Feeding and Teaching America through Trial and Error

Will Allen, in his book, The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities, shows how success can be achieved when people follow their dreams. From a farmer to a basketball player, pursuing other jobs, and back to be a farmer, Allen has taught America how to grow good food. As a basketball player, Allen did not expect success right away. Through steady practice, after many years he became proficient: “The benefits of the hard work that you do now may not be felt for a very long time. But if you plant seeds and continue to then to them – and keep faith in the harvest- good things can come” (73). As an innate urban farmer, Allen took on the challenge to try to heal the broken food system in the inner-city community and teach young people from the projects and the inner city of Milwaukee on how to grow food. (9) Allen found out that methods of growing food were neither profitable nor sustainable at the time, “the industrial agricultural system in this country has been sustained only through billions of annual subsidies and the government’s historical investment in irrigation systems and technology suited to large scale farming” (227). Allen makes the case that, “to make farming a profession that young people want to enter, we need to create new models for growing and distributing food that is emotionally satisfying. […] To foster a revolution in the methods of American agriculture, we must pioneer ways to make small-scale farming economically viable” (185). Despite being retired from Growing Power, which declared bankruptcy, his legacy continues to flourish and make a difference in many people’s life.

When Will first started his Urban Farming endeavor in Milwaukee he was unsure if it would work, but he tried: “I did not anticipate how my work would grow, or how eager others would be to participate in.” (9) Yet, his urban farm produced forty tons of vegetables a year on three city acres, he provided fresh sprouts to thousands of students in the Milwaukee Public School system, distributed inexpensive market baskets of fresh fruits and vegetables to urban communities without grocery stores, and he raised over 100,000 fish in indoor systems that resemble freshwater streams (9).

It was not an easy task and much of his success was groundbreaking. Allen explains how new models had to be created in order to operate a sustainable urban farm: “Through trial and error, my staff and I developed new models for growing food intensively and vertically in cities. We found ways to make fresh fruits and vegetables available to people with little income. We created full-time agricultural jobs for inner-city youth. We began teaching people – young and old, black and white – how to grow vegetables in small spaces and reclaim some small control over their food choices. We found ways to redirect organic waste from city landfills and to use it instead to create fertile soil. We connected small farmers in Wisconsin to underserved markets in inner-city communities” (9). Through experimentation and errors, Will also learned how to grow the population of worms: “they particularly liked the partially decayed bananas, old cucumbers, tomatoes and nectarines, brewery waste and spent coffee grounds. The bacteria produced takes nitrogen from the air and dissolves it, so plants can use as energy” (120).

Allen attempted in several ways to make urban farming a sustainable possibility. He tried using body heat as a form of energy, and even utilizing unimaginable additional space in his greenhouses: “I found that a single chicken produces about 10 watts, just with its body heat. My staff and I set up a hoop house that was partly devoted to chickens and partly to spinach. We were soon growing winter spinach with chicken heat (220). I recognized that my greenhouse offered not just horizontal space but also vertical space. […] If I maximized the use of this space and the available light, I thought I could perhaps triple or quadruple the amount of food I grow there. (189) We began planting salad greens in hanging pots that we filled with compost topped with worm castings and hung from long rods attached to the roofs of our front greenhouse. We were soon producing rainbow chard, beet greens, spinach, kale…and several varieties of lettuce” (192). They decided to keep one greenhouse for teaching about composting, worm breeding, indoor fish farming, and cooking basics. They placed fish and worm systems in the second greenhouse and created a year-round organic vegetable garden in the third, where adults and kids would come to learn simple planting and harvesting (142).

            Will Allen was a doer, even if is not perfect, and he did not like wasting too much time talking about a project. He says, “Instead of talking about doing something, do it. There will be missteps and mistakes. All big things are created by a slow and steady accumulation of small stumbling steps. We are so afraid of doing something imperfectly that we do not do it at all. It may not be perfect, but it will get better with time if it is started” (39). Allen thinks that too much time spent in thinking and discussing a project may not be beneficial: “It is another thing altogether to start a project, to get your hands dirty, and to have some inevitable setbacks and disappointments” (129).

Finally, even if short-lived, Will Allen was successful in his endeavors with Growing Power. He would definitely receive validation by the Effective Citizenship level four criteria. He identified an issue or concern related to sustainability, and the appropriate stakeholders to get involved with on the issue. He gathered pertinent information in order to develop an appropriate action plan and came up with strategies for action to benefit the community and his organization. He also continually used his professional judgment during implementation and evaluation and made changes as needed to be as successful as possible. This analysis helped me to understand that there are small successes along the way, which should be taken into consideration when evaluating my future projects and work. Allen’s greatest success is that he did not only provided the fish, the fruits, and the vegetables, he taught people how to grow them and tried to do the best that he could.

Works Cited

Allen, Will, and Charles Wilson. The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities. Avery, an Imprint of Penguin Random House, 2013.

Beach, Greg. “Growing Power Grows Fish, Veggies, and Community with Aquaponic Farm.” Inhabitat Green Design Innovation Architecture Green Building, Inhabitat, 6 Jan. 2016, inhabitat.com/growing-power-raises-100000-fish-and-1-million-pounds-of-food-year-round-on-just-3-acres/.

Satterfield, Stephen. “Behind the Rise and Fall of Growing Power.” Agroecology, Food Access, Food Justice, Local Food, Urban Agriculture, Civil Eats, 18 Mar. 2018, civileats.com/2018/03/13/behind-the-rise-and-fall-of-growing-power/.

Sussman, Mary. “Will Allen Returns to His Roots.” Shepherd Express, Shepherd Express, 12 June 2018, shepherdexpress.com/news/features/will-allen-returns-to-his-roots/#/questions.

Sweetgreen. “Meet the Godfather of Urban Farming, Who's Breeding the Next Generation of People to Feed the World.” Medium, Sweetgreen, 6 Sept. 2018, medium.com/sweetgreen/will-allen-growing-power-4800dbbc0a66.

UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources. “Edible Education 101: Urban Agriculture and the Good Food Revolution (Will Allen).” YouTube, YouTube, 26 Feb. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1njbRIZ3nE.