Just Call Me Comrade, Comrade
May 9th, 2009 · No Comments · Posted in Blog
Growing food a group effort?
Before I ever dreamed of becoming a newspaper reporter my hero was Chicago Daily News columnist Mike Royko. As well as being an incredibly skiflfull reporter and inciteful commentator on all matters municipal, Royko had a wicked sense of humor. At one point he suggested a new motto for the great Chicago seal. He said it should read, “Ubi est Mea?” which translates from the Latin as, “Where’s Mine?”
Royko would be amused to know that the me-centric ethic that ruled Chicago’s machine politics is alive and well in many quarters of the community garden world. This week I’ve been widely tarred as a communist or worse for daring to suggest, in an essay posted on the Garden Rant blog, that it might be time for community gardens to get more serious about the amount of food they produce.
As our world stares a future of limited fossil fuels full in the face, in seems only prudent to consider how we might increase the food we grow locally, especially in densely populated urban areas where land is scarce. In addition,we are witnessing the emergence of a bifurcated food system, wherein a relatively small number of citizens enjoys access to healthful, locally raised food, while the great many do not. What I am suggesting is that we extend and multiply the community garden concept many times over, creating food gardens in all kinds of spaces while teaching people how to grow food to feed themselves.
Unfortunately, many community gardeners bristle at the idea that they may lose a precious luxury: using their indivdual plot however they please. How downright socialilist to suggest that municipal gardens might be used for the greater good? What gets lost in all the drama–the threat of a communist takeover of food gardens–is that community gardens are all located on public property. Plot holders, by virtue of having a public area to garden, benefit directly from the collective largesse. Yet they exhibit a fierce sense of entitlement. Is there a way forward?
Regular readers will recognize this as a retooling of a two-part post that appeared on this blog some weeks ago pondering whether the community garden as we now know it might be obsolete. You can read the new Garden Rant post and all the juicy comments here.
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.