Urban Gardening Recognized By MacArthur Foundation Grant

Milwaukee and Chicago's inner city is probably the last place you'd expect to see a working farm. But Will Allen is a man with a dream and a plan. In 1993 he bought one of the last surviving farms in the city of Milwaukee.

Since then he has grown the farm into a successful example of urban gardening. He uses composts food scraps and then adds worms to enrich and build the soil.

Mr. Allen brings many years of experience to this project, he grew up on a family farm. But as he says, family farms like he grew up with don't exist anymore. His vision is to use inner city lots to grow fresh food for residents who only have access to either fast food or corner store processed food.

Mr. Allen has taken Growing Power his non-profit organization and turned it into a successful business. He sells the produce to local co ops and to area restaurants.

With his attention to good growing techniques he's developed an excellent reputation with chefs in the area. It ends up a win win for all. The chefs and their restaurants get high quality produce and Mr. Allen is able to grow his Growing Power even more. This lets him spread his message and techniques to more people every day.

His more than three dozen full time employees and thousands of volunteers help keep Growing Power going and growing spreading the message of urban gardening and feeding people.

Plants are just one part of the Growing Power business. There are goats, ducks, chickens and beehives, and even fishponds for tilapia and perch.

But Mr. Allen has also set up a research lab studying the way to turn food waste into fertilizer and methane gas into energy. According to the US Department of Agriculture 96 billion pounds of food is wasted every year. This breaks out into:

• 263,013,699 pounds of food wasted each day…
• 10,958,904 pounds wasted each hour…
• 182,648 pounds wasted each minute…
• 3,044 pounds of food wasted in America each second!  (Source: End Hunger)

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation have recognized Will Allen's contribution and message with one of its Genius grants of $500,000.  Mr. Allen said he learned it all from his parents. “We’re having to go back to when people shared things and started taking care of each other,” he said. “That’s the only way we will survive.”    Source: NY Times

Here's Will Allen describing his program.

Just goes to show what determination, dirt and gardening knowledge will get. Congratulations to Mr. Allen and Growing Power. Thanks to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for recognizing the importance of urban gardening for now and the future.

All in a gardener's day,

Thanks to PSFK for the heads up on the story, the NY Times, and End Hunger.org.