Heads up, green thumbs struggling to offload excess edibles: Aid is out there. A growing movement, designed to help people eat well, save money, and get to know their neighbors, is planting seeds in communities around the country. Crop swaps–meet ups where people exchange their surplus backyard bounty–are thriving from the San Francisco Bay Area to Boston in city and suburban enclaves and online, too.

Of course, there’s nothing particularly new about this phenomenon; who hasn’t been the beneficiary of the guy next door’s abundant squash plot or the woman across the street’s surplus spinach bed? Informal, low-key fruit and veggie trades have gone on since humans began cultivating crops. But these days, with the economy and the environment on many people’s minds, bartering food in a systematic manner is making a comeback. (For more on this, see Shareable’s story on food swaps.)

These weekly or monthly gatherings attract edible garden growers for different reasons. Some simply want to give away excess produce and, in exchange, get a little more variety in their diet. For others, including Transition Town movement members, crop swaps are part of a survival strategy, a way to build more resilient local communities to withstand not just financial hard times, but also energy shortages, climate change, and global warming. For some, it’s simply a positive way to socialize with fellow residents.

“We hope this will be a place for people to connect with others in the community who grow produce and exchange ideas about growing food and recipes, too,” said Carole Bennett-Simmons, co-organizer of Transition Berkeley‘s two crop swaps that started this summer, which attract about 30 to 40 locals. A retired public school teacher, she tends a plot at a local community garden, where she grows Swiss chard, bok choy, and beets.

Each local crop swap has its own way of working, but they all tend to run on a similar philosophy: No cash changes hands. Some spell out that produce must be homegrown, organic, or pesticide-free. Some are produce only, others include honey, eggs, and flowers. Still others, like the Boston Food Swap, accept prepared foods, such as pickles and preserves, along with foraged foods and backyard bounty.

Some crop swaps run just during the prime produce season, while others exchange goods all year. Since it’s high season for harvesting around the country, crop swaps are currently doing a booming cash-free business. During the winter and early spring, when crops are less abundant, some of these groups exchange seeds or starters.

At a recent Berkeley crop swap, people perused two folding tables and a couple of blankets loaded with freshly harvested produce, then filled their baskets and bags with plums and purple potatoes and gave away basil and beet greens. True to their roots–along with kitchen staples such as carrots, strawberries, and rosemary–Berkeley growers showed up with some less well-known produce including loquats, grape leaves, and angelica. It was all very civil and low-key.

The hour-long gathering seemed like a truly hyper-local affair with people walking or biking their fruits and vegetables over, visiting with friends and neighbors, and swapping recipes with fellow traders. “How do you cook beet greens?” asked one. Another, who took home a stalk of angelica, picked up a tip to add the herb, which has a flavor similar to cilantro, to the batch of ice cream she planned to make.

Three years ago, the group behind the Oak Park Crop Swap of Sacramento, California, took back a blighted park that was a haven for negative activities like panhandling, drug dealing, and prostitution, and turned it into a positive gathering place where people feel safe, explained Kara Thomson, who organizes crop swaps there during the summer months.

Participants at Oak Park Crop Swaps sign in, weigh their produce, listen to a featured speaker, and then start trading.This year, crop swappers have heard from a beekeeper, a worm composter, and an irrigation expert. “This was a challenging neighborhood, but now the crop swap and a farm stand that followed have turned it into a civilized social scene,” Thomson observed. About 20 local residents swing by each week, she said. Those with shady yards swap blueberries and leafy greens with residents whose sunny plots produce heirloom tomatoes and watermelons.

In the Internet Age, it’s not surprising that some crop swaps start out as virtual exchanges, the online food tool equivalent of Craigslist. “Tons of Leeks,” “Garlic Galore,” “A Bumper Crop of Beans” announce typical entries on such sites as the recently launched Massachusetts Food Trader and Portland Food Exchange, which allow produce suppliers and seekers to find each other online first before making their own arrangements to trade in person.

The Massachusetts Food Trader (which allows excess CSA or Community Supported Agriculture box trades) also promotes local real-time events hosted by Boston Food Swappers and the Somerville Trading Post. The site has 40 registered users since it started in July, though many more may check out what’s on offer.

Some come to website trading after limited success with classifieds and community bulletin boards. “I’ve been trading extra garden vegetables and veggie starts for a few years now and felt that we really needed an easier way to exchange food,” said Brian Connelly, on the Portland Food Exchange site. “This is a simple, yet very effective, means for people to barter food in our community.” And some people just prefer to swap with a local grower, Connelly maintained, than frequent a large supermarket stocked with produce from around the globe.

There are challenges–at the first Berkeley crop swap an overabundance of lemons comes to mind–to these local produce trades. Thomson said she’d like her events to attract a more diverse crowd, but hopes that word of mouth and flyer distribution will help with that. And, of course, few other parts of the country are blessed with as long a growing season as California. Consumers who opt to exchange with growers they find online are advised to meet in a public place, at least initially, for personal safety, though no issues have emerged on this front to date.

For those with concerns about food safety, it’s a “trader beware” situation, say swappers. This concern is raised more often in relation to preserved foods, where the liability lies between the two parties involved in the trade, according to Jake Benner, who co-runs MA Food Trader. Consumers should check preserved foods and produce for contamination and spoilage, he advised.

As interest in growing food increases around the country, crop swaps are likely to sprout in other locations. Some communities hope to take matters a step further, by running canning and preserving workshops in community kitchens so people can prepare for lean seasons and make full use of summer and fall’s abundance. Stay tuned.

Photos: Christina Diaz

Originally published on Shareable.net

I have a theory that the more often one cooks, the easier it is for one to cook more often. I know from experience that this is true for me. Back when I worked at night in the restaurant business, I loved to cook at home on my nights off. Being a busy student and worker, my refrigerator was always bare so I’d pore over cookbooks, decide what to make, then head to the store (or stores) for the ingredients. Every time I cooked, I’d have to start from scratch with just the right spices, herbs, grains, cheeses, etc. Then I’d spend the entire afternoon cooking…and about 20 minutes eating. I enjoyed it, but this was no way to actually feed myself on a regular basis.

Now I have a different approach to cooking. I cook more seasonally, inspired by the market, rather than a cookbook, and I cook regularly. This means I always have food to eat or the remnants of a meal on which I can build a new meal. It’s so much more pleasurable to be able to feed myself (and sometimes unexpected guests) with healthy whole foods without any fuss.

Many of us end up in front of the prepared foods counter at the grocery store more often than we’d like, but we also know that if we only cooked more we’d save money, we’d know exactly what’s in our food, and we’d probably consume fewer unhealthy calories and more healthier ones. The challenge is fitting cooking into our busy modern lives, but it’s a worthy challenge. When I can feed myself, even on the busiest of days, I feel a sense of triumph in the midst of the chaos that sometimes overtakes my life.

Since we can’t live on fresh vegetables alone, today we’re going to talk Pantry, Paraphernalia, and Planning. You’ll see how a wide variety of foods on hand, the proper kitchen tools, and a little advance thought can turn your kitchen into the most important room in your home.

Pantry Basics

Your personal pantry will depend on taste, dietary needs and cooking habits, but here’s a good start for developing a pantry full of real food.

Basic Oils:

1 refined oil for high heat cooking like stir-frying: peanut, avocado, or safflower are good choices

1 good quality extra virgin olive oil

1 unrefined oil for general use in dressings and low heat cooking: safflower or sunflower are good choices

Optional: 1 nut oil for special salads: walnut or hazelnut oils are good options (must be refrigerated after opening as they go rancid quickly)

Toasted sesame oil for cooking with Asian flavors

Basic Vinegars:

Good red wine vinegar

Cider vinegar

Rice wine vinegar

Condiments:

Dijon mustard

Soy sauce

Fish sauce

Ketchup

Chili paste

Spices:

1 gourmet salt

Everyday salt for cooking, like kosher or iodized sea salt

Whole and ground cumin

Whole black pepper

Oregano

Thyme

Rosemary

Cayenne
 Pepper flakes

Cinnamon

Bay leaves

Canned Goods:

Canned wild salmon, sardines, herring, and anchovies

Canned beans and chickpeas

Canned whole and diced tomatoes

Coconut milk

Chicken or vegetable broth


Dry Goods:

3 types of pasta: one regular, one buckwheat or whole wheat, one rice noodle

Cornmeal

All-purpose unbleached flour

Whole-wheat flour

Lentils

2 types of dried beans – one white and one black or brown

Oats

1 white long-grain rice

1 brown rice

1 interesting rice, like red or black

1 to 2 types of quick cooking grains like quinoa

1 to 2 types of longer cooking grains like wheat berries, faro, kamut

Dried mushrooms

Dried chilies

Sea vegetables

Nut butters

Honey

Maple syrup

Agave and/or sugar

Refrigerator Pantry:

Capers

Anchovies

Eggs

Tortillas

Butter

Basic cheeses: one feta, one hard grating, and one everyday like cheddar or Jack

Plain yogurt

Pickles

Sauerkraut

Freezer Pantry:

Nuts and seeds: Almonds, walnuts, pecans, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds

Frozen berries and stone fruit for smoothies and healthy desserts

Sliced bread

Other:

Lemons

Garlic

Onions

Shallots

Potatoes

Paraphernalia

The right tools can mean the difference between fun and frustration. Here are a few basic things that every cook needs. Feel free to embellish.

Utensils:

Good quality chef knife that is kept sharpened

Paring knife

Sharp serrated knife for use on bread and tomatoes

Tongs: restaurant quality, locking tongs; 1 long; 1 medium

Sturdy whisk: 1 small; 1 medium

Metal spatula
Rubber spatulas: 2 or 3 different sizes

Vegetable peeler

Wooden spoons: several in different sizes

Large metal spoon

Slotted spoon
Ladles: 1 large; 1 small

Potato Masher

Microplane for grating hard cheeses and lemon zest


Tools:

Strainer

Colander

Small hand juicer

Mortar and pestle for spices and garlic paste

Measuring spoons and cups

Box grater

Salad spinner

Nesting mixing bowls: metal or glass

Cutting boards: 1 for meat and seafood, 1 for vegetables and aromatics like garlic, and 1 for fruit

Blender or food processor

Hand-held mixer

Cookware:

1 small saucepan;
 1 medium saucepan

Large pot for boiling pasta and making soup

1 10-inch cast-iron skillet – great for non-stick uses as well!

Steamer or vegetable steamer basket

Baking sheets (at least 2)

A selection of glass or ceramic baking dishes: casseroles of different sizes and pie plates

A Crockpot or slow cooker will make cooking ahead easier.

Planning

Spend a few hours cooking on the weekend, add simply cooked fresh vegetables you’ve purchased at the farmers’ market, or received in your CSA, and feed yourself all week.

Depending on the size of your household, make:

One big pot of stew, soup, or pot of beans – use a crockpot if you want. One batch of grains – rice cookers are great for this task. A batch of roasted vegetables. A quick, basic vinaigrette
Meat eaters can roast or simmer a whole chicken or pop a meat roast in the oven.

Time allowing: another project like jam, pickles, salsa, or a pesto, red pepper puree, or other condiment.

All of the foods above lend themselves well to repurposing and quick meals. This is a good way to cook ahead for families who don’t enjoy eating leftovers. One pot of beans can become tacos, enchiladas, salads, soups, pasta dishes, dips, sandwich spreads, and more. A batch of cooked grains like brown rice or wheat berries can be used throughout the week in one-dish grain bowl meals with seasonal cooked greens, roasted squash or sweet potatoes. Cooked grains can also be added to salads or soups or used in stir-fries.

If you’ve cooked meat, use the meat in tacos, salads, sandwiches, pasta and grain dishes throughout the week. It really is all about cooking main meal components ahead of time.

Casserole type foods like lasagna take a bit longer to prepare but can also be frozen in portions or eaten all week with an array of quickly prepared, seasonal, vegetable accompaniments.

So there you have it: Want to cook more and eat out less? Just cook. These are just some ways to get started. You will surely develop your own repertoire over time.

Photos by: Valentin.Ottone, ernestch (flikr)

Originally published on EcoSalon

On a recent Friday morning, Wheatberry Bakery in Amherst, Massachusetts, was humming with activity. Behind hand-built wooden counters set with delicate French tiles, co-owner Adrie Lester dealt a brisk business in organic scones and muffins, loaves of fragrant artisanal bread, soups, and sandwiches. In the bakery’s kitchen, her husband, Ben, kneaded a batch of dough, then paused to slip a tray of sourdough baguettes into the oven.

The Lesters opened their business in 2005 and quickly established themselves as a neighborhood fixture. But in early 2008, everything changed. Commodity crop prices went haywire, sending the cost of flour soaring. “It was catastrophic,” Ben said. The Lesters decided that basing their products on an ingredient produced thousands of miles away in the Midwest no longer made good business sense, and they began to ask what it would take to source grain from local growers.

Two years later, an estimated 10 percent of the grains they use are locally grown, a number they hope to increase over time. In the meantime, the Lesters have poured their energies into a related endeavor: organizing the region’s first grain CSA, which in 2009 had approximately 115 members, with a waiting list to match. Last October, Ben and Adrie installed an electric mill in their bakery; now, a day rarely passes without a member stopping by to say hello and grind some grain into flour. The Lesters offer a remarkable example of the creative, community-focused thinking that has driven the local foods movement for the past decade, and they are not alone. From Maine and Vermont to New York and Pennsylvania, a growing number of farmers, bakers, brewers, distillers, and food educators are working to create a regional grain network throughout the Northeast.

Of course, there are the old-timers, like Daisy Flour in southeastern Pennsylvania, which has milled local wheat continuously since the late 19th century, and the relative old-timers—like Vermont’s Butterworks Farm and Gleason Grains, which have been growing grain for human consumption (as opposed to livestock feed) since the 1980s. Then there is the “new” generation. In 2006, veteran baker Don Lewis, of Wild Hive Farm in Clinton Corners, New York, began exclusively sourcing local grains for his breads and rugelach. Rochester’s Small World Bakery launched a bread club in 2007 that provides members with a weekly loaf baked from New York flour. And Cayuga Pure Organics, a 600-acre grain and beans farm, was founded in 2003 by two long-time Ithaca farmers, Erick Smith and Dan Lathwell.

Last year, Cayuga joined New York City’s Greenmarket system as its first supplier of whole grains, beans, and flour. Greenmarket publicity manager, Sabine Hrechdakian, said customers have been overwhelmingly enthusiastic. “In recent years we’ve seen [local vegetables and] grass-fed meat take off,” she said. “Grains are the new frontier.”

Once upon a time, of course, local grain was de rigueur. Before America’s amber waves settled in the Great Plains (Kansas and North Dakota produce most of the country’s bread wheat, each harvesting over eight million acres annually), the East was America’s original breadbasket. This early production was, by default, hyper-local—grown by individuals and ground at home, or in small communal gristmills.

In 1825, the Erie Canal opened up trade routes that enabled New York’s fertile Genesee Valley to emerge as a leading wheat producer. The canal also helped establish cities like Rochester and Buffalo as early centers of industrial milling. According to the late Blake McKelvey, a former Rochester city historian, Rochester boasted 21 active flourmills by 1835, enough to earn it the title Flour City.

A few vestiges remain, like Birkett Mills, which has ground buckwheat in Penn Yan, New York, since 1797. “I guess nobody told them that flour milling was moving out west,” joked Luke Stoldola of Small World Bakery. For the most part, however, the mills have long since closed or been converted for other uses.

Today’s grain advocates hope to restore the vibrant regional grain economy in the Northeast, and—with people like the Lesters on board—they have reason to be hopeful. Still, there are potential stumbling blocks ahead. The movement is relatively new, and despite organizing efforts (like the Northern Grain Growers Association in Vermont and the Northeast Organic Wheat Project), it is still largely fragmented. Lack of infrastructure—mills and processing facilities—is another limiting factor.

Then there are the seeds. Several of the Northeastern wheat growers have begun to experiment with heritage or “landrace” varieties. Cayuga Pure Organics, for example, grows the ancient wheat ancestors emmer and freekeh (roasted green spelt) along with more familiar grains. These heritage varieties are heralded among the converted for their genetic diversity, adaptability, and complex flavor. “Modern wheat tastes like cardboard in comparison,” said Eli Rogosa, a baker, farmer, and heritage wheat advocate who is regarded as the unofficial high priestess of the movement.

Nonetheless, heritage wheats can pose challenges in the kitchen—particularly varieties that contain less gluten, which helps form chewy, fully raised loaves. “Some people say you just have to revise your expectations from the Midwestern flour standard,” said Erik Andrus, who founded Good Companion Bakery in Vermont. “But as a baker, I’m not ready for that.”

Additionally, many heritage varieties are currently available only in tiny quantities. Grains were commoditized over 100 years ago and never favored by backyard gardeners, said Elizabeth Dyck, who coordinates the Northeast Organic Wheat Project under the umbrella of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York. As a result, many varieties exist only in gene banks or on small experimental plots.

Growing out the seed populations is possible but will take time, organization, and funding. In the meantime, consumers and businesses are left waiting. Take King Arthur Flour, the beloved Vermont-based flour company with significant nationwide distribution. King Arthur’s bakery director, Jeffrey Hamelman, said the company is 100 percent behind using local wheat, and last year the company started baking a “Vermont Grains” loaf at its on-site bakery. For now, however, the flour sold under its label still hails, by necessity, from the Midwest.

Grain was a latecomer to the “eat local” movement but has proven a compelling addition. Whether or not it moves into the mainstream relies on how well the key players can work together. This January, the Northeast Organic Wheat Project and the Greenmarket co-hosted a “local grains tasting” in New York City. Farmers and millers from across the Northeast met with some of the city’s best chefs, bakers, and distillers to sample heritage wheats and discuss their common goals and challenges.

According to Dyck, these continued dialogues are critical to realizing the vision of a vibrant Northeastern grain economy. “People are good at figuring out how to get from A to B, but without more conversations, it will remain a very niche thing,” she said. “Still, do I think we can produce a substantial amount of grain in the Northeast with the right support? Absolutely.”

Photo: JapanBlack/Flickr

Originally published on The Atlantic Food Channel

We are in the midst of a revolution in urban agriculture. In a growing number of cities, suburbs, and small towns, community groups and entrepreneurs have discovered innovative ways to harvest and grow food, using networks of relatively small plots of public and private land and shared resources, and in the process, forging novel relationships among producers and consumers.

While these innovations are based on historical precedents, from the radical Diggers movement of 17th century Britain, to sharecropping arrangements, the victory garden movements during the World Wars, and recent community supported agriculture systems, they are unique in that they apply social networking tools, mapping technologies, unusual land tenure arrangements, or novel business models to forage and farm cities and suburbs.

In addition, while they are grassroots, and based on aggregated small-scale production, collection, and distribution, they are replicable components of a civic agriculture network that has the potential to scale up, producing an increasing amount of food in cities and suburbs, putting urban land to productive use, recovering food that would otherwise be wasted, and helping to re-localize urban food systems.

The programs and businesses are distinctive because they are tailored to the unique people and places in which they are created. However, they generally fall into one of the following broad categories:

(1) Gleaning Social Networks – urban foragers who harvest fruits, nuts, and other edibles growing on public spaces and, sometimes, on private land, often to contribute this bounty to the needy;

(2) Peer-to-Peer Agriculture – networks of urban landowners who lend their properties, perhaps as little as a rear or side yard, to those with the inclination to produce food, in some cases to share the bounty and in other cases simply for altruistic reasons;

(3) Aggregated Urban Micro-Farms – urban farmers who aggregate multiple small parcels of privately owned land into quantities that are cost-effective to farm. The food production is either provided for a fee or for a share of the produce, which is in some cases distributed through a CSA model;

Gleaning Social Networks

Gleaning, or collecting the excess crops on farmers’ fields to donate the food to the needy, is an ancient practice referred to in the Old Testament. Throughout much of the world, people still forage for food growing in public spaces. In many cities, however, such practices are discouraged or prohibited, despite the fact that cities often have fruit and nut trees, shrubs producing edible berries, and other wild edibles.

In recent years, a number of gleaning social networks have emerged to educate the public about the availability of edible landscapes in their community, and to encourage the collection of fruits, nuts, and other food growing in public (and with permission) private spaces. Sponsoring groups have organized events to harvest fruit, produced online maps illustrating where publicly accessible fruits, nuts, and berries can be found, and have facilitated the distribution of excess produce gleaned from these sources. These programs not only facilitate the consumption of food already being produced in a community, but by making these resources visible and demonstrating the benefits of edible landscapes, hope to promote the planting of fruit and nut trees as a viable way to produce food in cities.

Examples:

Village Harvest, San Jose — a non-profit organization with approximately 700 volunteers who harvest backyard fruit and distribute it to community organizations through a program called Harvesting for the Hungry.

Fallen Fruit Collective, Los Angeles — artist collective and activist organization that organizes walks to gather fruit from trees extending over public property.

LifeCycles Fruit Tree Project, Victoria, B.C. — links residents who have, but do not completely harvest, fruit trees growing on their property with volunteers willing to pick the fruit, and individuals and organizations who need access to fresh produce.

Peer-to-Peer Agriculture

Exchange and sharing networks are designed to more productively use the land that exists in people’s yards for food production. They range from websites that link those with available land who are willing to allow landless residents interested in gardening to grow food on their property to more complex social networks that facilitate land sharing and also food bartering. These schemes rely for their success on citizens willing to enter into non-financial relationships with others to either achieve mutual gain or the simple satisfaction of turning a fallow resource (such as their unused yard space) into a more productive space.

Examples:

Patch Match, London — web-based organization that links growers, landowners, and those who have gardening skills.

Grow Local, Victoria, Australia — web-based food producing network, linking together food producers within a particular community and enabling them to share and/or barter their food, plants, seeds, and potentially, tools and skills.

Aggregated Urban Micro-Farms

Cities have significant amounts of land suitable for growing food, divided into yards of varying size and shape. Some entrepreneurial gardeners have created businesses turning backyards into intensive vegetable patches, often for a simple fee for service. In other cases (currently clustered in Portland and San Francisco, but emerging in other cities) the business model involves aggregating a number of intensively planted micro-farms into a scale that produces sufficient food to operate a viable CSA subscription service. To the participating land owners, who provide the property to grow food and get a weekly box of produce in return, this system offers a greater variety of food than can be grown on one’s own particular parcel. Moreover, depending on their level of interest, skills, and time, households may also participate in some or much of the planting, tending, and harvesting.

Examples:

Your Backyard Farmer, Portland — Portland company that farms a collection of individual backyards and sells the produce to the homeowners and others through a CSA-type subscription model. Individual households contract with Your Backyard Farmer to prepare raised beds, seed them with vegetable varieties selected by the property owner, and tend the micro-farm throughout the growing season. Each week, the business then delivers harvested produce aggregated from all of the farmed backyards to the household.

My Farm, San Francisco — San Francisco-based company farming a cluster of backyards with a slightly different business model. For some households, My Farm acts like a specialized gardening service. Households pay $600 to $1,000 to create their garden, plus weekly maintenance costs of $20 to $35, and have exclusive use of the harvest. Others, particularly those with larger gardens (called “owner members”) pay a reduced weekly fee and instead give up a portion of the harvest to My Farm for resale in a CSA-type subscription. San Francisco residents without backyards are able to order weekly shares of the produce harvested from those owner members producing food for My Farm’s CSA.

Amyitis Gardens, San Francisco: Neighborhood-based farming system that provides restaurants in the Mission District with food grown in backyards throughout the community. Residents allowing their backyards to be farmed receive some of the produce, and in exchange for providing the excess to local restaurants, receive discounts for meals at those restaurants.

Assessment

Distributed farming offers the possibility of increasing food production in cities and suburbs through networks of small-scale efforts. While each project contributes a very small percentage of a city’s food supply, in the aggregate a significant amount of food can be produced if intensive farming techniques are used. Indeed, a distributed farming system may be the most suited to fitting food production into the existing urban landscape, which is a patchwork of vacant land, yards, and rooftops owned by individuals, businesses and government agencies.

Although, by some estimates, cities like Philadelphia and Chicago have tens of thousands of vacant parcels, many of which have the potential for food production in raised beds or movable container farming, these are scattered throughout large areas and are owned by many different individuals. If connected through community-based programs and businesses, a wide range of public and private sites, from schools and housing projects city parks, utility right of ways, and roof tops, can be put into food production.

Moreover, distributed urban farming ventures, while in some cases organized primarily for profit, are distinguished from conventional farming ventures in that they involve some form of community building and require a significant amount of social interaction with community members. In contrast to conventional agriculture practiced in rural areas, distributed urban farming involves navigating complex social, economic, political, and technical issues. All community participants in the process engage in problem solving, from identifying and mapping edible vegetation to offering gardening advice in exchange for a portion of the harvest. Whether an individual participating in a distributed farming enterprise is passively contributing space for a garden or actively foraging to distribute fruit to a senior center, he or she is grounded in place and part of a larger effort to meet the nutritional needs of his/her community. As a result of having to mobilize the community to acquire land, assemble volunteer labor, develop relationships among producers and consumers, and create relationships of trust among people using property in common, these activities help to build a resilient, civic urban agriculture community.

Photo: My Farm