An examination of three California urban garden organizations: An activist response to food insecurity

Food security, or sustained access to nutritious food from non-emergency sources, is one of humanity's most basic needs. However, it is beyond the reach of large segments of the population, especially in low-income, of-color, and single mother households. In urban agriculture lies the potential to lessen the effects of poverty, improve food security, empower individuals and communities, introduce participants to organic and agroecological growing practices, and beautify and green neighborhoods. Using an interdisciplinary approach, I examined the growing practices and goals related to inclusion, empowerment, and food security of urban garden organizations in low-income communities of color in a major metropolitan area of California. I used open-ended, semi-structured interviews, participant observation, demographic surveys, content analysis, botanical censuses, and garden mapping to collect both social and natural science data in three case studies of urban garden organizations with sustainable agriculture and social justice goals. The organizations in this study ascribed to various tenets of the environmental justice, community food security, and food justice movements, which provide frameworks for empowering urban-based, low-income people of color to obtain sufficient, fair access to resources---be those resources a clean environment, healthy food, or both. However, these movements work toward these goals in various ways and with different emphases. I describe how urban garden organizations utilize the frameworks and goals of these movements, and how these various frameworks affect their outcomes. I find that organizations that use a food justice approach are well situated to improve food security and change power structures in low-income inner-city neighborhoods. Food justice organizations in this study focused on goals related to inclusion and empowerment of community members, planted proportionately more edible crops, planted on a higher percentage of their land, grew primarily culturally appropriate crops, and one organization hired directly from the food-insecure community that it served. I provide recommendations for urban garden organizations in general to improve participation, diversity, and agroecological sustainability in their organizations and in the food system as a whole.