Urban Farming: Important Models

Urban farming becomes the basis for whole community transformation. For example, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin the influential urban farming pioneer and MacArthur genius grant recipient Will Allen began farming in 1993 in connection with a community teen program called Growing Power on 2 acres in a working-class neighborhood, less than half a mile from the city’s largest public-housing project. Today the organization runs several farms and training programs in Chicago and Milwaukee with a mission of food justice and skills training in addition to supplying food. Along with producing a quarter-million dollars’ worth of food in its greenhouses and fields, Growing Power composts local waste, grows fish in an aquaponic setup, and keeps poultry and bees.