Making Food Blog

As an aspiring urban farmer myself, it is important to keep my ear to the ground for others already working on the same food farming issues I am concerned with. I believe much effort can be for effectively directed when we take the time to learn from those that have come before.

Discovering other urban food farmers is often coincidental for me. I was initially introduced to urban farming by my wife when she happened to mention Will Allen in passing. Since then, I have become much more interested in finding and learning from more urban farmers.

Today, I stumbled upon James Gardner, director of PDY&F Community Garden in Greensboro, North Carolina, and his efforts to increase food access in his urban area. What I love about discovering new farmers in the urban farming space is that there is an inherent uniqueness and adaptation in strategies of those that farm in urban spaces.

Urban farming is born from a shared belief that cities with areas that do not provide all neighborhoods with access to fresh food can be aided by farmers willing to establish smaller farms within those neighborhoods. The problem with food deserts are that they subject people to sustaining themselves on processed food full of poor nutrition and urban farming tries to counter that because poor food access leads to compounding problems like health concerns and personal financial concerns.

Urban farmers like James Gardner and Will  Allen are doing something about it by finding new and inventive ways to close the gap between the farm and the urban family’s table that cuts out the big-chain grocery stores.

Everyone does not know how to farm, and many surviving in the urban world have too many demands on their life to be able to add farming to it anyway. That’s were farmers with the willingness to put communnity and compassion over tradition come in. They take to the city streets to find ways of bringing affordable, sustainnable, nutrient dense food to city people.