The Case for Market Gardens in Our Local Food System
By Kymisha Montgomery, CGC Urban Agriculture Coordinator
As consumer interest in where and how food is produced has grown, so has investment in urban food production systems. In cities and suburbs across the United States, people are transforming urban lots and small backyards into productive mini-farms. Urban agriculture is quickly becoming the biggest trend in market gardening this decade—and for good reason. While they can be an important source of food for many urban residents, these pockets of food production are equally important as sites of education, social connection and food justice.
Urban agriculture produces healthy foods that contribute to food and nutrition security. It plays a role in the social and cultural fabric of communities, contributes to community economic development, and promotes environmental sustainability. Urban agriculture has been identified not only as a strategy that promotes cooking and eating foods that support overall health and well-being, but also as a good way to build relationships among neighbors.
Despite the diverse benefits and support to local communities that urban agriculture can provide, however, there are also limitations to developing or expanding operations and programs. To help address the issue, we’re developing a Market Garden training program that will teach interested urban growers everything they need to know to run their garden as a business and make a profit.
Market gardening is the commercial production of vegetables, fruits, flowers and other plants on a scale larger than a home garden, yet small enough that many of the principles of gardening still apply. The goal, as with all farm enterprises, is to run the operation as a business and to make a profit. As you might guess from the name, market gardening is often oriented toward local markets. It also provides consumers the opportunity to eat local food, thus reducing the environmental impact of transportation.
Growing food in market gardens can provide people with more access to fresh vegetables for a healthier food supply—especially those living in “food deserts,” low-income neighborhoods without grocery stores that stock fresh fruits and vegetables at affordable prices. The nutritional contributions that urban gardens make also highlight the importance that low-income gardeners, especially recent immigrants, place on having food that aligns with their cultural and ethical values and being able to exercise greater autonomy in making food choices.
Market gardens in the city require a willingness to engage with neighbors, with municipalities, and with other businesses and stakeholders. It won’t always be easy—not everyone thinks that a city farm is a positive use of open land in urban spaces. But as healthy food access, food prices and diet-related diseases continue to be serious problems, more and more urban communities are adapting their policies and practices to support neighborhood-based food production.
In fact, the vision for our local food system included in the most recent Cincinnati Green Plan is one in which there’s equitable food access for everyone, a local (within 100 miles) agricultural production and distribution network, living wage jobs in the farming and food sectors, and the elimination of all food waste from the landfill. This circular food economy will disrupt and dismantle the long history of systemic racism, oppression, inequity and environmental degradation in the food system.
Our vision is that such a broad set of benefits in culture and spirit, people and relationships, and healing and transformation can be entwined with and emerge from CGC’s strategies for supporting market gardening and gardeners.