food: growing community food systems by erika allen

8/4/2019 FOOD: Growing Community Food Systems by Erika Allen

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The Pst Carbn Reader Series: Fd

Grwing Cmmunity Fd Systems

By Erika Allen


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Abut the Authr

Erika Allen is Chicago projects manager or Growing

Power, a nationally acclaimed nonproft organizationand land trust providing equal access to healthy and

aordable ood, especially in disadvantaged communi-

ties. She is co-chair o the Chicago Food Policy Advisory

Council and was appointed in 2008 to the Illinois

Local and Organic Food and Farm Task Force. In 2009

she and her ather, Growing Power ounder Will Allen,

were eatured in the New York Times Magazine. She

has a bachelor o fne arts rom the School o the Art

Institute o Chicago and a master o arts in art therapy

rom the University o Illinois at Chicago. Allen is aFellow o Post Carbon Institute.

Post Carbon Institute

2010

613 4th Street, Suite 208

Santa Rosa, Caliornia 95404 USA

This publication is an excerpted chapter rom The Post Carbon Reader: Managing the 21st CenturysSustainability Crises, Richard Heinberg and DanielLerch, eds. (Healdsburg, CA: Watershed Media, 2010).For other book excerpts, permission to reprint, and

purchasing visit http://www.postcarbonreader.com.


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1 TE PoST CARBo REAER SERES

This chapter is adapted from an interview with Erika

Allen by Daniel Lerch on January 24, 2010.

Cmmunity Fd Systems

The idea o a community ood system is much larger

than just urban arming. It deals with everything, all

the components that are needed to establish, maintain,

and perpetually sustain a civilization.

Urban arming is key in the reclamation o an Earth-and ecology-based value system, and it plays an impor-

tant role: We need urban ood production, communities

growing ood in an urban environment. But with a com-

munity food system, neighborhood stakeholders are the

ones growing that ood, moving it around, and in con-

trol o land tenure or wherever soil-, ood-, and Earth-

based materials are being grown. Basically we are talking

about sovereignty, about having land and water rights.

This is not a new concept; indigenous communities

globally struggle with powerul external entities thatattempt to extract raw and reined resources rom

land that has traditionally been stewarded by ami-

lies who understand the natural laws o replenishment

and proper natural-resource management. In a locally-

operated ood system we engage all members o the

community, taking special care to engage the most mar-

ginalized members and those most impacted by ood

and land degradation. We begin with simple questions:

Where are you going to get water rom, and how are

you getting the water? Who makes the decision about

how landopen space and commercial spaceis being

used?

These simple questions activate civic and civil rights

and accountability with government, because there are

always regulatory issues and agendas that (as is oten

revealed) community members are unaware o and have

not been included in the conversations. So true sustain-

ability in terms o community ood systems meansthat disenranchised people, especially youth and their

amilies, are involved in the process not only as ben-

eiciaries o good (and carbon-neutral) ood but as

central participants in the planning, development, and

execution o the ood system, including its interlocking

parts: energy, housing, public transportation, economic

development, and so on. Youre building a whole inra-

structure that supports local ood systems.

This is how we dierentiate it in our thinking at

Growing Power, because we dont just do urban arm-ing. We work with youth, go to markets, do advocacy

work around policy, write grants, give talksand all

those things are connected and part o reestablishing

unctional communities and ood systems. We have a

ood security program where people pay a basic weekly

ee or year-round ood security, and in return they

get a bag o ood with resh ruits and vegetables both

rom local wholesalers and rom stu that we produce

In a community oodsystem, neighborhood

stakeholders are theones growing anddistributing the ood.


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ourselves. This is the baseline and it orms the inra-

structure or more sophisticated elements o the ood

system to grow into an inrastructure that supports

community ownership and control o its own ood sys-

tem. We cannot stress enough that community ood

systems development and implementation are so much

more than just urban arming, and its important

because people dont typically think o ood in that

way. They think its something that armers do: Lets

support the armers! Oh, theyve got the arm bill; its

taken care o. Or worse, Lets go buy 200 million

acres and allow machines to grow commodities on it

that indirectly may or may not be suitable or direct

human consumption!

It goes beyond community-supported agriculture

(CSA), but CSA is important too. People think CSA

is cute; well, its a little beyond cuteit transorms

communities. And it secures the community, because

i something happens so that ood cannot move rom

Caliornia to the Midwest or to the East Coast, what

are people going to do? Its not going to be so cute

anymore. Lets look at the basic ood-desert neigh-

borhoodits usually a low-income neighborhood or

ghetto. I live in a ood desert; I chose to live there, but

it is also what I could aord at the time I was purchas-

ing my irst home. I look around me every day and I

think, What would happen? I am the only one whos

got ood growing in my yard. And I have the privilege

to know why its important, and the capability to do

something about it.

So yes, Growing Power does oodbut its ood plus.

Yes, I am an urban armer, but I am also a community

ood systems planner. Many o us doing the hands-on implementationarmers in the rural and urban

environmentshave always planned or the land, or

the beneit o their amily, community, and Earth.

Community ood systems provide a much needed rec-

lamation o this tradition at a time in history where we

are at a technological tipping point.

Cmmunity evelpment

We also work with healing, community reormation,

and civic engagement. We work with people to develop,

irst, a vision o what they want their community to

look like. This is not traditionally how community

engagement happens; typically the community is the

last to know what is being planned on its behal. Thisis a backwards process. We advocate irst identiying

who needs to be involved: Who is not at the table, and

needs to be? Who are the stakeholders most impacted?

Who is going to operate this system? What are the ways

that you can create ood security within the city, and

also create an opportunity or armers? How do you

connect the rural and the urban? We go through that

process and start to orm relationships. So it is a com-

munity-scale eort, and it dovetails with other eorts

to build community resilience.

It is really about getting people in power to understand

whats going on in the communitywhat is work-

ing, and how people are fnding ways to survive under

extraordinarily challenging conditions both here in the

United States and abroad. Its about recognizing that its

going to be a long road or transormation and keeping

the community connected to the resources and to the

n fd deserts, peple lack pprtunities fr buyin g ardable, nutritius

fd.


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people who are doing the work, the visionary doers. Its

about making sure all communities have equal access

to culturally appropriate, environmentally responsible,

aordable, nutritionally dense oodand to do that

you have to address everything: housing, land, educa-

tion, how you prevent and punish crime. So we are see-

ing that ood systems can be a very powerul tool or

resilience. In a revolutionary way, you can completely

transorm things without people realizing whats hap-

peningthey are aware, but it just makes intuitive sense

this way. Its also not about just going out and fghtingthe proverbial man, or continuing an academic dia-

logue about what could happen or should happen; you

dont have time or this because youve got a lot to do.

So instead o having people just being oppositional and

trying to get someone else to make the changes, you

have people who are assets to their community, who

are making the transormation happen themselves (but

being oppositional when they need to be).

Transfrmatin

This movementthe good ood/community ood

systems reclamation movementis so transorma-

tive because people have to go through a whole pro-

cess within themselves and in partnership with others,

because so ew people have conidence in this area; so

ew o us have retained our agricultural legacies and

knowledge. You can have ten Ph.D. degrees, but when

you get a pitchork in your hands you have to under-

stand the undamental principles o decomposition

youre dealing with basic concepts o lie and death. Its

actually really simple earth science; its simple technol-

ogy that many try to make overly complicated and end

up conusing themselves and others in the process. But

i you dont understand the basic principles o nature

and dont have some degree o patience, you cant do

anything to be truly sel-suicient without exploiting

other people or the environment.

This is why armers are geniusesthey do everything.

They predict the weather, and they have to plan; its

a huge undertaking. Even a so-called dirt armer, a

poverty-stricken armer, has to know so much just to

survive. These armers might not be literate in the

Western-world sense, but they know everything and

have humility and respect or Earth and her resources.

Reclaiming that heritage and connecting people to that

understanding, whatever that may be or them, are

very important.

We have our heritage as a amily, Al len-Raiord-Bussler,

and I have an unbroken line o agriculture people in my

own lineage. I almost didnt carry on the tradition

Im an artist. But I was always kind o a unky artist. I

didnt want to be in galleriesinstead I wanted to be a

community-based artist. I wanted to do art in commu-

nities and work with communities and help others have

a voice through art. And that led me all the way back

So ew people haveconfdence in this

area; so ew o us haveretained our agriculturallegacies and knowledge.


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to ood. I became an art therapist because I was doing

that kind o work already as a community-based artist.

I had kids who could not even do art; they were out o

their minds. I was thin king it was a psychiatric issue at

the time. Then one day I realized that they didnt have

any real oodthey werent eating oods with nutri-

tional content, the ood many o us rom vegetable-

arm backgrounds take or granted. With this epiphany

I began to ask, How can I solve that? Well, artists are

essentially problem solvers. So you have arming on

one hand, which is essentially al l about understanding

natural systems, and artist problem solvers on the other

handyou put those two together, and all kinds o

amazing solutions can happen. And you build on thatprinciple. You bring these groups together, you start a

acility where people can see natural systems working,

and then they can learn those practical skills: Theyre

learning how to arm and how to take care o them-

selves and others.

And then we see that the people we think dont know

very much are really the ones who do. People come to

our weekend-long rom-the-ground-up workshops

and are transormedtheyre going to do something,

even i theyre just putting in a compost bin or a back-

yard garden so their kids have that exposure. That

makes a dierence. It may not save the world, but its

going to save that microcosm o a amily unit. Theyre

going to have a dierent experience with the land.

Maybe that will lead them to supporting a local armer,

or maybe that child wil l end up going into agricultural

science or another meaningul proession.

Theres no certainty about the uture; things can

change, and we can change. Ive watched my dad work with some very scary people, some overtly bigoted,

KKK-type people. He gets them on his side and they

become his biggest ans and bring him arm imple-

ments, donate supplies and services; its amazing. That

ability to transorm people by your own kindness or

by your own ability to be who you are, thats some-

thing that you can learn how to do, but you have to be

exposed to it and see it as a possibility. We are growing

more o these possibilities.

Scalability

Scalability is dependent on the community; we dont

just go in and make something happen with a wave

o a wand. Were scaling within our organization. Westarted o with 2.1 acres or our original acility in

Milwaukee; Dad has acquired a couple o other proper-

ties, and its spawning within the city o Milwaukee a

bunch o other neighborhood projects, and those will

spawn yet other neighborhood projects. The water

and waste department has provided a long-term lease

or ity acres or us to be able to compost and build

greenhouses. We also received a stimulus unding pack-

age or ity youthyoung adults who are going to be

building greenhouses in Milwaukee and Chicagoandsupport or six ull-time positions over two years. So by

next year we will have a substantial year-round ood-

production operation underway thats low tech and

community operated. In Milwaukee public schools we

have a contract with their massive ood provider; were

growing a sunlower-sprout snack that the ourth-grad-

ers have once a week.

Grwing Pwer funder ill Allen leads a wrm cmpsting wrksh p.


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People bring stu to usideas, methods, tools, and

technologiesand teach us how to use it, and then we

ampliy it and we pass along the knowledge to others.

Heier Project brought us worms and got us started

with a little vermicompost bin. Weve ampliied it to

where we now have depositories ive eet tall, millions

o wormsand its literally a depository rom which we

extract worms when we start a new project to distribute

ree o charge to anyone who takes the training.

Knwledge and Resurce Exchanges

In addition to everything were doing with our own

inrastructure, a big part o our work is with other

communities who are trying to replicate what we

have. Weve worked with communities in Arica and

Eastern Europeone had a Civil Society grant rom

the United Nations and in the last phases o it I went to

project-plan or three days in Macedonia. Its very prac-

tical and grounded, and at the same time were actu-

ally growing ood and arming and developing thosetechnologies. Were learning new things, and were also

helping communities do the same thingand theyre

helping us because its a reciprocal relationship. These

kinds o knowledge and resource exchanges are natural

or people who are connected to the earth.

Rebuilding isadvantaged

Cmmunities

One o the things that we try to do is demystiy ood

systems and what ood security truly is, empower-

ing the powerless through sovereignty and an under-

standing o the importance o engaging everyone in

the community in a responsible, equitable manner.

But its a challenge; many people are averse to the idea

o arming. For people o color, especially, its a huge

taboo. Immigrantsreally anyone who has been dis-criminated againstthey dont want to do this work;

they want to assimilate and reap the rewards that come

rom becoming a member o white society. There was

a time when Jews, the Irish, Italians, and Poles were

not considered white by the dominant culture when

they immigrated to the United States. This continues

todaywe want to be proessionals; lose our accents,

cultures, and ood traditions; be on Wall Street; and

make cash. Why would you want to be poor? We

let wherever we came rom to come here or a betterliewhy would you go back? We were slaves; we were

migrant workers; we were landless peoples. Why would

we go back to that?

A lot o people look rom the outside at what were

doing at Growing Power and see it as a way o empow-

ering disadvantaged people: teaching them how to

garden, teaching them job skills, giving that kind o

uplit and inspiration through hands-on skill sets.

Were not just teachingpeople how to grow

oodwere rebuildingcommunity ood systems.


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We do that, but its also bigger than that. Were not

just teaching people how to grow ood and how to

make soilwere rebuilding community ood systems.

Were creating space or a whole conluence o small to

mighty things to happen. Its a big puzzle, and there are

constantly new pieces being inserted. For example, the

energy piece: That wasnt where we started because we

just needed to get going, to get good ood growing and

into the community, but now that piece gets plugged in.

The peak-oil, community-resilience piece: We didnt

start with microgreens right away, but now we do them

because i you have the soil ertility (like a high-ertility

vermicompost mix) you can grow sunlower seeds and

have sprouts that are ready to harvest in seven to tendays. I there was some catastrophe but you had those

materials at your disposal you could have sunlower

sprouts growing in seven to ten days, and theres 39 per-

cent protein. Sunlowers have more protein as a green

than they do as a seed, and ewer calories.

eighbrs

I do not have a traditional yard; its al l gardenwood-chip-

raised living-biological-worm-system beds growinggreens, okra, tomatoes, legumes, callaloo, culinary

and medicinal herbs, and Arican bowl gourds. My

neighbors are down with it, and they know me.

Historically, a lot more people used to grow ood in

my neighborhood. But theyre older now and theyre

retired, or they are people who are completely discon-

nected rom lie, on crack and other abusively con-

sumed drugs. As I work in my ront yard garden I hear

comments that range rom Go, girl! to No, no, Im

not going to grow a garden. I mean, in some ways, itsa privileged kind o thing to grow ood; you need time,

space, soil ertility, and water. People are trying to sur-

vive in my community and they dont see it as essential

to survival. But this summer I am going to have a lot

more people growing ood.

Part o enabling those things to happen is having plants

to distribute and having compost available. Another

piece o it is that there is so much work to be done

around regulatory issues. To do compost in Chicago

there had to be a regulatory separation made at the

state level between trash and ood waste just to make it

legal to dispose o ood waste dierently than trash

all waste was considered to be trash. Then we had to get

a grant rom the Department o Environment to set upa composter, get transer stations, and get zoning per-

mits. So I have to do all that and then work with the

Illinois EPA just so I can legally compost at a scale that

provides jobs or people?

The Fd Security vement

My introduction to the community ood system move-

ment and the ood security movement was at a national

conerence in Boston. The Community Food SecurityCoalition (CFSC) was ounded in southern Caliornia

by Andy Fisher and others academics, and ood secu-

rity experts. It was groundbreaking workthey basi-

cally started the community ood security movement

nearly iteen years ago. The ounding leaders were able

to motivate the USDA to start the Community Food

Projects Competitive Grant Program. They specii-

cally started talking about addressing ood insecurity

The Grwing Pwer greenhuse cnnects g rwing and cmpsting systems

while maximizing space.


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with people o color and disadvantaged communities

nationally, and providing resources or those olks to

transorm their ood systems. But or years, very ew

people o color and people rom low-income commu-

nities directly received grants, and so the whole move-

ment was predominantly led by white olks coming

into communities o color and ixing the issues. Even

though rom the beginning there were people o color

like Hank Herrera who conronted these concerns

about the lack o diversity and outreach to develop

more leaders o color, they were never really addressedas a high priority. It was clear that things had to change.

Then we and others came on board and we began to

compete or those grants and we started getting them,

and we were able to start asking more questions, like:

Why arent more people o color getting these? We were

able to get technical-assistance grants to be able to train

more people o color to be more competitive and get

unding rom a program designed to und them. So

thats an example o how Growing Power works, in a

larger sense. There are certain things in place to help

people transorm their communities, but they are not

able to get to those resources because they dont have

enough privilege to be able to be competitive. We help

communities access those resources.

nsant

In 2009 we had an interesting situation with Monsanto/

Seminis (Monsanto purchased Seminis, a large, regional

ruit-and-vegetable seed company, in 2005). Theyd

hired a communications irm in Chicago to ind an

urban agriculture group so they could und a youth

urban agriculture project. They just wanted to give

us money, just do an urban arm so that youth could

learn about what we do and also be introduced to other

orms o agriculture; Monsantos name wouldnt be onit. These people rom the communications irm said,

This guy that we know at Monsanto, hes really nice,

and there are some really good people within the com-

pany. And I said, I am sure there are. But I and we

had to do some deep soul-searching about what we, as

leaders, should do with this approach rom Seminis

potentially gatekeepers o resources that could mean

employment versus incarceration or some o our youth

corps members. Do I notaccept $200,000 to $500,000,

which would build up inrastructure, provide adult

mentors and social-service support, and supply stipends

or pay or a ew years? Could this be recompense or

the global impacts o this company, but also a boon to

their public relations eorts to spin their methods to

end hunger and to increase production? I had to think

about it. Its a real dilemma: What do you do when

olks approach you and youre representing people who

We have to get peopleinspired, get them

to understand basicprinciples like whyagriculture is important.


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have very limited options and youre being oered all

those resources to develop this inrastructure?

We turned it down because o the kind o work we do,the belie in our vision, and to show our solidarity with

Via Campesina and the Department o Justices anti-

trust hearings. We advocate seed saving and slow ood,

and potentially i we accepted the Monsanto/Seminis

unds we would have legitimized their work.

On top o that, it would have been so hard or us, as

one o the rare organizations led by people o color in

this kind o workwork where were doing something

people can see, not just talking a good game. People,

our youth most importantly, look to us as role models.Youre no better than what you are trying to deeat i

you do the same thing and get sucked into that system.

Fortunately we have reached a critical point in our

development where we do have options.

nspiratin

We have to get people inspired, get them to understand

basic principles like why agriculture is important.

Thats where I diverge somewhat with Wes Jackson, who talks about how the way humans have pursued

agriculture has created so many huge ecological prob-

lems. I dont think agriculture is a bad ideaI think

its a really good idea; it just has to be managed well,

and that is where Wes and I come ull circle in under-

standing the importance o stewardship o the land

and preservation o the soil and all o her inhabitants.

It has to be managed by people who know what theyre

doing or a community, not or some abstract wealth-

building scenario or commodities or craziness. I dontthink agriculture is the end o ecology; I think its the

beginning o people having enough surpluses through

balance and exploitive practices, so they can do the arts

and they can develop to their ull potential.


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Pht CreditsPage 2, Tp Value Certied arketcbna reallybring.

Page 4, Vermiculture Training at Grwing Pwercb

mjmnty.Page 6, rm beds and grw beds at Grwing Pwer cbnd

organicatin.

mages markedc are under a Creative Cmmns license.

See http://creativecmmns.rg.

AcknwledgmentsCver art by ike King. esign by Sean cGuire. Layut by

Clare Rhinelander.


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food: growing community food systems by erika allen

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