providing food access while building community wealth.
2021
Corbin Hill in partnership with Farm School NYC is awarded a USDA SARE research grant project, “Creating a Black Farmers Commons in Transferring Land”, which will explore how supportive facilitation and a sovereignty framework based on historic and current collective land ownership, business and governance models impact black farm tenure and viability. It aimed to create the first Black Farmer Commons in the Northeast — a novel pilot model of Black ownership that will create land transfer processes adaptable to farmers without succession plans, and progress us toward a racially just, regenerative and equitable food system.
Corbin Hill Food Project is the first BIPOC-led, community-based organization in New York State to receive a $450,000 Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program, Produce Prescription grant from USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) for a Food as Medicine program (FAM).
2022
Corbin Hill secures an additional $500k funding for innovations on its Food as Medicine project and partners, bringing the total funding to $1M.
2023
CH becomes the fiscal sponsor and lead for the Fidelity, Equity and Dignity (FED) Collective, in partnership with Upstream Impact Consulting and Daisa Enterprises.
2024
Hired Ismail Samad as Executive Director
Our Founder
