Continuing the theme this week of celebrating urban farmers, I wanted to call your attention to an article from the July 5th issue of the New York Times Magazine.

I’d read about MacArthur “genius” award-winner Will Allen before, and he makes an apperance in the new movie Fresh (a grassroots “Food, Inc.”).  But this article, by Elizabeth Royte, is a concise and vivid profile of Allen and the movement he’s sparked in northern Milwaukee, where his farm Growing Power is based. Long story short, Allen bought up a nursery in the early 90’s and began teaching local kids about gardening. His passion for farming and sustainable agriculture—for offering low-income kids something other than canned, processed foods—was contagious. Soon, he had legions of volunteers and was growing hundreds of crops (not to mention goats, ducks, turkeys, and even tilapia and perch) at this urban farm.

Today, Growing Power, with its 14 greenhouses on two acres and a system of aquaponic tanks (for growing fish), feeds 10,000 people—mostly from impoverished communities—and employs roughly 35 people.

What I love about Allen is that he banishes two misconceptions about the sustainable food movement: that it’s only for yuppies who shop at Whole Foods and that it’s impossible to eat locally in the winter. According to this excellent article in Yes! magazine, Growing Power delivers anywhere from 275-350 “market baskets” to over 20 agencies, community centers, and other sites around Milwaukee. Many more people order GP’s CSA-type “Farm-to-City” market baskets, which cost $16 a week. Because most of the farming is done in greenhouses, Allen and his crew are able to grow produce all winter long.  But they also work with the Rainbow Farming Cooperative, which is comprised of 300 family farms in the south, where the weather is more conducive to winter crops.  (GP also has a 40-acre farm in Merton, about 45 minutes outside of Milwaukee.)

As Royte writes, much of the farm’s productivity is due to worms (Allen is something of a composting and vermiculture zealot):

When you’re producing a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of food in such a small space, soil fertility is everything. Without microbe- and nutrient-rich worm castings (poop, that is), Allen’s Growing Power farm couldn’t provide healthful food to 10,000 urbanites—through his on-farm retail store, in schools and restaurants, at farmers’ markets and in low-cost market baskets delivered to neighborhood pickup points. He couldn’t employ scores of people, some from the nearby housing project; continually train farmers in intensive polyculture; or convert millions of pounds of food waste into a version of black gold.

Allen is fanatical about offering an alternative to the “food deserts” that abound in poor communities around the U.S. Royte eloquently describes Allen’s reaction to such a strip in Milwaukee:

Scanning the liquor stores in the strip malls, he noted: “From the housing project, it’s more than three miles to the Pick’n Save. That’s a long way to go for groceries if you don’t have a car or can’t carry stuff. And the quality of the produce can be poor.” Fast-food joints and convenience stores selling highly processed, high-calorie foods, on the other hand, were locally abundant. “It’s a form of redlining,” Allen said. “We’ve got to change the system so everyone has safe, equitable access to healthy food.”

Amen!  And Growing Power is expanding. Allen’s daughter, Erika, has already begun a satellite project in Chicago, where she’s helped transform a basketball court into a lush community garden. (Plots for individual gardeners are free.) According Roger Bybee’s Yes! article, Allen is also launching five projects in impoverished areas across the U.S., including training centers in Forest City, Arkansas; Lancaster, Mass.; and Shelby and Mound Bayou, Mississippi.

If anyone has volunteered at Allen’s farm(s), let me know—I’d love to hear your stories.