Rashid Nuri

Rashid Nuri, Chief Executive Officer & President of Truly Living Well Center for Natural Urban Agriculture, is excited to share his knowledge of urban agriculture and the positive influence he’s making to help grow cities, create jobs, improve health and strengthen communities.

To Rashid, “Catalyst is the tool to make major paradigm changes in the way we approach situations,” he said. “It is an action idea to renewed vision.” Rashid has a renewed vision of transforming the way we think about food. He describes himself as a revolutionary, committed and stubborn individual. His character and believes have shaped the role he plays in the world. After graduating from Harvard, Rashid searched for his calling. God spoke to him, Rashid said. God wanted him to “learn everything you can about food, from the seed to the table.”

He answered this calling by farming, traveling, and working in agribusinesses around the United States, and overseas in Africa and Asia. He had also worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture under President Clinton.

In 2006, he and his friend Ernest Dunkley began collecting materials to make compost from items including kitchen scraps and yard waste. With their findings, they called on Eugene Cook, an agriculturalist, who helped expand their vision. They started with a back yard plot that grew into 10 acres in five different sites. More than 35,000 pounds of food is produced each year from the land and he says they have not reach capacity yet.

The main site for this urban agriculture is built on a vacant lot that once was a housing project in the Old Fourth Ward area in Atlanta, Georgia. Rashid loves being in green spaces and has chosen to make Atlanta his home because he believes that this city has more green spaces than any other American city.

“It sits across from the King Center, between Wheat Street Baptist Church and Ebenezer Baptist Church, two pillars of the civil rights movement,” he said about his project. “What keeps me going is the fact that we are mounting our own human rights movement to provide organic food, a new, safe community, and jobs to this community and our other communities in metro Atlanta.”

One of his mottos is “What we return to the earth, the earth returns to us.” Today, the three-man team has grown into the Truly Living Well Center for Natural Urban Agriculture with 35 staff members and a Board of Directors. The center offers open-air onsite farmer’s markets twice a week for 52 weeks in a year, farmer entrepreneurial training programs and summer camps for children.

He finds joy in watching people visit the farmers’ markets and watching the community grow. “People of all races, genders and ages come together in the lushness of produce and vegetables to share stories and great ideas.”

Truly Living Well Center has acquired more land and is looking to build a new farm site that includes a gallery for young artists.

Learn more about Rashid’s revolutionary role in transforming the way we think about food at this year’s TEDxPeacthree event on November 8 at the Buckhead Theatre. Purchase your tickets today!

Emily Yang is the communications coordinator for Leadership DeKalb and is looking forward to her first TEDxPeachtree event on November 8.