What Gardens Grow: Outcomes from Home and Community Gardens Supported by Community-based Food Justice Organizations

Abstract

Supporting home and community gardening is a core activity of many community-based organizations (CBOs) that are leading the food justice movement in the U.S. Using mixed methods across multiple action-research studies with five food justice CBOs, this paper documents myriad layers of benefits that gardening yields. Our participatory methods included conducting extensive case studies with five CBOs over five years; quantifying food harvests with 33 gardeners in Laramie, Wyoming, and surveying them about other gardening outcomes (20 responded); and conducting feasibility studies for assessing health impacts of gardening with two of the five CBOs, both in Wyoming. Analyses of these diverse data yielded four categories of gardening benefits: (1) improving health; (2) producing quality food in nutritionally meaningful quantities; (3) providing cultural services; and (4) fostering healing and transformation. Examining these results together illustrates a breadth of health, food, and cultural ecosystem services, and social change yields of home and community food gardening in these communities. It also points to the need to support CBOs in enabling household food production and to future research questions about what CBO strategies most enhance access to and benefits of gardening, especially in communities most hurt by racism and/or insufficient access to fresh food.

Growing Intergenerational Resilience for Indigenous Food Sovereignty through Home Gardening

“…This parallels the O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree stories that connect past, present, and a future wherein food "is a source of cultural strength," which "as wechihituwin, represents more than sustenance, it contains stories and memories that can heal the community" (Kamal et al, 2015, p. 570;italics in original). Similarly, we find that gardens provide more than health promotion or reclamation of autonomy over food production (Porter, 2018a;2018b); gardening can facilitate connections to past, present, and future generations at once. This vibrant approach to generational time is dynamic rather than freezing, erasing, or othering Indigenous people as relics of the past (Fabian, 1983).…”

Growing Our Own: Characterizing Food Production Strategies with Five U.S. Community-based Food Justice Organizations

“…al., 2017). I also outline outcomes from home and community gardening that we found in Food Dignity and related action research elsewhere in this issue (Porter, 2018b).…”

The economic performance of urban gardening in three European cities – examples from Ljubljana, Milan and London

“…In Milan, family members are by far the most important source of knowledge and skills in regard to high productivity, and in combination with increased networking through social media, as an important motive for starting gardening, it is the fastest and the cheapest way of obtaining information (Kortright and Wakefield, 2011). A supportive social environment (family, friends, neighbours, fellow gardeners) to help with growing issues, can lead to a relaxed atmosphere in the garden as well as individual and social healing and transformation (Porter, 2018). This kind of sharing and support has the potential to further develop and assist in effective public health intervention for improving food security and nutritional health (Conk and Porter, 2016).…”

“…This kind of sharing and support has the potential to further develop and assist in effective public health intervention for improving food security and nutritional health (Conk and Porter, 2016). However, studies show that sharing spreads not only nutritional benefits but might also be a mechanism of support by which gardening practices, socially and spatially, enhance social capital (Porter, 2018). This combination should be recognized by healthcare policy as an important health promotion tool and people should be encouraged to participate (Soga et al, 2017).…”