Two Sides of an Urban Farming Coin

Hi!

Today I want to discuss two models of urban farming in Detroit that I’ve recently become acquainted with.

I’ve chosen the classic American idiom of “two sides of a coin” to elaborate on my thoughts because when I say it, what I’m referring to is the fact that an issue might look very different (like a coin) when you flip it over and look at it from the other side. It is the same item (or issue), but it looks different depending on your perspective. In this blog post I will highlight two different perspectives on the purpose of urban farming in Detroit.

First, I want to emphasize that I don’t believe either of these methods are superior, they simply use different models to address an unfortunately highly prevalent community issue. Food insecurity threatens 1 in 5 people in Detroit, especially children in the summer months, and probably a greater percentage than Feeding America’s statistical data have estimated. Thus, it is important that we consider the impact of urban farming and how we can meet immediate hunger in our community yet still look towards future benefits of long-term planning.

Some urban farms in Detroit use the following model: they run on almost entirely volunteer labor and thus have the ability to give away fruits and vegetables for free every Saturday to anyone who comes to their free market. This solves one of the most important issues in my mind: directly meeting the need for food in the community by increasing the accessibility to it.

On the flip side of the coin, because these volunteer farms give away their crops for free, neighboring urban farms that sell their crops cannot adequately compete to provide healthy, good, locally-sourced food to the community if they charge for them. The reason this is an issue is because these other urban farms use the following model: they use paid positions on the farm to grow the crops, supplying jobs to the local community, and thus must sell their fruits and vegetables for a profit to cover the overhead costs of being a community employer. This is good because it keeps money in the local economy which by many economists’ opinion is the best way to revitalize an area, but it reaches an issue when it comes to the fact that charging for healthy food limits accessibility to it in some respects.

The ideal situation would be to run urban farms somewhere in the middle, run on both an employee and volunteer base, that way the cost of the healthy food could be reasonable and sustainable for the community, but it would also supply jobs.

If you’re interested in reading a couple of very interesting articles pertaining to this issue, I have linked them here:

(1) https://m.metrotimes.com/detroit/on-urban-farming-and-colonialism-in-detroits-north-end-neighborhood/Content?oid=7950059

(2) http://www.hourdetroit.com/Give-Detroit/Politics-You-Can-Eat/

Thanks for reading, let me know your thoughts!

Kind regards,

Scarlett Bickerton