Food
Urban farming
Because the resources cities need – food, water, energy, and the many resources that go into producing goods – come from great distances, the ecological footprint of cities is huge. We urgently need to reduce that footprint as much as possible. Increasing the self-reliance of cities – in part through urban agriculture – is one way to do just that.
Urban farming Actions
Join or start a community garden.
Join or start a community garden.
Community gardens combine the multiple physical and psychological benefits of gardening with another vital element of well-being: connecting with other people. Community gardens not only bring people together in meaningful land-based work and boost food and nutrition security, they also beautify urban spaces, provide ecological niches for wildlife, and create open green spaces that cities desperately need. With secure tenure through mechanisms like land trusts, community gardens can even withstand the pressures of real estate development, ensuring that these green spaces can persists into the future.
Take action
- Find a community garden with the American Community Gardens Association's map of Gardens (US and Canada), the UK government's site Apply for an Allotment (England and Wales), Community Gardens Australia's map (Australia), or by contacting your local government or gardening society.
- Start a community garden with Democracy Collaborative's Community Garden Start-Up Guide (US) and the many valuable resources from Community Gardens Australia.
- Work together with your local government to find land for community gardens with ChangeLab Solutions' guide Dig, Eat, and Be Healthy: A Guide to Growing Food on Public Property.
- Consider collectivizing the plots of your community garden so that anyone can volunteer and receive a share of the harvest.
- Create a movement to turn public spaces all over town into gardens by joining or starting a chapter of the Incredible Edible Network in the UK.
Get inspired
- Mountain Roots Food Project in Colorado, US, runs two collaborative community gardens where members work together to grow food and share the harvest.
- Prinzessinnengarten in Berlin, Germany, is built from mobile container gardens. Volunteers periodically use the containers to create pop up gardens on vacant land to demonstrate the potential of these spaces for new community gardens.
- The Consumers' Association of Penang Urban Farm in Penang, Malaysia, transformed an abandoned car park into a thriving community garden, using indigenous farming techniques.
- Through the Incredible Edible initiative, the UK town of Todmorden has turned public spaces into gardens all over the town, and allows anyone to harvest food.
- Nuestras Raíces in Holyoke, US, is an immigrant-founded urban agriculture organization managing 14 community gardens as well as an urban farm.
Learn how to grow organic food.
Learn how to grow organic food.
One of the best ways to participate in the local food movement is to grow some of your own. Doing so will connect you more closely to the place you live – the soil, the seasons, the sun, the rain, and even the wildlife, from beneficial pollinators to garden pests.
Get started
- A Crop-by-Crop Guide to Growing Organic Vegetables and Fruits by Mother Earth News explains how to plant, when to plant, best harvest practices, how to save seeds, and how to deal with common pests and diseases naturally for a wide range of vegetables and fruits. Primarily for use in temperate climates.
- Those in tropical climates can learn about, design and implement a permaculture garden with the help of Volume 2: House and Garden of The Tropical Permaculture Guidebook by Permatil Global.
Back to Earth: Composting for Various Contexts - by Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, is a comprehensive guide to various composting techniques and approaches, focusing especially on tropical Asia but widely applicable.
- Learn to grow your own food and live more sustainably with these free online permaculture courses from #freepermaculture, and free and low-cost courses by and for women, by the Permaculture Women's Guild.
- If you live in an apartment or other space without access to a garden, check out these gardening tips for renters and city dwellers by the Permaculture Women's Guild.
Get inspired
- Writer Fran Sorin's blog post gives you 13 Reasons Why Gardening is Good for Your Health. Among other effects, gardening reduces the likelihood you'll have a stroke, osteoporosis, and dementia. Sorin's focus is on growing ornamentals; growing food greatly expands the benefits of gardening.
Get involved in gleaning.
Get involved in gleaning.
Gleaning refers to harvesting and gathering foods that would otherwise go to waste. From city fruit trees to leftover crops on farms, the amount of food that can be gleaned is huge, and many organizations and initiatives have emerged to collect this food for local consumption. In many cases, the gleaned food is donated to local anti-hunger programs. Not only does this tap into hitherto ignored local abundance, but it helps reduce dependence on the global industrial food system.
Take action
- Find a local gleaning group with the Center for Food and Agriculture Systems' Nationwide Gleaning and Food Recovery Map (US), Feedback Global's Go Gleaning map (UK), and Alive's Gleaning Fresh Food list (Canada). Elsewhere, find a local gleaning or urban harvesting group with Falling Fruit's worldwide database Grow Pick Distribute.
- See an overview of approaches to gleaning with How to Glean for Good, featuring examples from around the US.
- Start a new gleaning group with Feedback Global's Toolkit (UK) or the United States Department of Agriculture's Let's Glean! toolkit.
- Map out the trees in your city with FallingFruit.org, a worldwide database of fruit trees available for public harvest. A gleaning or urban fruit organization near you may already have its own database, too.
- Create and distribute a paper map of public fruit trees with Fallen Fruit's Public Fruit Maps.
- Organize a group city fruit harvest with Solid Ground's guide How to organize an urban fruit harvest.
- Understand the laws around gleaning in your area with the National Gleaning Project's Legal and Policy Resources page (US).
Get inspired
- Volunteers with Not Far From the Tree in Toronto, Canada, pick fruit from private trees all around the city and share the harvest with owners and local food banks.
- Food Forward in Los Angeles, US, collects fresh fruits and vegetables from backyard fruit trees, public orchards, and farmers markets, and delivers it to people in need.
- Smarta Kartan in Gothenburg, Sweden, maps out the sharing economy of the city, including public fruit trees.
- Fallen Fruit in Los Angeles, US is an urban fruit trail highlighting 150 edible trees in one neighborhood.
Create community orchards and food forests.
Create community orchards and food forests.
A community orchard is a collection of food-bearing fruit and nut trees collectively shared and managed by and for local communities, located on publicly accessible lands and managed as a commons for the public good rather than as a private enterprise. Food forests expand this concept by creating multi-layered edible landscapes with perennial vegetables integrated with and around the trees. Even small lots with existing trees can become incredibly productive garden spaces.
Take action
- Work with your local government to create a food forest with Andy Cambeis' Manual for creating a community food forest on public land, written for New Zealand but applicable broadly. See also Catherine Bukowski and Jonathan Munsell's book The Community Food Forest Handbook, featuring lessons from 20 projects across the US.
- Learn how to plan, design, plant, and care for community orchards with The Orchard Project's series of Guides and Advice.
- Dive more deeply into every aspect of starting a community orchard with Sue Clifford and Angela King's book The Community Orchards Handbook. Read an overview of top tips for getting started from the book's authors, as profiled by Matilda Lee's article What is a Community Orchard?
- In the US, find a food forest project with Community Food Forests' Map.
- In the UK, get involved with an existing food forest or start your own with The Food Forest Project.
Get inspired
- Four friends started the Beacon Food Forest in Seattle, US, by presenting to the city council their vision for transforming a plot of grass into a food resource for all. Nine years later, Seattle had a 3-acre food forest that everyone can freely harvest from.
- The staff at the Food Forest Project in the UK works with communities to rehabilitate land and create food forests, and is building a food forest demonstration site, the Education and Wellbeing Centre.
- The Belipola Arboretum in Mirahawatte, Sri Lanka, is a thriving 30-year-old "analog forest": a food-producing landscape designed to mimic all the functions of a natural forest ecosystem.
- Lyneham Commons is a community-run public food forest in Canberra, Australia, that is working to "regenerate public land, improve food security, provide education, reduce agricultural impact and grow food for the benefit of all."
- The Calgary Public Orchards, maintained by the government of Calgary in Canada, contain edible fruit and nut trees stewarded by community members and open to all.
- Cottingly Hall in Leeds, UK, is home to the country's largest community orchard, and shows that even unorthodox spaces can become a great community resource: 120 fruit trees are planted along a half-mile stretch of open space along a railway.
- The story of the Rosewood Public Orchard in Columbia, South Carolina, US, shows that the community-building element of a community orchard is as important and valuable as the fruit trees.
- In Community Orchards Bear More Than Fruit, Marina Kelava shares about Croatia's first community orchard based on permaculture principles in the town of Varaždin, which is helping to rebuild both soil and community.
Reclaim abandoned and vacant spaces.
Reclaim abandoned and vacant spaces.
Cities and towns contain significant amounts of abandoned and often abused land that lies idle and vacant. If communities organize to gain legal access and tenure to these plots, they can transform them into vibrant food gardens and community spaces that will benefit current and future generations.
Get started
- Project for Public Spaces' article How to Bring Life to Vacant Lots contains lots of international examples, ideas, and resources for transforming underutilized land into vibrant community spaces.
- See model legal documents and case studies on ChangeLab Solutions’ guide Dig, Eat, and Be Healthy: A Guide to Growing Food on Public Property (US).
- Create an interactive online map of vacant lands in your city and get connected to others to transform them into productive community gardens and centers with 596 Acres' resources Bring Our Tools to Your City and their model project, Living Lots NYC (US and Canada).
- The Land Access Advocacy Network – a project started by 596 Acres – comprises dozens of groups in the US and five other countries, all working to make vacant land more available to communities.
Get inspired
- The Homegrown Minneapolis Garden Lease Program in Minneapolis, US allows nonprofits to rent vacant city-owned land for one dollar per year.
- The CountyDigs program in Multnomah County, Oregon, US, donates foreclosed properties to organizations starting community gardens.
- Community groups in Athens, Greece, responded to the 2008 economic crisis by transforming abandoned spaces into collective kitchens, community parks, and more.
- Lots of Food in Louisville, Kentucky, US, has transformed 5 contiguous vacant lots into a 1/3 acre market garden and orchard.
- Alleycat Acres in Seattle, US, transforms undeveloped streets into community gardens, and installs edible walking trails along public corridors and "farmlets" in parking strips across the city.
Start a community composting project.
Start a community composting project.
Community composting projects focus on collecting otherwise wasted food scraps and other organic material in towns and cities, and converting them into a rich soil amendment for local gardens, parks and other open spaces. Create a composting program to serve your community through your local government, a community-run initiative, or a business.
Take action
- Start a community-run composting initiative with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance's resource page Community Composters, which features video trainings and guides applicable worldwide, and a map of community composting programs (US).
- Start a composting program run by your local government with the ILSR's handbook Yes! In My Backyard: A Home Composting Guide for Local Government, which shares lessons from 11 successful programs in the US and Canada with recommendations for local policies.
- Back to Earth: Composting for Various Contexts by Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, is a comprehensive guide to various composting techniques and approaches, focusing on Asia, where "more than half of the waste generated is organic", thus diverting and composting this is vital to achieving zero waste.
- Enlist local restaurants and businesses into your community composting program with Kompost Kids' guide How to Engage Businesses, which includes sample business agreements.
- Start a compost pile at a school with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance's Guide to Composting Onsite at Schools.
- Advocate for compost-friendly policies with ILSR's Composting Rules Library, featuring model composting policies adopted by communities and states in the US.
- Whether or not you have a yard, you can compost at home, or find a community composting program or a local business to take your food scraps.
Get inspired
- LA Compost, based in Los Angeles, US, runs 35 permanent compost hubs that also function as community centers.
- Revolução dos Baldinhos (Revolution of the Buckets) in Florianopolis, Brazil, is a community-based initiative that collects and composts 8 tons of organic matter each week.
- The Community Compost Cooperative Network in Washington, DC, US, run by the city government, has created 50 volunteer-managed composting sites with no operating costs.
- Capital Scraps in Canberra, Australia, is a social enterprise that picks up food scraps with cargo bikes and donates finished compost to schools and community gardens, as part of the SEE-Change Canberra WasteLess Working Group.
- GroCycle, based in Exeter, UK, diverts coffee grounds from landfills and transforms them into oyster mushrooms and compost.
Start an urban farm.
Start an urban farm.
Urban farms are typically, though not always, larger-scale initiatives than community gardens. They are often cooperatively and collectively run by and for the benefit of the local community, and like community gardens, help meet important local food, nutrition, employment, green space and composting needs.
Take action
- Start and run an urban agriculture project with the United States Department of Agriculture's comprehensive Urban Agriculture Toolkit (US), Sustain's Urban Farming Toolkit: A guide to growing to sell in the city and Growing Enterprise Guide (UK) which offer practical guidance on logistics, legalities, and best practices for running an income-producing urban farm.
- The National Center for Appropriate Technology's Small-Scale Intensive Farm Training program in Montana (US) shares insights into crop selection, cover crops, livestock, and more in their report Lessons from a Small-Scale Urban Intensive Farm.
- In the US, many colleges have agricultural extension services that can provide state- and city-specific urban farming guides for your region.
Get inspired
- The Carrot City database offers case studies of more than 100 urban gardens worldwide, covering city parks, community gardens, rooftop gardens, and housing projects.
- Read about successful urban farms and gardens in the US in this story from Indiana Public Media: Six Inspirational Success Stories In Urban Agriculture.
Policy action: Change local ordinances that limit urban agriculture.
Policy action: Change local ordinances that limit urban agriculture.
Despite their many benefits, urban agriculture projects can be blocked by well-intentioned local ordinances. Changing these can help spread urban farming to more communities.
Get started
- See how zoning and code rules can be changed to support urban agriculture in Zoning for Urban Agriculture: A Guide for Updating Your City’s Laws to Support Healthy Food Production and Access, by the Healthy Food Policy Project.
- The guide Municipal Strategies to Support Local Food Systems includes an Urban Agriculture Ordinance Toolkit. It addresses community gardens, commercial gardens, urban farms, beekeeping, and raising chickens, and provides examples of ordinance approaches from across the US.
Get inspired
- For numerous examples of how local ordinances have been changed to facilitate urban agriculture, check out the article from Ethical Foods, Changing Laws As Cities Make Way for Urban Agriculture, which describes positive change in the US cities of Detroit, Oakland, and San Diego (as well as not-so-positive laws in New Zealand).
Voices from the field
- The webinar Seeds of Resistance and Hope (and an article reflecting on the webinar) by the People’s Resource Centre in India, explores resistance to corporate global culture and renewal of self-reliance through urban farming in India, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine.
- In the TED talk A Guerrilla Gardener in South Central LA, Ron Finley talks about his work planting vegetables anywhere and everywhere – and how this connection to healthy, local food helps transform communities.
- The podcast Composting for Community by the Institute for Local Self Reliance shares stories from community composting projects across the US.
Policy
- The article Policies for a Shareable City #11: Urban Agriculture on Shareable describes a number of the most innovative policy ideas in support of urban farming.
- For a wealth of resources on urban farming policies, best practices and case studies in Canada and the US, see the Urban Agriculture page by the American Planning Association.
- For community gardens specifically, see Dig It! How Local Governments Can Support Community Gardens, A Practical Toolkit (Canada), and Cultivating Community Gardens: The Role of Local Government in Creating Healthy, Livable Neighborhoods (US).
- For gleaning, check out the gleaning-related legal and policy resources from the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems' National Gleaning Project (US).
Resources
- Urban and Community Agriculture is a set of publications, podcasts, videos and blogs on all things urban agriculture by ATTRA - Sustainable Agriculture.
- Johns Hopkins University's Center for a Livable Future's Urban Agriculture page provides research and reports describing the far-reaching health, social, environmental and economic benefits of urban farms and gardens.
Back to Earth: Composting for Various Contexts - by Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, is a comprehensive guide to various composting techniques and approaches, focusing especially on tropical Asia but widely applicable.