The ‘Plant Daddy of Dallas’ Is Paving the Way for Clean, Profitable Urban Agriculture

DALLAS—The first thing Michael Bell remembers in life is helping his grandmother in her vegetable garden. 

He would grow green beans and tomatoes alongside her in their small town of Bowie, Texas. During the winter they protected seedlings using plastic bottles they gathered from friends.

Most families raised cattle; Bell’s did too. And while many of his peers dreamed of roping and riding on the ranch, Bell preferred the plants. 

Thirty years later, in a sprawling North Texas metropolis, Bell has joined the movement to bring farms to big cities. Some people call him the “plant daddy of Dallas,” or “the salad guy.” 

“I want to be the reason why Walmart can’t sell produce in Dallas,” he said between crop rows and sun tarps at Dallas Half Acre Farm, which sits on a residential street in a rural area in the southeastern part of the city. 

Bell harvests lettuce, zucchini, tomatoes, spring onions, carrots and other seasonal vegetables. He also raises chicken and collects eggs from quails on a wild plot strewn with tools and lots of overgrown grass. Nestled at the end of a street behind bushes and trees, there are four large greenhouses shaped like tunnels, a shed and a chicken and quail coop.

Across the country, urban farmers like Bell hope to meet the challenges of climate change, public health and food insecurity by reclaiming unused city spaces to grow healthy, local, organic produce. 

Urban farming, also known as market gardening or regenerative farming, is the practice of growing food in urban areas for highly populated communities. It is one potential solution to increased food insecurity due to climate impacts.

Texas scores fourth in food insecurity in the country and climate change is predicted to exacerbate the situation in coming years. 

While the most recent report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that climate change is a threat to food and nutritional security, Joe Masabni, the extension vegetable specialist at the Texas A&M AgriLife Dallas Center, believes food production is not in a crisis just yet. He does, though, recognize that some neighborhoods are already food deserts,  while others are home to huge supermarket chains but no locally grown, organic food. 

“There are a lot of factors contributing to that,” Masabni said. “Loss of agricultural land due to urbanization, changes in consumer taste, people wanting to buy organic and climate change.”

The Dallas Center, located in a futuristic, glass-walled building in North Dallas right next to the University of Texas at Dallas, focuses on sustainable innovations in urban agriculture. It is one of 13 centers in Texas that conduct research, public outreach programs and education for current and future agriculturalists. 

Masabni focuses on education for vegetable growers. He said the center tailors its research around common problems urban farmers face. 

“When we have the answers, we set up programs, conferences or field days to visit with growers and educate them on our research,” he said. The Dallas Center’s last conference, on Dec. 6, was aimed at beginner and expert growers.

Dallas Half Acre Farm keeps true to its name: Bell operates on less than half an acre. “I didn’t know that a career was there,” Bell said of growing organic produce in the city.

Bell, 43, teaches elementary school physical education full-time. He discovered the practice of urban organic farming through YouTube. Once he was hooked, Bell did as much research on the topic as he could.

“As soon as I got involved in it, and I started asking people about food and listening to people complain about food, it just clicked,” he said. “I can grow healthy food. Every customer that I get just strengthens my resolve to keep going.”

Beverly Lanier, a resident from Rowlett, Texas, has been buying from Bell for over a decade. She said she can taste a complete difference between produce from Bell and the supermarket. 

Lanier recalled a moment she shared with her family while eating Bell’s carrots. “They were delicious,” she said. “The family and I were all like, what is this taste? You can’t find carrots that taste like this!”

“Being in the urban area, we are exposed to chemicals everywhere. Why would we want to ingest any more?”

Bell prides himself on his approach to growing crops. 

Everything at Half Acre Farm is done by hand. The soil is never tilled, to save nutrients, and fertilizer is never used, something he said makes his crops taste better than average. 

Bell hand seeds smaller crops and transplants larger ones. Drip irrigation slowly waters the plants, both conserving the amount used and giving the crops exactly the right amount of water to thrive. The water pump runs off of solar energy because there is no electricity at the farm.

“I believe that my farm is adding more to the environment than taking away, which is what we should all aspire to do,” he said.

Bell believes anyone can have an eco-friendly urban farm. He travels all over the Dallas-Fort Worth area speaking at conventions, colleges and high schools to teach his methods. He also offers individual mentorship and internships to aspiring urban farmers. 

“If I feed 100 families in my subdivision every week for a year, I can make $120,000,” Bell said. “Right now there are currently 600 families in my subdivision.

“People don’t realize how much money you can make from doing this, in just a backyard,” he said.

His goal is to teach others how to start their farms while also showing the profitability of the practice, and the message is spreading.

Dirk Tanner is just one of many farmers who have reached out to Bell for beginners’ guidance. 

Tanner, 29, also discovered the idea of small-scale farming through YouTube. When he learned it was possible to make a sizable income with a little land, Tanner said the concept astounded him.

“I just always imagined farms being massive,” he said. 

Tanner, who began his urban farming journey in Denver, now has a farm in Greenbrier, Arkansas. He follows many of Bell’s techniques such as no tilling and emphasizing building soil life to produce highly nutritious vegetables.

Tanner said he strives to have a diverse regenerative farm. In addition to vegetables, he sells pasture-raised eggs from chickens fed on organic grain.

“It is the most fulfilling thing when we go to the farmers’ market every week. People come back and say, not only was it the best salad they’ve ever eaten, but that it lasted so long,” Tanner said. 

“I know they are eating a product that is incredibly clean and builds soil life,” he said. “We’re not depleting life. We are regenerating the land, which helps the environment and makes a healthier community.”

Tanner says urban farms are essential for communities because there is a need for local food supplies. “[The U.S. is] shipping the majority of our lettuce from California and Arizona, using fossil fuels to get them here,” he said. 

“As more people begin to urban farm we can take back our food supply,” Tanner said.

“Food builds community,” he said. “Growing food builds community and empowers people. I think urban farms are not only vitally important to our food security but also vital to human connection and human life.”

Masabni said he does not think it is necessary for people to become farmers just to gain the benefits of eating organic foods.

“Not everybody likes to be outside, sweat and work with the mosquitoes,” he said. “Some people want to eat vegetables, but they don’t want to or know how to grow them. That is a big part of the population.”

Masabni also warned about possible health concerns when buying produce from small-scale growers, sometimes referred to as hobbyists, that sell produce at farmers’ markets. “I think this is a weakness that needs to be addressed,” he said. “Just because it is locally produced doesn’t mean that it is clean, or that it doesn’t have E. coli.” 

Responding to foodborne illness in the country, the Food and Drug Administration enacted the Food Safety Modernization Act in 2011, creating rules for farmers to prevent contamination. Smaller farms like Bell’s are exempt from this act unless selling to restaurants or stores.

For Bell, urban farming is not just a business venture, but a personal journey.

When his grandmother passed away, leaving him an inheritance of $7,500, Bell decided to turn their shared love for plants into a profitable organic farm.

He bought what became Dallas Half Acre Farm on his birthday in April 2016, paying the same amount of money that he had inherited from his grandmother. 

“That’s fate,” he said.

He wants to teach as many people as possible about urban farming. It isn’t easy work, he said,  but with some land, guidance and motivation, he believes anyone is capable of being self-sufficient. In the future, Bell hopes to see farms in every neighborhood, with each individual and community able to provide for themselves. 

He believes that regenerative farms should be included in city infrastructure and that education must begin with younger generations, his reason for speaking to many high school students. “I’m hoping just to get one kid interested out of the 100 I’ll talk to,” he said.

While not everyone may be suited to regenerative farming, it is a practice more urban communities are adopting to address food concerns. 

There are many different ways to be involved in community farms, such as volunteering, community outreach and dedicating time to the growing process. Texas A&M’s AgriLife also works with shelters across Texas to provide fresh, healthy food to people in need.

Despite small-scale farmers’ challenges, Bell said he could not imagine doing anything else. 

“Even if I won the lottery today, I would still come to my farm first thing tomorrow morning.”