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From The Ground Up:
The Role of Urban Gardens and Farms in Low-Income Communities

Professor Raquel Pinderhughes
Urban Studies Program at San Francisco State University
For Ford Foundation’s edited volume on Environmental Assets and the Poor (2001)
published by the Russell Sage Foundation.
June 2000

Do not distribute this article or portions thereof without permission of the author

In the spring of 1997, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced he would sell off city properties that were home to more than 100 community gardens. The real estate market was surging, and the land was ripe for housing and commercial development.

New York City’s community gardening movement traces its history to 1973, when Liz Christy, founder of the Green Guerillas, organized her neighbors on the Lower East Side to clean out a vacant lot and start planting. Local residents and institutions donated plants, seeds, vegetable clippings, time, and talent. In 1978, the Green Guerillas spurred the city’s Green Thumb program, which arranged year-to-year leases for community gardens on public land and supported growers in cleaning up properties, putting up fences, and bringing in topsoil. New York City had numerous empty lots at the time, concentrated in the poorest neighborhoods, and the land was viewed as worthless for other purposes.

By the late 1990s, the city had more than 700 gardens with thousands of participants. The gardens yielded nutritious food for neighborhoods and donations to emergency food shelters. They promoted cooperation across generations and ethnic groups. They fostered youth development, leadership skills, environmental awareness, and community action (Green Guerillas 2000). In many neighborhoods, they served as the closest thing to a park.

So when Giuliani scheduled an auction for 113 gardens, the opposition moved quickly and forcefully. Thousands of city residents took to the streets. The City Council passed a resolution opposing the sale and considered blocking it outright through an amendment to the city charter. State Senator John Sampson questioned whether the city could sell the gardens without approval from the state legislature. Other members of the state assembly proposed a bill to prevent a unilateral sale.

Finally, two nonprofit organizations came forward with an offer to buy the properties at below-market prices and preserve them for gardening. The proposals became quite attractive when lawsuits were filed just before the auction to block it. The city would not get full value for the land, but it would avoid a court battle, which meant a delay of the sale at the very least, and perhaps more dire consequences. So the city agreed to sell 63 gardens for $3 million to the The Trust for Public Land and 50 gardens for $1.2 million to the The New York Restoration Project, a new nonprofit headed by Bette Milder.

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In most parts of the world, urban gardening and agriculture fill a simple need for food (Eberlee 1993). In the United States, urban cultivation does much more. Gardens and farms provide a critical natural asset and address environmental injustice in neighborhoods plagued by incinerators, leaded paint, hazardous waste facilities, inadequate housing and health care, and scarce open space (Kass & McCarroll 1999). Urban gardens and farms transform blighted areas into vibrant green ones, absorb organic urban waste, and reduce dependency on fossil fuels by decreasing the distance from field to table. In neighborhoods that lack decent supermarkets, food cultivation reduces pressure on limited budgets and increases intake of much needed fresh fruits and vegetables. It provides an excellent venue for education about nutrition and food preparation. And it provides a focus for community activity, empowering residents and fostering neighborhood development.

Urban agriculture depends heavily on both public and private support. But that support is not always reliable. As events in New York demonstrate, city officials can move swiftly to take back property when they perceive that it could be used more “productively.” The growers were fortunate to be rescued in that case, but in most others, such large sums of money are hard to come by. To thrive over the long term, urban agriculture needs a commitment from the public and nonprofit sectors.

I. The Benefits of Urban Agriculture

Strengthening the Food System

Supermarkets have abandoned many low-income communities. The markets that remain tend to be relatively small, with a narrow selection of goods and services. Small food stores and liquor stores tend to charge higher prices due to lack of competition and higher operating costs, and the food is generally of lower quality (Weinberg 1999). Residents without cars who choose to shop outside the community often must choose between carrying their groceries long distances, using precious financial resources on taxi rides, or making multiple bus transfers (Ashman et. al. 1993). Low-income, inner-city residents across the United States are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain fresh produce (Rinehart 1999, Weinberg 1999). Poor access to affordable, nutritious food aggravates hunger and contributes to such diet-related diseases as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and cancer. Despite the longest economic boom in U.S. history, more than 30 million people across the country suffer from hunger and food insecurity (Center on Hunger and Poverty 2000). A Tufts University study found that poor children ages five and younger consume less than 70 percent of the recommended daily allowance of 10 out of 16 nutrients. These children are at risk for impairments in growth, cognition, and immunity (Cook and Martin 1995).

In this context, urban gardens provide a critical source of fresh, nutritious produce at relatively low cost. A study by the Philadelphia Urban Gardening Project found that urban gardeners ate fresh produce from their gardens five months of the year (Rinehart 1999). They shared the harvest regularly with relatives and neighbors, and more than 40 percent of them donated food to a local church or community organization. Sixty-two percent preserved some of the yield for the off-season.

Many sponsors of urban agriculture are interested in addressing hunger and malnutrition. For families dependent upon food banks and shelters, donations of local produce may provide their only access to fresh food. During its first summer of operation, Garden of Union in Brooklyn, New York donated 343 pounds of fresh vegetables to a neighborhood shelter. In 1999, Garden City Harvest in Missoula, Montana fed 700 families, supplied the local food bank with 20,000 pounds of produce, and also gave to the city’s emergency food programs. Friends of Holcomb Farm, near Hartford, Connecticut, sets aside a portion of its land to feed the hungry.

Urban gardening and agriculture can be highly productive, far more so than conventional rural agriculture. Yields vary widely based on inputs, resources, and know-how. But with inter-cropping and integrated farming techniques that make intensive use of both horizontal and vertical space, urban agriculture can yield as much as 15 times the output per acre of conventional rural agriculture. The French marais method of gardening is particularly successful. This intensive method is characterized by double-dug, raised beds with large applications of manure and compost. It can produce huge amounts of produce from a small space year-round in soil that is heated with the aid of the heavy manure applications (UNDP 1996). In addition, urban farmers can plant crops in containers and stack them in pyramids. Plants also can be grown on walls, their vines providing a ceiling of shade as well as crops. Use of containers, walls, and air space can triple the productive farm space of a 20-square-meter plot. And greenhouses, though labor-intensive, can produce 15 to 20 times as much per acre as crops grown under normal field conditions (Lockeretz 1987).

Nutrition and Food Preparation

Urban gardens and farms offer an opportunity to learn firsthand where food comes from. They provide an ideal setting in which to teach local residents about nutrition and how to prepare meals with fresh ingredients. The Sustainable Food Center in Austin, Texas gives families an opportunity to learn how to grow their own food and prepare meals economically. It sponsors farmers’ markets in low-income communities, where people can buy fresh produce using coupons from the federal Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program. WIC customers buy more than 85 percent of the produce sold at market.

The center began its cooking program after staff learned that many residents, particularly young mothers, were using their WIC coupons to purchase only fruit because they did not know how to prepare vegetables. Free classes demonstrate how to grow, buy, and prepare healthful, inexpensive, and satisfying meals, with lessons on budgeting, shopping, hygiene, and menu planning. The classes also cover nutrition, explaning its relationship to child development and disease. The program incorporates trainers from the community so as to increase community skills and allow for expansion without a major, long-term increase in funding. The center also works with a local volunteer organization that installs gardens in residents’ backyards.

Youth Programs and Job Training

Urban gardens and farms offer an excellent arena for programs serving low-income youth. Here are a few examples: All People's Garden, founded in 1978 in Manhattan, runs a program for juvenile first offenders, a teen drug prevention project, a Head Start program for 4-to-12 year-olds, and a program that connects youth with local artists. The cooperative extension service at Ohio State University runs an alternative sentencing program in conjunction with the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court. Judges can send juvenile offenders to the garden to work off the hours they have to serve. The program is so successful that there are plans to expand the youth garden to cover a whole city block.

Green Oasis, in Manhattan, set up a junior board of directors to involve community youth in decision-making. The garden involves youth in community activities, fosters organizational and managerial skills, and promotes self-esteem and civic pride. The Children’s Aid Society in Cleveland, Ohio runs a residential treatment center for children from abusive environments. Gardening has been integral to the program since the society was formed in 1832. In the beginning the garden provided the kitchen with food; today, it offers therapeutic activity for the children. The main goal is to give each child an experience of success. In addition, each child’s plot becomes his or her land, giving a sense of ownership, control, and responsibility (Ohio State University 1999).

In communities with high rates of joblessness and under-employment, urban gardens and farms have proven excellent vehicles for job training and transition to the world of work. Berkeley Youth Alternatives (BYA) offers job training at its half-acre farm in West Berkeley, California. Youngsters raise and sell vegetables, herbs, flowers, and bouquets. They also propagate nursery starts in two greenhouses. Most of the produce is sold at the weekly local farmers’ market. In addition, some flowers are sold to local stores, and nursery starts are sold to stores and landscapers. Teens earn $6 per hour, working 15 to 20 hours per week during the school year and 20 to 30 hours in the summer. All of the teens come from low-income families; most give their paychecks to their parents. Youth must be in school to work in the garden, and tutoring is available year-round for those who need it.

Re-Vision House, a home for teen mothers in Worcester, Massachusetts, runs a garden and three-story greenhouse. The women grow food for themselves and their children and also sell produce at the farmers’ market and seedlings to other urban gardeners. They have an aquaculture project to grow fish, and they hold fish fries for the community.

The Sustainable Food Center in Austin employs at-risk youth at its farmers’ markets. The work provides young people with much needed income while enhancing their job skills in customer service, financial management, retailing, and food handling.

The Green Guerillas Youth Environmental Fellowship helps young people gain leadership skills, environmental education, and a chance to improve the environment in their own communities. The program provides job opportunities for youth as they embark on academic or professional careers related to the environment.

Some training programs are designed specifically for prisoners. One of the oldest is the Garden Project, started in 1982 by Cathrine Sneed and San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessy. The project runs a huge farm on public land next to the San Francisco County jail and a half-acre garden on a private parcel in Bayview Hunter’s Point, a predominantly African-American neighborhood. Inmates at the county jail can learn farming and job skills. On release they have the option of working at the smaller parcel in Bayview Hunter’s Point. Much of the produce is sold to fine restaurants in the area, such as Chez Panisse and Greens. The rest is donated to residents of Bayview Hunter’s Point and soup kitchens around San Francisco.

More than 10,000 prisoners have come through the program. Despite their criminal records, many of these men and women have found jobs after prison in the city’s tree-cutting program, in restaurants emphasizing fresh food, and in other positions related to gardening. The Garden Project also offers support in breaking addiction. A 1992 study of the project found that graduates had lower recidivism rates than the general population at the county jail. Of 390 participants studied, just 6 percent were rearrested within four months of release, compared to 29 percent of their peers. Only 24 percent were rearrested within two years of release, compared to 55 percent of the general population (American Jails 1996).

Another initiative to rehabilitate prisoners is the Greenhouse Project, sponsored and funded by the Horticultural Society of New York. Located on a 1½ acre parcel behind the Rose M. Singer jail for women in the huge Rikers jail complex, the project gives inmates a refuge from the pressures of prison life, where most are awaiting trail or serving sentences of less than a year. Staff teach the inmates discipline and organizational skills that will be useful for jobs. Several participants have gone on to work with plants, some enrolling in the professional horticulture training program of the New York Botanical Garden (Gardiner 1999).

Reversing Blight

Throughout the United States, urban gardens and farms have taken over empty lots that were neglected for years, gradually filling with debris. Many of these lots were toxic due to years of industrial use or illegal dumping. Growers have quickly transformed these properties into vibrant spaces. Waste and toxic soil have been removed, and the areas have been made safe for youth and families, offering open space to the community. Once idle land has become productive as seeds and trees have been planted. Drug use and drug dealing have been reduced or eliminated. The gardens have promoted social networks and neighborhood revitalization.

In Ohio, urban gardens have replaced 53 acres of vacant land to yield a harvest valued at nearly $1.2 million. More than 3,000 community volunteers have helped to organize and manage 212 gardens (Ohio State University 1999). In Manhattan, Brises del Caribe made a garden out of an abandoned lot on the Lower East Side, once strewn with refuse and toxic wastes and inhabited by drug addicts and dealers. The 90’ x 24’ plot, now covered with trees and plants, features a pool with goldfish and two wooden cabanas built from scavenged materials. Latino residents not only run the garden but also sponsor cultural, educational, and social events and programs for children in the local school.

Green spaces offer a welcome respite to urbanites overwhelmed by too much noise, movement and visual stimulation. A study by a University of Michigan psychologist found that one of the top benefits of gardening was peacefulness and tranquillity. A study at the University of Illinois revealed that people shown urban scenes with some vegetation recovered more quickly from stress. A 1990 study of cancer patients concluded that patients engaged in restorative activities, including gardening, improved their capacity for attention more quickly than patients who were more passive (Malakoff 1998).

Environmental Protection

Urbanization has taken its toll on the environment. In his article “Why Urban Agriculture,” William Rees (1997) describes how cities disrupt natural bio-geochemical cycles. When people are removed from the land that supports them, they no longer recycle phosphorus, nitrogen, and other nutrients and organic matter back into farm and forest lands. Local, integrated ecological systems have been replaced by global, horizontally disintegrated throughput systems. Agricultural soils have been severely degraded by a century of mechanized export agriculture and the hidden costs of urbanization.

Urban agriculture can help to restore the ecosystem. It can recycle organic matter and nutrients that would otherwise go to waste in landfills and/or pollute ground and surface waters. It can reduce the use of fertilizers and pesticides that are typically associated with industrial food production. It can lower operating costs and food prices. And it can enhance biodiversity. While commercial agriculture tends toward uniformity, local production allows for rare varieties of crops that are well adapted to local conditions. Diversity of crops in turns attracts a variety of bird and animal life (Rees 1997).

Before modern urban sanitation systems were developed in the late 19th century, urban agriculture was the principle method for treatment and disposal of urban wastes. By diverting organic waste from dumps and landfills and using it to make compost, urban agriculture can reduce stress on local and regional waste management systems. Compost enriches soil and increases its ability to hold and retain moisture. Because urban produce is sold close to the land where it is raised, transportation and storage needs are minimal, reducing consumption of fossil fuels and in turn carbon dioxide emissions (Rodrigues & Lopez-Real 1999).

The ecological benefits of urban gardening depend on good technology and management, including soil and water conservation and efficient disposal of organic wastes. Local farms can do some of the same damage as commercial ones if they use synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, or organic material containing heavy metals or other toxins. Care is needed to avoid microbial contamination of soil or water (FAO 1999).

Most vacant lots in low-income communities have been contaminated by previous industrial and commercial use or even heavy traffic nearby. There are a range of techniques to clean up the land. One method is to simply remove toxic soil and replace it with “clean” dirt. If all the tainted soil cannot be removed, growers may create a series of raised beds. Another technique is phytoremediation, a process that uses specific plants and trees to gradually detoxify soil. These plants absorb contaminants at the roots and neutralize them, contain them, or release them into the atmosphere.

Community Development

Urban gardens promote community development, fostering cohesion, local leadership, and pride of place (Payne and Fryman 1999). A sense of power and enthusiasm are generated when neighbors donate their talents and resources toward a common goal. One community effort can easily lead to others. Local agriculture builds links between farmers and consumers (Gottlieb and Fisher 2000). As people become more connected to the food they eat, they change their ideas about the environment and their local ecosystem (Kirschenmann 1998).

Urban gardens and farms perform a valuable community service, offering a place to meet, play, and hold festivals and workshops (Green Guerillas 2000). A member of New York’s Jardin of Los Amigos says the garden serves as a sort of day care center and recreation hall, where people talk, play bingo, and hold baby showers.

Recent studies show that community gardens and farms reduce inner-city crime. A 1993 study for the Merck Family Fund found that after a Philadelphia police officer started a community garden, burglaries and thefts in the area plummeted from about 40 incidents per month to just four. The Trust for Public Land reported a 28 percent drop in crime after one year around a garden in San Francisco’s Mission District. The garden led to the formation of a Neighborhood Watch group, and the place was no longer attractive to drug dealers (Harvest of Pride 1999). Many block associations have grown out of gardening initiatives.

Green Oasis was created in 1981 when community residents cleared five abandoned, crime-ridden lots on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. They replaced rubble and dumped cars with a playground, a picnic area with a goldfish pond, a barbecue pit, vegetable plots, beehives providing honey, a grape arbor, and a gazebo. All of these areas are wheelchair accessible, including raised beds designed so that people with special needs can easily garden.

The founders of Green Oasis were seeking to create an alternative to the streets for neighborhood youth, and from the beginning they realized that gardening was not enough. They developed an art and theater program, built a stage, and mounted productions. Members now work with local schools and city programs, including the Manhattan Alternative to Incarceration Program, City Volunteer Corps, New York Cares, Summer Youth of the Board of Education, United Cerebral Palsy, and community senior centers They also provide a space for educational and cultural programs.

Recent research reveals that urban gardening and agriculture lead to more political power for a neighborhood. A study at Northwestern University reported that through gardening projects, low-income residents gain access to government and economic resources and get the chance to meet officials in public agencies and nonprofits (Bjornson 1994). Recognizing this broader potential for gardening, the American Community Garden Association has developed a program to train low-income residents in community development. Its From the Roots Up program provides mentoring and technical assistance to citywide gardening organizations and coalitions. Participants learn about how to build a board of directors, do grassroots fundraising and strategic planning, and foster leadership skills. They also learn how to launch programs in environmental education and entrepreneurship.

II. Making It Happen: Financial and Institutional Support

Urban gardens and farms rely on help from public and nonprofit organizations. Growers need land. They need material inputs: a water system, soil, compost, seeds, and tools. They need capital improvements and repairs: fences, tool sheds, and raised beds. They need management: office work, community outreach, and advocacy to sustain property and funding. They need a system of governance and a plan for distributing plots. They need training, in horticulture and organizational leadership.

All of these tasks require ongoing support, and public and nonprofit agencies are in the best position to help (Johnson 2000). In addition to land, cities can provide water, insurance, and help filing tax-exempt forms. Many cities can also provide compost two or three times a year. State and federal agencies can provide property, funds, and technical assistance. Government grants, such as Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), are excellent sources of funding for capital improvements.

Federal Role

Federal assistance to urban gardens has waxed and waned. The earliest aid dates to the 1890s, when the government sponsored gardening programs to alleviate poverty. After World War II, however, public support withered as competition increased for urban land and the government promoted commercially processed food in an effort to build the market economy. The next wave of interest in gardening came in the late 1970s, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture set up an urban gardening program that initially targetted six of the nation’s poorest cities and later spread to 23 (Rinehart 1999). The initiative was a great success for some time, involving 150,000 growers. But eventually it was severely weakened: the money was spread among all the states, and the total appropriation was cut, so that the original programs lost the bulk of their funds. Then, in 1995, Congress passed the Community Food Security Act, offering a one-time infusion of capital for urban gardens and farms. The bill is designed to promote local solutions to hunger. Funding has been legislated through 2002.

Institutional Support

University-based agricultural extension services have provided excellent support to some urban gardens. They have a long history of supporting rural farming, and while they have less experience with urban gardeners, they have been a critical asset to some projects. Their prominence varies from state to state, as the federal government funds extension services only if the state chooses to provide matching funds.

The Ohio State University Extension (OSUE) shows how urban gardens have combined city and federal funds to finance their basic infrastructure. The extension service loans hydrant equipment and garden hose adapters. The city provides seeds, vegetable plants, fertilizer, soil amendments, rototilling, and a reduced rate for water permits.

OSUE’s gardening program is active in seven counties, particularly Cuyahoga County. Since the mid-1970's, OSUE has worked with the Cleveland Division of Neighborhood Services, which provides gardens with basic materials and technical advice through a Community Development Block Grant. Most of the gardens serve neighborhoods. Others are at elementary schools and social service agencies, including the housing authority, the Children’s Aid Society, and a nursing home. One initiative involves the city, OSUE, and the Ohio National Guard working together to truck composted manure from the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo to the juvenile offenders’ garden. All told, according to Dennis Rinehart, urban agriculture extension officer, volunteers in Cleveland coordinated the planting of 184 sites covering more than 42 acres in 1997. The vast majority of the gardens are in the city’s poorest enclaves.

The neighborhood gardens have anywhere from five to 100 growers. Many of these gardens use properties that the city had taken over due to delinquent taxes. In other cases, gardeners have obtained permission from an individual owner to use the lot, and they must renew their permit annually. Staff at the extension service and the city planning department are available to research potential new sites. Owners of vacant lots are responsible for weed removal and general maintenance of their property. If they fail to keep it up, they risk a municipal fine. That gives owners a strong incentive to allow the neighborhood to care for the land as a garden.

For years, the extension service funded its gardening program through federal money, foundations, and plots fees. But since Congress slashed funding for urban gardening, the program has depended entirely on city and private funding.

The cooperative extension service at the University of Georgia also has an elaborate urban gardening program, working with more than 200 gardens in Fulton and Dekalb counties. The gardens are located at centers for troubled youth, mental health facilities, public and private schools, pre-schools, senior centers, summer camps, churches, and public housing communities. Extension staff provide instruction and technical assistance in the areas of food production, meal preparation, household budgeting, environmental issues, recycling, leadership development, and entrepreneurship (Wilson 2000).

Access to Land

Finding and keeping land is one of the biggest challenges for urban growers. They often find small bits of open space to cultivate: side yards, balconies, rooftops, containers. But to grow crops on any scale, they have to compete for property with businesses, housing developers, and transportation planners. Needless to say, these other uses are judged to be of higher value (Mbiba 1995). As populations grow and open land becomes more scarce, land that once seemed useless to other interests suddenly becomes attractive, and gardeners can easily lose their plots.

Perhaps the best way to secure land for the long term is through a land trust. Land trusts are not trusts in the legal sense; rather, they are non-profit organizations dedicated to protecting open space, whether for scenic, recreational, natural, historic, or productive value. Trusts may buy land or accept donated property. Sometimes an owner will sell the property at less than market value and receive tax benefits. In other cases, the owner will donate the land and continue to live on it (Land Trust Alliance 1999). In still other instances, the land trust will not own the land but rather will secure an easement, a legal agreement to use the land for a specific purpose.

In New York City, the Trust for Public Land bought 63 gardens and has arranged to own them for about two years, then transfer them to newly created borough land trusts, which will own the land permanently. These borough trusts are non-profit corporations, with neighborhood gardeners filling the majority of seats on the boards of directors. Each community garden is to have a use agreement with a borough land trust, allowing the gardeners to cultivate the land and also requiring them to meet certain standards. Drinking alcohol on site will be prohibited, for example, and each garden will have to consult with the board of the borough trust before building any structure (Stone 2000).

As in New York, land trusts have protected urban gardens in Boston. After losing one garden in 1986 to a city plan to build housing, growers got organized. Representatives from the South End and Lower Roxbury neighborhoods negotiated with city officials and won an agreement to take over some land that the city had acquired through eminent domain for urban renewal. The neighborhoods set up a land trust which bought the property for $1 per parcel. Following that lead, a number of other nonprofit organizations around the city moved to acquire property. One was a neighborhood land trust, another was a community development corporation, and a third was an organization lending broad support to gardens around the city. By 1994 these organizations together owned nearly 60 gardens and came together to form the Garden Futures Collaborative (Johnson, personal communication).

Where owning the land is not feasible, another strategy is to secure a lease to city property. Berkeley Youth Alternatives (BYA) has this arrangement, paying the city of Berkeley $1 a year to work the land along the right of way of the historic Santa Fe railroad. Leaseholders are vulnerable, however, and often need to exert political pressure. Growers in Berkeley became concerned when the city sold off a small parcel of the Santa Fe right of way to individual homeowners. After pressing the city council, Berkeley Partners for Parks and the Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative won an agreement that the city would not sell any more small parcels but would maintain the right of way as open space.

One way to make leases more secure is to place public land under the protection of the city department of parks and recreation. In New York City, growers and local officials successfully pressured the city to transfer about 55 community gardens to the parks department.

A third strategy is to use land owned by a private or public institution such as a church, school, university, or business. A prominent Cleveland businessman donated the land used for the alternative sentencing program at Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court. The Garden Project, sponsored by the San Francisco County jail, uses a half-acre parcel donated by Eliott Hoffman, the owner of a well known Bay Area bakery called Just Desserts.

Drawing on Multiple Sources

Many farms succeed by drawing on multiple sources of support and proving flexible when conditions change. Garden City Harvest, in Missoula, Montana is a prime example. The program grew out of a city coalition representing all of the federally funded nutrition programs, such as WIC, food stamps, and emergency feeding. Mary Pittaway, WIC director for Missoula, says the group was interested in working with people who were tired of being on welfare and had dropped out of social services. The coalition saw community gardens as an alternative way to improve access to food. Beginning with an existing community garden, the coalition held a celebration to attract low-income families and drew an impressive response.

Garden City Harvest now has five gardens and one farm based on the model of community supported agriculture (CSA). CSA is a design for food distribution based on the Japanese teikei concept, in which consumers buy food directly from a local farmer. Each year the farm estimates its production costs, and members of the farm purchase a share of the harvest, providing a guaranteed income to the farmers. Members receive a weekly supply of produce. They are also expected to contribute some volunteer time. Shares are sold on a sliding scale, from $180 to $350 per season.

The CSA farm is located on land that belongs to the University of Montana and was once part of the historic Fort Missoula. The five gardens are located on land that is borrowed or rented from a spectrum of private and public parties, including the Salvation Army and the Catholic church. The most stable partner has been a private bank that donated a piece of its lawn. In addition to the CSA farm, the university has donated land for student and faculty gardens.

Garden City Harvest relied on federal support for a time. In 1996, the Missoula Nutrition Coalition receive a three-year grant through the Community Food Security Act. When the grant ended, United Way stepped in, and churches organized volunteers to work in the gardens devoted to the local food bank. Still, there was not enough money to support an executive director, so the garden coordinator became de facto leader. Staff are now working to make the project more self-sufficient. With 12 acres of park land made available by the county, Garden City Harvest will launch a farm devoted to crops sold at market, such as corn and flowers. Profits from this commercial venture will go to sustain the rest of the organization.

Holcomb Farm, outside Hartford, Connecticut, is another farm that has achieved some degree of self-sufficiency through the CSA model. Membership fees cover 85 to 90 percent of operating costs. The farm relies on grants and other donations to cover additional expenses, including administration, education, and capital improvements. The land is leased to Friends of Holcomb Farm by the city of West Granby, which received the farm land as a bequest from the Holcomb family in 1980.

The Friends of Holcomb Farm collaborate with the Hartford Food System Project, an anti-poverty organization with a staff of five and an operating budget of $350,000. Many of the shares in the farm are purchased by community organizations that combat hunger. These agencies might otherwise be paying comparable fees to a local food bank. The farm solicits donations to subsidize the cost of bulk shares for these institutional members.

According to the 1998 annual report, 216 households and 13 organizations partook of the harvest. The agencies distributed the produce to more than 1,500 low-income families in Hartford. Households took home an average of 14 pounds of produce per week over the course of the season, at a price of $1.11 per pound.

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Gardens and farms make a unique contribution to urban communities. With adequate support from government and philanthropy, they can provide nutritious food at a low price, helping to alleviate poverty and improve public health. They can help to protect the environment. They can beautify neighborhoods and make them more livable. They can foster social connections and business development and reduce crime. Marti Ross Bjornson, a scholar at Northwestern University, coined the term “greenlining” to underscore the contrast between community gardening and redlining, the practice of discrimination in mortgage lending (1994).

At the federal level, the 1990s saw increasing attention to the fact that low-income communities suffer from disproportionate levels of toxins and unwanted land uses. Urban gardening offers one opportunity to redress such environmental injustice. At the local level, cities could encourage urban gardens by establishing zones with special tax incentives for investing in agriculture that uses sustainable methods and techniques. In addition, cities could change their systems for solid waste disposal to encourage recycling of organic wastes.

Without a partnership of public and private institutions, urban gardening will be continually threatened. In New York City, residents put heavy pressure on public officials to block the sale of gardens, but the situation was not resolved until private foundations and nonprofits stepped in at the last minute to buy the land. The best long-term, comprehensive solution is a commitment from both government and nonprofit organizations, and an institutional framework that offers urban agriculture some security.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the following individuals for their assistance in preparing this chapter. First and foremost, thanks to Karen Payne (American Community Garden Association), whose thoughtful comments and extensive contacts in urban gardening and agriculture made a great contribution. Thanks also to Danny Engelberg (Berkeley Youth Alternatives, Berkeley, California), Betsy Johnson (Garden Futures, Boston, Massachusetts), Ximena Naranjo (Green Guerillas), Kristina Perry (San Francisco State University), Anna Maria Signorelli (Sustainable Food Center, Austin, Texas), Andy Stone (Land Trust, New York City), Beebo Turman (Berkeley Community Garden Collaborative), George Hatley and Bobby Wilson (University of Georgia, Cooperative Extension Service), James Boyce, Barry Shelley, Tuyet Tran, Mary Kay Seban, Atina Saleh, and Howard Pinderhughes.