Continued...

This is part of a growing trend of “sustainable agriculture;” sustainable in at least two senses.

First, when produce is grown on small organic farms or in community gardens, it is ecologically sustainable as opposed to large-scale corporate monoculture that relies heavily on pesticides and herbicides and leaves soil depleted. And when food is grown locally, it avoids the emission of greenhouse gases and other ills associated with long-distance transportation.

Second, these projects are economically sustainable for low-income communities, because they are operated on a small scale with a sense of purpose and hence not obligated to turn a significant profit to justify their existence—though it would be preferable for the often-volunteer participants to earn more income from them. Major grocery chains bound to a bottom-line analysis, by contrast, are usually extremely reluctant to open branches in disinvested neighborhoods, and they are liable to pull out quickly if business is not going well.

Small-scale community projects are usually designed to operate on a shoestring budgets and are are mission- rather than market-driven, funded by grants, government subsidies, and donations.

Community-supported agriculture projects (CSAs) often stem from such community action. A typical CSA involves a small farm in or near an urban area that has subscribers pay a seasonal fee for weekly deliveries of mixed produce (often along with organic eggs, coffee, and other goods). Many CSAs charge higher prices to people who can afford it—usually asking subscribers to voluntarily identify themselves as capable of paying a higher price to help subsidize free or low-cost deliveries for low-income people. Some CSAs include programs that bring urban youth and adults to the farms to work and learn.

Meanwhile, community gardens and indoor urban agriculture projects foster the production of fresh produce right in an urban neighborhood and sometimes generate income for community residents. The NGO Heifer Project International funds various urban agriculture projects in low-income U.S. communities, similar to their food-security efforts in developing countries. A staple of such projects are worm compost bins, where natural food waste and table scraps are composted with the help of worms to create a rich, loamy soil that can be sold or used for gardening. Participants in those projects also often raise tilapia—a hardy fish with market value—in indoor bins, and even cycle the water from the tilapia projects through organic vegetable beds for natural filtration, creating a sustainable self-contained system.

In Chicago, retired postal carrier Carolyn Thomas involves young people from public housing and other marginalized neighborhoods in farming through God’s Gang—a positive alternative to the street gangs which might otherwise claim their attention. God’s Gang farms five acres in southwest Michigan and also helps raise and sell free-range poultry from a central Illinois farm. The young people sell the produce at farmers markets in low-income, vegetable-poor areas of Chicago, as well as to some local stores, and bring healthy food home to their families. Already this year the group has planted 250 pounds of garlic, which should yield a 1,000-pound harvest.

“Any time you get them outside it’s great,” said Thomas. “My motto is, ‘Leave no child inside’”—a play on President Bush’s education slogan. Meanwhile, the yard of Thomas’s South Side home is a labyrinth of organic vegetables, herbs, ducks, and chickens, all cared for by local kids.

God’s Gang tended worm-compost bins and tilapia in the violence-plagued Robert Taylor Homes high-rises until the buildings were closed and torn down as part of the city’s plan for transformation of public housing. Residents—and the worms—remained in the development after being ordered out by the housing authority. A banner was hung outside the condemned building pleading for the life of Robert Taylor’s “Fighting Worms.” The worms and tilapia finally froze to death just before Christmas in 1999 after the housing authority shut off the power.

Thomas continues the compost and tilapia projects in other locations.

“They do everything from making their own soil to composting it to raising vegetables to eating them to sharing them with their neighbors,” she said.

The Chicory Center, based on the same southwest Michigan farm as God’s Gang, operates a CSA on a shoe-string budget, delivering organic produce to paying subscribers and free deliveries to immigrant families in Chicago. Chicory Center founder David Meyers also uses the organization as a vehicle for social justice, donating proceeds from his fair-trade coffee sales to various local activist groups and including leaflets about political prisoners and community struggles along with recipes in his CSA deliveries.

And in Milwaukee, Will Allen, who once played for the now-defunct American Basketball Association, runs the organization Growing Power, a farm within the city limits that sells food to upscale Chicago restaurants. Growing Power has trained more than 1,000 low-income kids in farming and now employs more than 50 young people in Chicago and Milwaukee doing outreach, education, farming and other jobs.

Healthier Corner Stores

Meanwhile, in cities from New Orleans to Boston to Oakland, nonprofit and government-funded programs are striving to improve the availability and quality of produce in small neighborhood groceries, colloquially (and often literally) referred to as “corner stores.”

The national Healthy Corner Stores Network counts 200 member organizations in different cities, which use grant funding to urge corner stores to stock and advertise healthier fare.