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ENVIRONMENT-US: Urban Farms Take Root
By Enrique Gili
SAN DIEGO, California, Aug 11, 2009 (IPS) - Juxtapose the word urban in front of farm and there’s bound to be a lot of head scratching.
But in cities around the U.S. small-scale farms and garden plots are coming to life in unlikely
places. Abandoned city lots, and neglected yards are being converted into vegetable gardens
- as basic food literacy becomes part of the vocabulary of city dwellers.
Due to a faltering economy and numerous food scares, many U.S. households are asking
two basic questions: ‘Where does my food come from?’ Followed by, ‘How do we pay for
it?’
The recently established New Roots farm located in San Diego is part of an unusual
experiment among food activists to bring sustainable agriculture within city limits. Under
the aegis of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a non-profit organisation working
with refugees worldwide, the immigrant community of City Heights has started an "urban
farm" for local residents.
Open since mid-July, the New Roots Community Farm - as the property has come to be
called - is a raw patch of land located on 2.2 acres of city property with the potential to
supplement the diets of hundreds if not thousands of low-income individuals living in
greater San Diego.
The so-called farm opened after nearly four years of negotiations with local and federal
agencies. "It took us a long time to get access to this land," mentions Amy Lint, IRC food
security coordinator, when speaking of the effort to obtain and secure the proper permits
from city planners.
The founders are hoping the new farm can serve as an example of what can be done in an
urban setting, since even small plots of land can be surprisingly productive in the hands
of experienced growers.
Many participants are recipients of some form of federal assistance intended for families
living below or slightly above the poverty level. "People aren’t eating three meals a day
here," says Lint.
According to Lint, the IRC sees the farm as an opportunity to enable newcomers to survive
and thrive. The farms are helping refugees to integrate into mainstream society and
improve nutrition. They are also providing the employment opportunities.
The best way to help New Farms’ members Lint contends is to help them to grow food for
themselves.
Many of the members have fled political hotspots - they were driven out of their
homelands during periods of civil war and extreme violence.
In some ways, the farm is a microcosm of a world the members have left behind. Members
are Burmese, Cambodian, Guatemalan, and Somali-Bantu, among others.
A majority of New Roots members belong to marginalised ethnic groups that lived in rural
societies based on clan and family affiliations. "We’re farmers," explains Hamadi Jumale, a
mental-healthcare case manager and spokesperson for the Bantu-Somali Community
Organisation in San Diego.
Bilali Muya, New Roots farm manager and community advocate, offered a brief glimpse
into his personal history. Muya’s world collapsed when civil war broke out in Somalia in
1991. He fled across the border into Kenya, where he eventually reunited with his parents,
then he made his way to a refugee camp that brought him to America.
The journey is still fresh in his memory. "We weren’t rich, we weren’t educated, so why did
they want to kill us?" he asked when speaking of the politically dominant Somali clans that
victimised Bantu-Somali villages.
Prior to the civil war the Somali-Bantu formed the backbone of Somalia’s agricultural
region producing crops in the Juba Valley. Imported to work as slaves in the 18th Century
their presence in Somalia was a lasting legacy of the Arab slave trade that marked them as
cultural and ethnic outsiders.
After nearly a decade of fighting, the U.S. State Department recognised the plight of the
Somali-Bantu, according them refugee status. In 1999 U.N. officials began arranging for
their transport from refugee camps in Kenya to the U.S. where approximately 12,000 of
them have resettled.
On a late summer afternoon, the sun ebbed over an arid low-rise landscape that hardly
evoked the countryside - in a part of town the tourist bureau avoids to mention. Planes
flew overhead amid the hum of commuter traffic filling the air with white noise.
The farm is still a work in progress. Eighty10-foot by 20-foot plots have been allocated to
four immigrant groups, with the remainder to be distributed among local residents.
Presently, the garden plots are in the care of friends and family who do what needs to be
done in order to make the soil productive. Much of the field remains to be cleared of
rocks. Still there are promising signs of life, as new vegetation emerges on what at first
appeared to be wasteland.
The soft-spoken Muya articulated what the Somali-Bantu hoped to accomplish in City
Heights: the farm he believes gives the group a focus regardless of their circumstances.
The farm links the 400 Somali-Bantu families living in San Diego to their agricultural past
and provides them hope for the future. "We are here to build our lives and the lives of our
children," he says. With that, Muya slipped off to the hospital to attend to his wife and
newborn child.
Although New Roots is a small part of the overall farming equation, the personal stories of
the people involved in the food movement, like the Bantu-Somali, have energised food
advocates to take action. Advocates have proposed sweeping reforms in the way food is
grown and distributed, ranging from tax credits for reducing carbon emissions to various
farm-to-table initiatives that provide low-income families with better access to fresh
produce.
The federal government is already tinkering around the edges of the food system.
According to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) statistics as of 2008, 753 farmers’
markets nationwide accepted food stamps, a 34 percent increase over the prior year.
While the percentage of redemptions are very small when compared to the amount of
revenues actually generated at farmers’ markets. It has increased from about 1 million
dollars in 2007 to 2.7 million dollars in 2008.
In terms of actual policy reform, it also helps to have an advocate for sustainable
agriculture living at the White House. Food activists were euphoric when first lady Michelle
Obama broke ground on her organic garden in Mar. 2009. "We know what we are doing is
being supported at the very highest levels," says University of California at Davis Food
Systems Expert Gail Feenstra. (END)
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