Why Urban Farming?
"Grow a Garden, Grow a Community"
- Feedom Freedom Growers
This project is heavily inspired by the work of Ph.D. Monica White and her book Freedom Farmers. Similar books include:
Black Food Geographies - Ashantee Reese
Standing their Ground - Adrienne Petty
Farming While Black - Leah Penniman
Dispossession: Discrimination Against Black Farmers in the Age of Civil Rights - Pete Daniel
Food Security
The history previously discussed has undoubtedly had an impact on the existing conditions of food access in the city, mostly in creating food insecurity throughout Detroit. However, agriculture is not chosen here to continue to discuss what has happened to black communities in Detroit but rather to highlight uplifting examples of what residents are doing about it. This idea has been inspired by my reading Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement in which author Monica White discusses how collective agriculture has been used historically in the black community as a form of resistance. An example she uses is the “Freedom Farm Cooperative” established by Fannie Lou Hamer and the community in Sunflower County, Mississippi in 1969. By working collaboratively, the “Freedom Farm Cooperative” demonstrated what White identifies as collective agency and community resistance. While landlessness among black farmers left them vulnerable to exploitation from white landowners, establishing a cooperative allowed them to resist this system of oppression and collectively work towards a vision of a better future.
Collective Agency and Community Resistance
White also explores one farm in Detroit, D-town farm, and draws similar conclusions about the significance of their cooperative action. This project further explores the city of Detroit by pulling examples from multiple organizations including the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, Keep Growing Detroit, Feedom Freedom, and the Detroit Food Policy Council. There are around 1700 community growers throughout Detroit who are motivated to grow food for numerous reasons. I’ve chosen to highlight some examples from Detroit because of the size of the urban farming community, the potential that growers have due to the abundance of vacant space, and my experience communicating with organizations that are committed to building better communities. I believe the growers offer an excellent opportunity to show how urban agriculture can be used as activism.
Malik Yakini from Detroit Black Community Food Security Network. Photo credit YES! Magazine