The Future of Food: Alternative Food Networks in Urban Communities

By Yvonne Wingard

Food is a way of bringing people together, whether it’s family and friends gathered around the dinner table during the holidays, communities sharing food being grown in local gardens, or people celebrating parts of their culture with others through the joys of delicious meals. Many of us may take our food for granted, not realizing just how important it is or how difficult it can be to access food. And in the wake of climate change, intense agricultural practices, and severe inequalities in the United States, access to food – and access to spaces for growing food – is an issue faced by many underserved communities, including low-income neighborhoods, ethnic minorities, and immigrant communities. Food insecurity, which is defined as a lack of access to fulfilling and nutritious food, disproportionately affects people who live in areas that lack healthy food or adequate land for growing crops. In many cases, marginalized and underserved neighborhoods are most likely to experience food insecurity or face limited access to land for growing their own food. Despite these inequalities, however, many communities are finding their own solutions to this problem by utilizing alternative food networks.

Alternative food networks is a term used to describe the use of other means of growing food such as communal agriculture, community-based growing practices, urban agriculture, and subsistence fishing or farming. These are critical opportunities for individuals in underserved communities to grow and obtain food where they otherwise might not have proper access to do so. In neighborhoods that lack grocery stores, farmers’ markets, or even adequate land to grow food, people are finding other ways to feed themselves, their families, and their communities. The practice of urban agriculture is a rising trend in many cities, and it could be a viable and sustainable solution to combat food insecurity within vulnerable communities across the country. Associate Professor of Agroecology John Taylor’s researches the ways urban farmers and gardeners are using these alternative food networks, and the lessons that could be applied to broader food policy.

Having grown up on a farm in rural Pennsylvania, Taylor has always had a connection to agriculture and food growing practices. His interest in the ways in which people use land, food, and agricultural practices shows through his past and present research. Holding several degrees in philosophy, horticulture, landscape architecture, and crop sciences, his love of learning is met with his interest in food and sustainable growing practices. In particular, he is drawn to exploring methods of sustainable agriculture within urban communities. While pursuing his Ph.D. in crop sciences at the University of Illinois, Taylor conducted research on Black, Mexican, and Chinese-origin gardeners and farmers in the south and west sides of Chicago. At the time, he proposed using Google Earth aerial images to look for signs of food-producing gardens, such as plants growing in rows or seasonal changes in vegetation being grown. He then scanned the entire land area of Chicago, identifying over 4,000 food-producing sites. It was this study that inspired him to look at how marginalized communities elsewhere are adapting their own growing practices and food preferences to the limited environments offered in urban spaces.

Here at URI, Taylor’s newest project is an extension of the work he conducted while at the University of Illinois, a study examining food sovereignty and food insecurity among urban neighborhoods. Working with colleagues Julia Keller, Melva Treviño Peña, and Patrick Baur, as well as students including Coastal and Environmental Fellow Caroline McCullough, Taylor and his team are mapping urban agriculture among immigrant communities in East Coast cities. Over the summer, they conducted initial work in Providence, R.I., and surrounding cities, interviewing study participants and recording data that will be used to help inform food justice policy. “We did qualitative interviews with gardeners and farmers,” he said. “We also did soil analyses and mapped the gardens to find out what plants they were growing and what the area dedicated to each crop was as an indication of how important that crop was.” This research is part of a larger, multi-year, multi-city study to include Baltimore, M.D., and Washington, D.C. The study is a collaboration among URI, the University of Maryland, and the University of the District of Columbia to identify opportunities for greater food policy.  

Taylor has enjoyed learning about the growing practices of the diverse communities around Providence, such as Laotian, West African, Cambodian, and refugee farmers. He recalled one interesting story while interviewing gardeners in Providence, of a Cambodian immigrant who was in a Khmer Rouge relocation camp when just a teen. On the farm of the camp is where he learned to grow corn and squash. After later immigrating to the States, he continued to use the same growing practices, despite the traumatic experiences he had while in the relocation camp. Taylor notes that “despite that horrible experience, he found peace in it here in the states with his backyard garden, which was quite extensive.”

The study is still in its first year, with the team collecting data and synthesizing information gathered from participant interviews. Taylor plans to continue conducting interviews with gardeners, farmers, and fishers, as well as interviewing policymakers in each of the cities within the study. His team then plans to develop a set of policy recommendations, in collaboration with the growers and fishers from the communities his team is working with. This step will include focus groups and discussion of developing, in collaboration with other stakeholders, policies to encourage the development of these alternative food networks.

The use of alternative food networks like the ones from Taylor’s study are important for connecting urban communities to sustainable agricultural practices. Taylor notes, “In terms of development, it’s seen as a zero-sum game between housing and urban agriculture, like in New York City. But you can potentially have both by integrating food production into housing developments, whether that’s building integrated agriculture like rooftop greenhouses, or integrating community gardens and farms at the ground level instead of just planting a lot of lawn.” Sustainable agriculture does not have to look one certain way, as seen through the variety of ways in which Taylor’s study participants utilize the land and containers around them to grow crops for both themselves and their communities. The future of sustainable agriculture is here – and it’s right in our own backyards.