Will Allen’s talk at PopTech 2009

PopTech 2009: Will Allen from PopTech on Vimeo.

Watch Will Allen’s 24 minute talk.

In 1995, former Proctor & Gamble marketing executive Will Allen was helping neighborhood kids with a gardening project when he decided that introducing farming to America’s inner cities could reap real public health benefits. The farming methods and educational programs he subsequently developed are now the hallmark of Growing Power, the nonprofit organization Allen co-founded and directs.

Growing Power’s operating assumption is that the lack of access low-income urban populations have to unprocessed foods not only fosters epidemic health problems such as obesity and diabetes, but in the process exacts tremendous socio-economic costs. Starting with two acres of land, Allen’s organization is now producing vast amounts of fresh fruit and vegetables within Milwaukee’s city limits, and selling them year-round at reduced cost to participating residents via the Farm-to-City Market Basket Program.

Allen has recently exported Growing Power’s methods to Chicago. Internships and workshops he hosts engage minority and immigrant youth while also providing hands-on training in low-cost farming technologies. “If people can grow safe, healthy, affordable food, if they have access to land and clean water, this is transformative on every level in a community. I believe we cannot have healthy communities without a healthy food system,” Allen argues. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2008.

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