WHY

Just Food City Farms Coordinator Kathleen McTigue says, "gardeners understand government better than anyone I know, because they have to figure out how to work in and around it."

Community gardeners and government are in a complex and unavoidable relationship. Gardens are often on marginal land, sometimes on a temporary lease. Many gardens have been summarily evicted -- even by the municipal government -- when a more lucrative land-use offer comes along. Gardeners have to negotiate these uncertainties as well as zoning laws, planning restrictions, and community attitudes.

Community gardens often find themselves at odds with municipal policies and/or policymakers, yet municipal governments have the potential to be allies and promoters of community gardening. Community gardeners tend and beautify open space, while gardens raise nearby property values, clean the air, engage youth, and strengthen the community's investment in itself. In the view of FSLC advisor Martin Bailkey, community gardens should be recognized by government as a deliverable public service like roads, libraries and parks, but a service that is more bottom-up in origin and management. Garden-friendly legislation and zoning laws are important municipal acknowledgment of the public benefits that community gardens provide.

In the past few years, cities from Vancouver to Boston have developed policies and resolutions codifying municipal support for community gardens. These policies have come out of major community advocacy efforts, which have changed the status of community gardens in these cities from marginal to valuable.

Policy

Local and Municipal

Community garden policies can take many forms, and community gardens are not only affected by garden-specific regulations, but also by broader policy, such as open space regulations.

Some cities, like Boston, establish a specific zoning category for gardens as part of their zoning code for open space. The Chicago City Council created a city-funded entity called NeighborSpace which is authorized to purchase properties to protect them as open space and to enter into agreements with local groups for the use and maintenance of these spaces, including community gardens.

Other cities make more specific designations for community gardens. The Seattle city government included community gardens in its 20-year comprehensive plan, setting up specific community garden goals and establishing a City Council resolution to promote gardening.

The language on community garden legislation in these cities and Berkeley, California, is included in Comprehensive Plans, Zoning Regulations, Open Space Policies and Goals concerning Community Gardens and Open Green Space" compiled by the American Community Gardening Association (ACGA). Further examples of legislative language, resolutions, zoning, and city planning in other cities has been collected by the ACGA. Other US cities with community garden policies can be found in the links & resources section. Internationally, cities such as Toronto, Ontario and Auckland City, New Zealand are at the forefront of the movement.

State and Federal

Community gardens are inherently community-based, but policy at the state and federal levels can also impact gardens. Existing federal support for community gardens includes the Community Food Project grant program, which funds organizations building community food security through community gardens and other means (for profiles of grantee organizations, see WhyHunger's Community Food Project database), and the federal Wellness Policy mandate. School gardens are one way for schools to increase student access to nutritious food and physical activity. Find more on Wellness Policies at the Center for Ecoliteracy and the National Alliance for Nutrition and Activity.

The USDA also funds the Cooperative Extension Services, and many local Cooperative Extension agencies provide assistance to community gardens and help promote them as an important source of food for families and communities. The USDA's Community Gardening and Urban Resources Partnership was another effective federal program, but it is currently inactive.

More generally, the Food and Farms Policy Partnership Healthy Food and Communities work group developed recommendations for the 2007 Farm Bill that would promote community gardening. State and federal policy to support community gardening activity could include the establishment and strengthening of mechanisms for community-based development and financing for community gardens and other sources of local food production and processing in low income areas with poor food access.

International

Internationally, certain components of zoning, water, or land-use laws may promote community gardens in both urban and rural settings. In Germany, for example, property owners are charged for disposal of wastewater runoff into the public sewers, which creates an incentive for minimizing runoff through measures such as green roofs. As part of Tokyo's effort to battle in its "heat island effect," the municipality created laws mandating that new buildings with a roof area over one thousand square meters must have 20% of the roof surface covered in greenery -- and this has led to the creation of many rooftop gardens. For more on similar policies around Europe, see these green roof policies.

Advocacy

Local and municipal community garden public policy generally comes about as the result of tireless work by local advocacy groups. The far-reaching community garden legislation in Seattle, for instance, was passed in large part due to the efforts of the advocacy group P-Patch Trust. Advocacy groups in other cities include the Philadelphia Green Program and Green Guerillas in New York City. Similarly, land trusts such as Madison Land Trust and the Equity Trust provide essential support and advocacy for community gardens and farms.

All too often, a community gardeners most important advocacy is for the future of the garden itself. Because community gardens are often on land that does not belong to the gardeners, many of them face the threat of eviction at any moment, particularly if a lucrative development offer comes along. The American Community Gardening Association has a great collection of garden advocacy resources.

Support from policymakers and other community members can be secured through advocacy around the Health and Wellness benefits of community and school gardens. The Garden in Every School initiative of California's School Garden Network as well as the National Gardening Associations work to promote home, school and community gardening are models of advocacy which leads to policy change.

Community gardening advocacy can be in support of policy and in support of special populations and issues -- ranging from antihunger to immigrant rights. Efforts to promote gardens as a source of food security, cultural education, and economic development are being sponsored by food and cultural organizations such as Slow Food USA. The gardening program Plant a Row for the Hungry (PAR) advocates that all gardeners in the US plant an extra row of vegetables and donate the surplus to local food banks and soup kitchens. PAR provides focus, direction, and support to volunteer committees who execute the programs at the local level. Immigrant populations have been described as key to the future of community gardens and urban farming in the US, since at a time when the number of farms in the US is declining, the number of immigrant farmers is increasing. The National Immigrant Farming Initiative (NIFI) links immigrant farmer groups across the country to foster project and farmer exchange through training, networking, funding, and advocacy efforts for immigrant farmers.

Above all, advocacy around community gardening must be rooted in the resources, self-organization and self-management of the communities themselves. Gardeners, with their commitment and enthusiasm, are on the frontline of advocacy. Membership organizations such as the American Community Gardening Association and the National Gardening Association promote education about the ways community gardens benefit individuals and neighborhoods and provide advocacy tools to their members about action to influence public policy. Community Food Assessments are one tool to make this happen. In New York City, for example, the group Added Value has included local community gardeners in a community food assessment.