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Farm to School and school gardens are hot topics these days, and what's
not to love? In an era where children increasingly identify their
"food source" as the take-out window, the Center for Disease Control
has singled out Farm to School as part of a community based solution to
the obesity epidemic. School gardens add to the solution by encouraging
physical activity, providing better food choices and leading to
healthier community environments, not to mention the educational
benefits of having a "living" classroom.  But according to Deb
Eschmeyer of the National Farm to School Network, many school
districts, though enthusiastic, simply "do not have the sweat equity
and the labor to pull it off."  Enter FoodCorps.

The vision for FoodCorps is to recruit young adults for a yearlong term
of public service in school food systems. Once stationed, FoodCorps
members will build Farm to School supply chains, expand food system and
nutrition education programs, and build and tend school food gardens.

The ultimate goal of the project is to increase the health and
prosperity of vulnerable children, while investing in the next
generation of farmers.

The seeds for FoodCorps as a program sprouted from a number of minds,
including IATP Food and Society Fellows, Curt Ellis and Deb Eschmeyer.
Deb attributes part of the development of the program to...

You don’t have to turn over too many garden gnomes to see that there is a growing urban agriculture movement scattering its seeds across the nation. From Detroit to Oakland to New York City to Seattle and every place in between, individuals and organizations are thriving through the joys of food production and the abundance that it provides. And while planting a garden where your lawn used to be, tending a community garden plot, or growing starts in a rooftop greenhouse seem like individualistic acts, they are part and parcel of the current chapter on our nation’s broader history of gardening.

Wendell Berry wrote that “eating is an agricultural act,” and it seems now that growing food in urban public and privately owned spaces has become a political act. In many cities, elected officials and government agencies are working on policy efforts to ease restrictions and, in some cases, even encourage people to grow food in underutilized spaces.

News of cities changing zoning and land use policies to support urban agriculture is growing – I’ve seen evidence from Kansas City, Detroit, Vancouver, BC and numerous other locales all taking this leap. But given that it’s my hometown, I am most closely watching Seattle, where as we often do, we put our own...

Gardening is hot, and I don’t mean just sweaty work in July while you hoe the purslane and harvest beans, squash, and zucchini.  Working the land is a trendy topic from web-rooted FarmVille to the White House to the written word.

Part of the reason for the new interest in the simple but yet so intensely complex act of growing food is that we have a clear problem and myriad solutions. The problem: obesity rates increased in 28 states in the past year. As recently reported in “F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future 2010,” obesity is one of the biggest public health challenges our country has faced. With 1 in 3 US children age 2-19 overweight or obese, we need to end this trend and fortunately, many organizations, initiatives, and resources aim to solve child obesity in a generation.

Part of the solution starts with students and a seed. The benefits of gardening are far beyond the average 270 calories burned while digging in the dirt. The Royal Horticulture Society reported in new research that “as well as helping children lead happier, healthier lives today, gardening helped them acquire the essential skills they need to fulfill their potential in a rapidly-...

First published in the July/August 2007 issue of Orion magazine.

The story of Anathoth Community Garden really begins with a murder. On a June afternoon in 2004, Bill King was closing up his shop on the corner of Mill Creek and Carr Store roads when someone walked through the door and shot him in the back of the head. Before Bill and his wife, Emma, bought the place, the little bait and tackle grocery was a haven for local crack dealers. The first thing Bill and Emma did when they arrived was to ask the dealers to leave. Parents began bringing their children to the store for ice cream; neighborhood kids rode their bikes down for a soda. When people couldn’t pay, Bill would let them take food on credit. Whatever sense of safety this little farming community of Cedar Grove, North Carolina, had enjoyed before that afternoon in June, one trigger-pull had shattered. The people of Cedar Grove were angry and afraid.

Valee Taylor, a friend of Bill’s, was just plain angry. Several weeks after the murder, he visited Grace Hackney, pastor of Cedar Grove United Methodist Church (UMC), to talk about what the community should do. It’s not often that a black man will set foot in a white church in Cedar Grove, but Valee and Grace had become friends after meeting at the post office one day. Valee wanted to put out a reward. Grace had another idea—a prayer...