A Family-friendly event promoting urban agriculture, community and education in Buffalo and surrounding towns.

MEDIA RELEASE

August 11, 2025

5th Annual Urban Farm Day (UFD) Returns Saturday, August 16, 2025

A FAMILY-FRIENDLY EVENT PROMOTING URBAN AGRICULTURE, COMMUNITY AND EDUCATION IN BUFFALO AND SURROUNDING TOWNS

Buffalo, NY - On Saturday, August 16, 2025, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. the 5th annual Urban Farm Day will celebrate 21 urban farms located in Buffalo, Grand Island and Tonawanda. Free and open to the public, visitors can enjoy activities that range from tomato tasting and rabbit petting to talks on soil health and food insecurity.  

Urban Farm Day grew out of covid and the food access issues that arose.  UFD highlights the exceptional work urban farms do to address food insecurity and to ensure that individuals and communities have better access to fresh food.  Access that includes mobile markets, neighborhood farms, and even small, individual gardens.

We also want to have fun.  Even if visitors never plan to put a single tomato plant in the ground.  As the tagline for UFD notes, “It’s not what you think it is.”

Last year at one of the small private UFD sites on Grand Island, the grower noted, “I happened to have a bed of potatoes ready to dig. The kids loved it. Two little boys, 5 and 3, preferred taking home a potato to having a cookie. Even the adults were digging in. Well worth my time to educate about growing food.”

Visitors will have the opportunity to buy fresh produce at many of the sites, in addition to enjoying more than a dozen activities planned during the day, among them:

  • A Community Bake at Groundwork Market Garden from 12 p.m.- 4 p.m.,  offering outdoor oven-fired pizza.  Visitors are welcome to bring, bake and share their own offerings. Learn more.

  • Special Talk at Pollinator Lounge at 1 p.m. with architect Joyce Hwang who will share the story behind the curiously named Pollinator Lounge, commissioned by the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, and relocated this spring to UB’s South Campus.  It features 43 habitat boxes, an arrangement of wooden seats for humans and habitat boxes for non-humans. 

  • Special Talk at Tribo Garden at 2 p.m. where visitors will learn about the adventures and misadventures in the home beer brewing and winemaking processes. 

With the intention of highlighting issues faced by urban farms, this year's UFD also features a private, policy-focused tour.  UFD committee members will host policy makers at 4 sites, and it's our hope to deepen their understanding of and interest in urban ag issues, e.g. water access, land acquisition, food access and more. 

Special Ticketed Events from UFD Partners:

  • Explore Buffalo Bus Tour: Reserve a seat on the bus tour to visit 5 urban farms and learn more about their impact on Buffalo’s food community. (Starts at 9 a.m., $44/person.) Reserve your ticket. 

  • Harvest Roll - 12-3pm: Harvest Roll is Slow Roll Buffalo's annual curated ride, experience, and fundraiser, partnering this year in exploring and supporting urban farms and food systems in WNY. Learn more. 

Visitors are encouraged to download a map to plan in advance. For more information and to reserve spots for the special ticketed events, visit UrbanFarmDay.com

Urban Farm Day is an event produced by Gardens Buffalo Niagara, whose mission is to create more vibrant and beautiful communities by sharing gardens through events like the Garden Art Sale, Garden Walk Buffalo, America’s largest garden tour; the East Side Garden Walk; Tour of Open Gardens on Thursdays and Fridays in July; Conservation Day in Bidwell Park,  and promoting the many other garden tours of Buffalo Niagara. 

Gardens Buffalo Niagara’s full press kit can be found here. 

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Audrey Clark