How we can fix our food problem
Why community gardens will not feed the planet, and why they don’t have to
Last year, I set out to answer a pressing question for myself. “Can urban gardening fix our food problem?”
What I found was something I did not want to see, because it proved my assumptions wrong. The assumption that urban gardening will be able to feed the cities of tomorrow…
I travelled to the UK
You might be wondering now, who I am and why you should even believe a word of what I am saying.
Two years ago I got interested in this topic when I stumbled upon a series of Ted Talks about urban gardening and urban food production. Some titles included “How we can eat our Landscapes” or “A guerrilla gardener in South Central LA.” They talked about how they inspired their communities to grow food locally in public places, free for everyone to enjoy. The two Ted talks alone have reached over 4,5 million views and inspired over 600 projects around the world. I asked myself: What role does urban gardening play in feeding the cities of the future?
So, I set out to see some of these projects myself. Last summer, I spent one month visiting 16 projects in the UK and Amsterdam. These projects ranged from community gardens, small local farming businesses, to university rooftop gardens. I talked to the people who run these projects and spent up to four days with them to really dig deep and understand their motivations. Out of all these fantastic and insightful conversations, I distilled two learnings that I would like to share with you.
Why we have a food problem
Before we get to my learnings, it is crucial to understand the big picture problem. According to studies by the UN, 9,4 billion people will be living on our planet in 2050, from which 68% are projected to live in urban areas. This translates into an increased food demand by 100% in developing countries. Yet the resources of the planet stay finite. Already today, we use 70% of our global freshwater resources for agriculture. At present, about 11% of the world’s surface is used for agriculture of which 34% is estimated to be to some degree suitable for crop production. These numbers raise the question of how we might feed an additional 1.7 billion people on our planet by 2050.
Urban Gardening is bad at feeding cities but great for local communities and educating people about food.
What I found is that there is always a trade-off between community involvement and the effectiveness to produce food.
Most urban gardening projects are based on volunteers and donations. The people I talked to care deeply about their city and their local communities. They used unloved public spaces to transform them into the beautiful herb and vegetable gardens. Everyone who walks by is encouraged to harvest the ripe produce no matter if they volunteer or not.
The volunteers enjoy being and working together. They enjoy caring about the plants, their city, and their community. Most of them are not in for the money but out of pure kindness. Everyone interested is welcome to join, according to the motto “If you eat, you are in.”
Urban Gardens are community projects and not a large scale food production.
Now although urban gardens are great for the community, the amount of food that is grown there is minimal. Most of the time it is not even enough to fully “feed” the volunteers themselves. This, however, is not their focus, it is a happy by-product. The reason for this is that the gardens are located in public spaces.
This sometimes limits the variety of crops that make sense to grow. For instance, commonly known produce like potatoes or paprika bear the risk of being harvested too early by strangers, or they grow year-round crops like black currant to reduce the workload for maintenance.
I learned that to produce more food — to be more productive — you have to move away from public spaces. The most productive systems I know of, are run by innovative large-scale indoor farming companies like Aerofarms. These companies use soilless growing techniques and software to optimize their plant growth. According to Aerofarms, they are 390 times more productive while using up to 95% less water compared to common agricultural methods. As you can imagine these systems are completely shut off from the public eye, and only accessible to trained employees of the company. They trade community for efficiency.
Efficiency in food production clashes with the little amount of public space
One beautiful example of a mix between these two extremes was a rooftop garden project called LUU Rooted run by the Leeds University Union. They grow their salad on the universities’ rooftop and sell it in the Uni shop downstairs. They created, what I call a “Semi-Public-Space.” Whenever someone responsible was at the roof, students and the public were welcome to join and volunteer. This made it possible for them to professionalize their growing business while maintaining the spirit of a community garden. They not only add value by providing fresh and local produce (what indoor farming companies would do) but also add value through a community and a place where everyone can relax and learn about the beauty of growing food (what community gardens would do).
This is to say, gardening can be used as a tool, that allows you to use it to your needs.
We need to collaborate to overcome the challenges ahead of us
Now you might be thinking if urban gardening does not produce enough food to feed the cities of the future, who will it be then?
The obvious answer would be that the highly automated indoor farming systems are the solution to the problem. They are more productive, less harmful and hyper-local (ignoring the fact, that they cannot grow staple crops like rice yet). But as urban gardens, they are just one piece of the puzzle.
If you think about our food system as a whole today, intending to feed everyone on this planet, you will find that it is not just about producing food, but also about reducing food waste. To put this into perspective, Germany alone wastes 11 million kilograms of food over the entire value chain every year (excluding the loss in agriculture). If we could only save some percentage, we would already have a considerable impact. I will not go into the reasons too much, but the food waste is different from country to country and varies throughout the food value chain — production, processing, retail, consumption. To reduce food waste on every level many parties have to work towards the same goal.
Therefore, the only way forward I see is collaboration.
Collaboration between, individuals, industries, organisations, and politics. We need strong food networks that all work together globally as well as locally. On the one hand, we have to produce more food, and on the other hand, we have to waste less. There are already inspiring projects across the board, but we need to collaborate and combine forces to succeed as a whole. (Examples of existing networks: The Global Foodbanking Network, Brighton & Hove Food Partnership, Incredible Edible Network)
We have everything we need to take action
To bridge the gap between urban gardening, indoor farming, food waste, and collaboration, let me summarize.
Urban gardening does not have to feed the planet because it is just one piece of the puzzle. It is a great educator, it gets people interested in local and seasonal food as well as in how to grow and cook it without big effort. It creates awareness and connects communities. Indoor Farming companies, on the other hand, produce food highly efficiently (they might be one piece that “feeds” the planet). They can be built on the work of urban gardening movements through selling their local and fresh produce. Food waste organizations make sure that we waste less of the food we produce.
The point is, it is not just one piece that solves the puzzle, it’s multiple pieces, and we can solve this puzzle through collaboration. I believe we have everything we need to create the necessary change to feed everyone in this world. So let’s take action!
Thank you for reading.
PS:
If you want to read a detailed description of all the 16 projects I visited and a more elaborate conclusion, you can find the pdf here.
Please reach out to me via LinkedIn if you have further questions, feedback or comments.
