Will Allen, Urban Farmer - State · Will Allen, Urban Farmer By Elizabeth Royte. city dwellers...
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L ike others in the so-called “good food” movement, Will Allen, 64, asserts that the modern industrial food system is depleting soil, poisoning water, gobbling fossil fuels and filling Americans with bad calories. He advocates eating locally grown food. But to Allen, local is not a rural field or a suburban garden: it is 14 greenhouses crammed onto two acres [0.8 hectare] in a working-class neighborhood on Milwaukee’s northwest side, not far from the city’s largest public- housing project. “From the housing project, it’s more than three miles to the super- market,” said Allen. “That’s a long way to go for groceries if you don’t have a car or can’t carry stuff.” Fast-food joints, liquor stores and convenience stores selling highly processed, high-calorie foods, on the other hand, are abundant. Allen says, “We’ve got to change the system so everyone has safe, equitable access to healthy food.” Allen’s Growing Power farm provides healthful food to 10,000 Embassy of the United States of America AFRICAN-AMERICAN LEADERS Will Allen founded Growing Power, an urban farm cooperative, to make fresh, locally grown food available in low-income urban neighborhoods. © AP Images Will Allen, Urban Farmer By Elizabeth Royte
Transcript of Will Allen, Urban Farmer - State · Will Allen, Urban Farmer By Elizabeth Royte. city dwellers...
Like others in the so-called
“good food” movement,
Will Allen, 64, asserts that
the modern industrial food system
is depleting soil, poisoning water,
gobbling fossil fuels and filling
Americans with bad calories. He
advocates eating locally grown
food. But to Allen, local is not a
rural field or a suburban garden:
it is 14 greenhouses crammed
onto two acres [0.8 hectare] in a
working-class neighborhood on
Milwaukee’s northwest side, not
far from the city’s largest public-
housing project.
“From the housing project, it’s
more than three miles to the super-
market,” said Allen. “That’s a long
way to go for groceries if you don’t
have a car or can’t carry stuff.”
Fast-food joints, liquor stores and
convenience stores selling highly
processed, high-calorie foods,
on the other hand, are abundant.
Allen says, “We’ve got to change
the system so everyone has safe,
equitable access to healthy food.”
Allen’s Growing Power farm
provides healthful food to 10,000
Embassy of the United States of America AFRICAN-AMERICAN LEADERS
Will Allen founded Growing Power, an urban farm cooperative, to make fresh, locally grown food available in low-income urban neighborhoods. © AP Images
Will Allen, Urban FarmerBy Elizabeth Royte
city dwellers through an on-farm
retail store and farmers markets,
and by supplying produce and fish
to schools and restaurants. And
Growing Power has expanded to
other cities, including Detroit,
Chicago, Denver and Louisville,
Kentucky.
Allen’s book, The Good Food
Revolution, was nominated in
2013 for the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored
People Image Award for autobiog-
raphy/biography. The book docu-
ments the long journey he has
traveled from his roots. Allen,
born in 1949, grew up outside
Bethesda, Maryland, with five
siblings. His father was a share-
cropper in South Carolina. After
moving north in the 1930s, “my
mother did domestic work, and my
father worked as a construction
laborer,” he said, “but he rented a
small plot to farm.” Today Allen
travels the world, an ambassa-
dor for strengthening community
food systems. But like his father,
he still manages to touch the soil
every day.
This essay was published in Stories of African-American Achievement (2010) and is based on an article first published by the New York Times Magazine on July 5, 2009.
Urban farmer Will Allen surveys one of the community greenhouses in Milwaukee. © AP Images
Will Allen, Urban Farmer
U N I T E D S TAT E S D E P A R T M E N T O F S TAT EB U R E A U O F I N T E R N AT I O N A L I N F O R M AT I O N P R O G R A M S
Published November 2013
ISBN 978–1–625–92160–4
