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Strawberry Mansion Community Garden, North Philadelphia, 2008. All photos courtesy of The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
From Community Gardening To Community Food Security
by Michael Nairn and Domenic Vitiello
Harvard Design Magazine 31,
Fall/Winter 2009/10
Excerpt:
Tomatoes always seem to taste better when you are acquainted with the person who grew them, especially when that person is you. Many Americans have never tasted a "real" tomato, vine ripened no more than a day or two before being eaten. Corn tastes best when you get the water boiling minutes before you pick it. The joys of fresh produce, along with those of saving money and building community, help explain the recent growth of farmers' markets and of the fascination with urban agriculture.
Growing food in cities promises the delight of being acquainted with what we eat and its origins more intimately, and of feeling less guilty for our (usually) smaller ecological footprint, since it is typically organic and cuts down on waste. It is something many city dwellers already experience through community gardens and new entrepreneurial urban farms. As cities face the environmental, economic, and social challenges of the 21st century, including hunger, diabetes, and dependence
on global industrial food systems based on fossil fuels, local food production will be more and more important for building food security. How do we achieve this? What do the hundreds of community gardens and farms we recently studied in Philadelphia tell us about the sustainability of urban agriculture and urban life?
In Philadelphia, neighbors breathe in scents of the butterfly bushes and basil of community gardens where once were trash-strewn lots; they pride themselves on reviving and beautifying their blocks. At the farmers' market at City Hall, adults delight in buying spinach and squash from teenagers who farm a former corner of their high-school soccer field and who actually eat sorrel. At a pig roast, children dancing to bomba drums and eating pigeon peas with rice make grandmothers feel gratified that their garden is preserving their Puerto Rican culture. On the urban farm, apprentices watch honeybees returning to the city to pollinate our food and future.
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