Why 2013 Will Be A Great Year For Urban Gardening
“Let me suggest that every one who creates or cultivates a garden helps, and greatly, to solve the problem of the feeding of the nations.” - Woodrow Wilson, 1917
A lot has recently been said and a lot has recently been written about urban gardening, guerrilla gardening, and urban farming. The size of this global movement has increased not only in members but also in projects. Although Germany has been a leading country for sustainable energy sources and environmental friendly living for many years, the urban gardening movement here has lived a life in the shadows so far.
The fact is more and more people are escaping the rural areas and moving to the cities. The United Nations estimates that by 2050 two out of three people will live in the city. Today it is already at 50%. There are multiple reasons for this trend of rural exodus but none of them is linked to an increasing addiction to concrete or confined spaces.
But whatever the reason, the increased conversion of unused spaces in urban areas into gardening projects by middle-aged city dwellers reflects the strong demand for greener surroundings. Three recent developments give reason to believe that urban gardening will grow very strongly around the globe in 2013 - something we should prepare for in Germany as well!
A brisk wind of change in our heads
For a long time now urban gardening, and especially its often misperceived ugly stepsister guerrilla gardening, have a dubious reputation by the average person as both activities have been collocated with hippie movements and fundamentalist green activists trying to liberate the world from its concrete dress. Sometimes very effectively and with public acceptance - and sometimes not.
Many gazed at the movement with amusement and little appreciation. But with the emerging trend of consuming organic food and the related social movements that appreciation grew faster and faster and urban gardening today has a wide supportive basis amongst city dwellers. The initial misperception transformed into an understanding of the benefits and the beauty of activities related to urban gardening. Today urban gardening is also considered a trend amongst hip city dwellers and members of the Lifestyle Of Health And Sustainability (LOHAS) movement around the globe - even if probably some original urban gardeners might eye this mainstream development.
But mainstream in this context is very much needed and far from negative as the head of the London based organization GuerrillaGardening.org, Richard Reynolds, said precisely: “If you are limiting the movement to some chosen ones, you‘re never going to achieve anything. You have to go mainstream in order to change the world.” On closer examination the full mainstream development is in everyone‘s interest (also read an earlier German blog post covering these benefits).
A great majority in metropolises like New York, London, and Berlin understood this concept already and started to go beyond the individual urban gardening project. The New York based project Urban Farming commits its work to support urban gardeners in building their own garden to feed the hungry on New York’s streets. Their garden count exceeded 60,000 already and is still growing. The Prinzessinnengarten in Berlin Kreuzberg is a very good example of a successful implementation of an urban garden created and grown by a community of neighbors to use it for both growing their own food and also establishing a business to sell it.
But the most impressive development and hopefully role model for future projects has been the transformation of the small town Todmorden in West Yorkshire, England, into the Incredible Edible Todmorden, a community that prides itself on having introduced the future of local food. The city itself turned into a community garden producing a vast amount of the needed food itself. Healthy, sustainable - great! (for more information see the amazing presentation “How We Can Eat Our Landscapes” by Pam Warhurst on Ted).
It seems the understanding of producing part of our own food again instead of relying heavily on big corporate machineries has finally reached the minds of a growing part of our society. Great-Britain and the US have served and will further serve as great role models. Starting collaborations between the nations give rise to the belief that Germany is about to become the next big player.
The governments are getting involved
With the emergence of organic super markets like Whole Foods Market in the US or Bio Company in Germany the food industry answered the growing demand for organic food products around the world. Despite some of the merchants that lost their credibility by selling fake organic products to their customers, organic food is hotter than ever!
And since buying local is a general trend, the number of supportive members is growing. But the alarmingly high prices for organic food are what is keeping this trend from skyrocketing resulting in many trying to get their food even more locally at the community garden around the corner or on the own balcony.
With respect to a statement made by the German journalist Stefan Kreutzberger in his answer to the German Federal Parliament, this tendency will not only raise the awareness for seasonal products but will also help to prevent food wastage as self-produced food raises the appreciation for the product (see the German version of his answer here). Taking this thesis into account, the state should be very interested in supporting urban gardeners in their projects.
The municipal office in Andernach, Germany, for example understood the opportunity behind urban gardening projects and invests 30,000 Euro per year into related projects that supply the entire town with free fruits and vegetables. Although Andernach is a very good example of the successful contribution of a municipality to an urban gardening project, the government’s participation is still considered much too low. It is, for example, surprising that the German Enquete-Kommission “Wachstum, Wohlstand, Lebensqualität”, a federal think tank to provide solutions for the governmental decision making process, did not address the necessity of supporting urban gardening or urban farming projects when talking about sustainable consumption in November 2012. As political involvement will grow, so will the understanding that environmentaly friendly design and architecture do not only serve the purpose of filling the treasury but feeds a whole industry. Germany will draw its conclusions here.
As usual the Scandinavian countries lead the way and the Swedish-based agricultural design firm Plantagon introduces design projects for the urban agriculture of the future - meaning serious business.
New technologies and new tools
But even without this Scandinavian Blade Runner style developments there are new technologies that can help shape the look of our cities and the way we consume in the future.
In December 2012, the German online news magazine SPIEGEL ONLINE covered a new project called Frisch vom Dach located in Berlin’s district Schoeneberg. On a rooftop, three young entrepreneurs build an aquaponic system that provides for sustainable cultivation of both fish and edible plants. The system originally invented in the 1970s is as simple as it is impressive: water that is taken from a water tank filled with living fish is used to mould plants in another basin. The fishes’ excretions within the water serve as nutrition and fertilizer for the plants. The plants filter the water which is then again fed into the fish tank providing a constant exchange of water and nutrition. This concept saves a tremendous amount of water and makes additional substitutes for the fish or the plants redundant hence providing a clean and healthy environment.
The young Germans seem to be the first to re-introduce that concept in an urban environment and opening a new possible way of feeding city dwellers in a sustainable way. If these technical achievements are to be developed further the production of food between the cold concrete walls of the city shelters becomes more efficient and more competitive, hence more attractive to more merchants.
As said in the beginning, urban gardening is not a new idea. A recent tweet by @UrbanGardens reminded me of the early ages of urban gardening when during WWI the US government called for “a million gardens“ to fight the deteriorating food supply. Luckily malnutrition is not exactly what our Western societies are suffering from. But growing your own food will make you smarter and helps you appreciate what you have. Additionally, it will help to ease the troubled shopper‘s mind while selecting healthy components for the family dinner and it will help to safe our environment for future generations.
2013 could be a turning point - let us work hand in hand to make it happen!
- JR (follow me on Twitter and take a look at our page on Facebook)
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