GUEST BLOG by Fiona Buining, Churchill Fellow and founder of Ainslie Urban Farm in Canberra. Fiona travelled on a Churchill Fellowship in 2022 to investigate urban farm ventures that provide vocational pathways for aspiring food growers. This is her story of hope and inspiration. You can also view a short video about Fiona’s journey on Gleanr’s YouTube channel.
Growing Home in Englewood Chicago stole my heart. It’s an organic farm on 3 acres in one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Chicago. They provide a paid 12-week program with true wrap around support for people with multiple barriers to employment. 85% of the participants have been incarcerated. Here people learn how to grow food, study environmental literacy and complete an intense self-development program. The employment rate of over 80% is evidence of the effectiveness of this life changing program that uses food growing as a vehicle for personal transformation. The Director of Employment training said: “there’s something about growing a plant from seed to harvest, all the way, following something from its origin to market that’s more powerful than any other program I have worked in.”
Working alongside urban farmers and trainees and visiting small farms, universities and industry I discovered three vocational pathways to becoming an urban farmer: heart programs, incubators and land-based practicums. The focus of this article is on heart programs.
Heart programs are paid programs that genuinely transform lives through teaching people how to grow food. It was moving to see the power of teaching people to grow food to radically alter the course of their lives. These programs cater for people with multiple barriers to employment who have experienced homelessness, imprisonment, drug addiction and poverty. Windy City Harvest, also in Chicago, has added an Incubator Program to their suite of offerings allowing aspiring farmers to start their own business. Chicago Lights provides a paid pathway for school students interested in learning to grow food. These farms provide a fresh start. It was notable that in my week at Growing Home there was no mention of a person’s past – evidence of a genuine new beginning.
Sole Food Street Farms is an urban farm on 3 acres in downtown Vancouver providing an exemplar of flexible, meaningful work for disenfranchised people with barriers to employment. Here, farm staff grow vegetables and fruit in custom made boxes neatly arranged in rows and blocks – almost 4000 of them – producing up to 30 tonnes of fresh food each year. I worked alongside staff here for 1 week, some of whom had been here since 2009. On my first day I worked with a woman who said to me: “This is my farm family. See over there – that’s my farm Dad.” The location of the facility in an area of need increases accessibility to those who need this most. All our cities could be home to a Sole Food. The area of land required is small, and the innovative solution to grow in moveable boxes allows the whole farm to be moved if required.
Training farms pump out large quantities of fresh food for the community. Heart farm produce is sold at fresh food markets, to wholesalers, through Community Supported Agriculture programs (CSAs) and distributed to food banks and food access programs such as VeggieRx. VeggieRx is a program where doctors or pharmacists prescribe fresh vegetables to patients who receive a $US25 voucher to spend on fresh fruit and vegetables. Prices of food sold at markets are generally set to match the socio-economic status of people who live in the area to increase food access.
I encountered people who had not tasted fresh lettuce or eaten raw vegetables. Nutrition programs introduce people to fresh vegetables by teaching them how to cook with seasonal fresh produce. Every week at the Growing Home market a meal is prepared using farm produce. Tasting plates with the corresponding recipe are distributed free of charge. Windy City Harvest provides cooking lessons in their teaching kitchen. All the food grown at Chicago Lights is for residents of the adjacent Cabrini-Green social housing development, low-income shoppers and the market-voucher program. Workers on heart farms are encouraged to take fresh food home for free. All these initiatives establish connections between producers and consumers, educate consumers about good nutrition, encourage people to eat more fresh food and increase food security.
A key point is to run paid programs. There is no reason to NOT pay people who grow our food. Paying people places value on and recognises the skill and process of growing food as well as on the value of the produce itself. Return on investment (ROI) at Sole Food Street Farms has been measured independently, by Queen’s University Ontario showing that every dollar spent on wages generates CAD$5.77 worth of cumulative social benefits. The study revealed a huge raft of specific social and environmental benefits.
Heart programs are beautiful, caring sanctuaries providing meaningful work, fresh produce and connection with the earth, plants and people. Can we afford NOT to run these programs?
Fiona Buining can be contacted at info@ainslieurbanfarm.com.au
Her report is available at https://www.churchilltrust.com.au/fellow/fiona-buining-act-2020/
