Pandemic: Urban Gardening

The Facts for Change

First, let me lay out the cases proving a changing world, not just a pandemic one. These specific changes lead me, and others who are armed with facts and fact-based speculative assessments (OurWoldInData), that there is an urgent need to change how we think of urban living and food production. Then, I am going to show how the pandemic has inspired various generations into growing their own food gardens. Finally, I will suggest some changes our society might consider making, in order to support a growing local food production market. Big topic, big ideas, so bear with me as I make the case.

Human Migration Patterns

As one of the many responses to the ongoing pandemic, it appears that many people in the USA are moving; migrating away from urban and city settings, for suburbia and rural lands (1). No doubt hoping that the move will reduce the chances of getting Covid-19, while also putting some distance between themselves and all those other crazy people that are running around (2).

So, on the one hand there are articles and reports cropping up (garden pun intended) about the moving away from cities, on the other hand there are many more reports that most of us will be living in urban settings by 2050 (3). This apparent contradiction, may be explained by other, non-pandemic, changes that are also currently underway.

Human Caused Changes

The researchers and history shows us that our foreseeable future will create the need for some radical changes. The list of human caused problems have been acknowledged, reported on, and we have discussed them in depth at various venues, but here is a short recap of the most relevant to my post:

• Continued and increasing human population growth, which requires more food availability, more land for growing, more water for drinking and more living space.
• Increased economic inequality leading to worsening food insecurity and and increasing public health crises (housing, medical care, education, etc.).
• Global climate warming, changing weather patterns, and increased pressure on existing agricultural and deteriorating wild lands affecting food, potable water, destruction of productive soil, and also leading to the rise of more frequent world-wide pandemics.
• Human activity leading to the reduction of important natural resources and degraded environments.

USA Generational Differences

There are names for each generation born in the USA, and critical is that each generation of humans have different beliefs about what a good life entails.

• The Silent Generations are comprised of the Depression Babies (1912-1921, my oma), and the WWII + Cohorts (1922-1945, my mutti).
• Baby Boomers (1946-1965, me and my spouse).
• GenX (1966-1976, some nephews + nieces).
• Millennials (1977-1994, my son).
• Centennials (aka GenZ, 1995-2012, my nephews + nieces kids).
• GenAlpha (2013-?).

Silent Generation: My parent owns a 1600 square foot home, with a large backyard garden, and fruit + nut trees. To her generation, a time of dust-bowl famines and world wars, they sought self reliance, protection of the status quo, and security. They created the concept of the home being their castle for protection.

• So my mother bought a single family dwelling with plenty of land for food, a smallish house given she had 5 kids, with a garage. She and her husband grew a lot of food, had wild rhubarb and blackberry plants, and collect the walnuts and cherries from trees. She would go to “pick your own” places for cheaper produce, and canned food to cover bad times.

Baby Boomers: USA boomers wanted an even larger house, front grassy lawns, white picket fences, and large back yard for the kids + dogs, with a 2-car garage. Gardens for food were not on the list, but they wanted large kitchens. Over 70% of this generation can carve a turkey, but then, they were taught home economics in school.This group created the fast food and TV tray nation.

• I own a 1600 square foot home, without a garage, on smaller land than my mother, have no front lawn, but can carve and cook chicken, turkey, or tofu. I grow fruit trees, lots of herbs, and some veggies (potatoes, kale, salads, etc.)

Millennials: My son, like many of his generation, does not generally care about car or home ownership as much as previous generations. But then they also have more options, they can rent either homes or cars, can call for services, can read online cooking instructions or watch videos. Very few have house maintenace or kitchen skills; only 40% of this generation can carve a turkey, only half can roast a chicken.

• My son has an apartment, with a kitchen herb garden, and cooks healthy food 80%, at home, or picnics with friends in a park (6’ apart). I consider him a bit more cooking oriented than most, but I am biased.
• Only a bit over 65% of Americans own their homes (4), with younger people, ethnic minorities, and people of color the majority of renters (5).
• Of course the pandemic has caused loss of jobs, which effects people’s ability to pay for rent, food, and services. Those effects have yet to be put into the data so impacts are hard to speculate.

GenZ: Both for Mellenials and GenZ, gardening can give a break to the constant screen time. During the pandemic, so much of our work and personal interaction is virtual, but growing your own food is a real, physical activity that nourishes your soul and body. These two generations, and how they define the good life, will be the driving force for changing societies viewpoint on food.

Updated Need for Gardens

People have always turned to gardening during hard times (6), Often it is a direct need for the food, but as often it may be the soothing nature of humans having their hands in the soil. For some, sharing their bounty brings a sense of community, togetherness, while others see it as something to do.

Scholars and researchers are starting to find that wherever we live, urban or suburban or rural, we are starting, once again, to take our food needs into our own hands by gardening (7). This is history repeating itself in a way, although not governmentally pushed, we are in fact building our own versions of the World Wars’ Victory Gardens in our varied “back yards.”

The idea being, that by growing our own, we can help our communities maintain access to fresh herbs, fruit and vegetables, improve our communities health, make our food taste good, and help the environment by living a more sustainable lifestyle.

• But lets be honest, it also gives the stay-at-home kids something to do (8), gives me something to do, and allows me a way to be safely active and outdoors. (Unless you are living in a fire zone like California and being outside, even in your yard, requires an N95 mask given all the fire-related particulates in the air.)

The ways people are growing their own, is only limited by their imagination.

• Reports speak of backyard conversions to mini-farms containing veggie and fruit trees, bee keeping, and housing chickens or ducks for eggs.
• Some farmers (City Beet Farm Vancouver, Canada) convince home owners to convert their yards to food gardens tended, harvested, and sold via a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).
• People are planting more balcony and kitchen window herb gardens in pots or specialty growing devices flooding the web.
• A growing number of folks are planting rooftop gardens (Green City Gardens Somerville, MA), really little oases containing refreshing delights.
• Some are growing herbs on wall gardens (DIY ideas from BHG).
• While some entrepreneurs (Plenty San Francisco, CA) are experimenting with large, building-scale hydroponics.

The Pandemic Proof

There are current news reports, such as this one from CBS: “If I had to put my thumb on it, I would say people are worried about their food security right now,” said Emily Rose Haga, the executive director of the Seed Savers Exchange, an Iowa-based nonprofit devoted to heirloom seeds. She is reporting on an increase in seed purchases and gardener-sponsored seed exchanges being setup across the country.

USAToday writes about a business that installs gardens in peoples yards to get them started. They have doubled their amount of work and it keeps increasing month-by-month. One farm, that helps families set up home gardens and teaches them how to garden, used to have 10 requests a year but have over 50 now. The thought is, that the general feeling of uncertainty has lead people to want to bring things closer to home, to not have to rely on others for necessities.

But also there is information from market-based research from the likes of MordorIntelligence, who report that the sales of seeds and gardens are growing.

• Kitchen gardening or home gardening … are on the rise in the United States.
• Most popular homegrown vegetable crops are tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers, beans, carrots, summer squash, onions, hot peppers, lettuce, and peas.
• Age group between 18-35 years is more focused on growing herbs, with almost 4 of every 10 persons growing their own chives, cilantro, etc.
• In addition to these factors, the focus on better tasting food, and the need for improved quality of food as well as for saving money on food bills are driving the kitchen gardening practice in the United States.

Of course this is not just happening in the USA, but in other countries as well, as reported by the BBC.

Changes We Need

So the fact that the pandemic and economic downturn is going to be with us for many years, indicate several changes need to occur that specifically support our growing our own food, raising food in urban settings, and better distributing the food we do grow.

Architecture

Designing living spaces in urban settings calls for compact living, but does it now also need to consider how to incorporate the growing of our own food in that design? Do we all need well reinforced balconies for pot (not that pot) growing? Does every roof in a highrise need to be able to support a building-wide community garden, collect water, provide energy, or perhaps provide habitats for bees or chickens and ducks? Should every skyscraper also include several floors for indoor vertical farming?

City + Regional Planning

Designing towns and cities may now need to consider how to incorporate community gardens, changes to zoning laws to allow for some common farm animals (like chickens, bees, and even insects). Perhaps reconsider what community parks look like, to include edible gardens? Local “zoos” that are actual farms with farm animals? Build-in support for electric powered transportation to reduce delivery costs? Hook up solar on every house but with batteries to handle power outage issues that are becoming more common? Design systems so buildings can collect rain water and have water filtration systems?

Right now, urban farming is growing enough food to meet 1/5th of the Worlds need (8). Why buy sprouts from Norway when it is grown within 5 miles of your store? What can we do to support this activity?

ScienceDaily notes that Growing fruit and vegetables in just 10 per cent of a city’s gardens and other urban green spaces could provide 15 per cent of the local population with their ‘five a day’, according to new research. The Nature Food research took all the open space in a city and calculated how much could grow in them if converted to urban farms. They also considered flat-roofs for gardens, but did not apparently look at empty building usage. Making these changes could disrupt the international, overly condensed food giants control of our food and delivery systems into something more local and sustainable.

Agricultural

We need to support local efforts to save heirloom and non-GMO seeds (that are not “owned” by a company). This work needs to be done with the support of local farmers too. We need to utilize empty lots for farming, expand soil-less farming in empty buildings, support vertical farming and their energy needs, and shore up our local food systems including food banks and delivery systems.

From Russia to Greece, worldwide people are gardening (7), which is anticipated to mean that while folks will still need to buy food at stores, they will be buying less as they grow more of their own.

We desperately need to revise our food systems to allow for smoother and better local and regional systems that support groceries, food banks, and open markets.

The Agricultural Future

I think agriculture will change, because it has to and farmers are not stupid people (although they do have blinders on sometimes, like all of us). The future of farming is a hybrid model of urban and rural farming, international and local food systems, grow your own and buy organic from local family farms dedicated to sustainable practices.

• There will continue to be large international food systems to spread various foods across the globe. Large systems like this have their role, but cannot take the place of smaller, local systems. If it comes to either or, I would choose local over global. Hopefully we do not need to choose.
• Internationally the processing of meat needs to be reconsidered and redesigned to support smaller, regional processing systems. This is in direct response to changing meat needs, a return to craft meats, and the pandemic outbreaks in the large scale processing and packing plants.
• There needs balance between those that grow the food, and local or regional food systems to support and meet the majority of food needs. Currently, for instance, it is difficult to impossible to provide food directly from farmers and home or community gardens directly to food banks. So there needs to be a balance between availability. food safety, and need.
• Backyard gardens need to become a feature when buying or selling a home, so Realtors need to step up and help create this as a selling point.
• Bee keeping, having a sheep (for those of us who knit), and raising chickens or ducks needs to be supported by zoning and local laws.
• The USPS needs to be fully funded, supported, and expanded so that postal delivery systems for food (think Amazon, Chewy, Seed Outlets, etc.) can be coordinated better and cost less.

Just some ideas and observations.

—Patty

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Tip: In Washington, Oregon and California please be sure to wash any food you harvest from your gardens. The various fire particulates need to be removed before you cook or eat raw food from our yards.

News: Tyson Foods will open medical clinics at several of its U.S. plants in order to improve the health of its workers, as well as provide better protection from the virus. By “plants” the way I read this update is “meat processing plants” where they have major pandemic hot spots.

News: In response to changing climate, Lango farmers make a change from soy beans to watermelon Mr Opio advises other smallholder farmers to adopt watermelon growing since it can grow throughout the year. Also, watermelon growing requires less labour, matures quickly and has ready market.

News: Amid the ongoing pandemic and planning for the upcoming flu season, many Canadians are taking extra precautions. According to a study commissioned by Loblaws, more than 55% of Canadians surveyed say they’re trying to eat healthier in order to keep their immunity strong during the pandemic; 57% say they’ve been washing their store-bought produce more than they would’ve prior to the coronavirus outbeak; 18% admitted to using disinfectant to clean their produce, a practice dietitians don’t recommend. [Emphasis is mine.]