Agricultural Phenomenon in Philadelphia

Illustration by Thomas Pitilli

What happens when idealists, entrepreneurs and bureaucrats all latch onto the same trend?

by Isaiah Thompson
Philadelphia City Paper
Apr 28, 2010

Excerpt:

A few weeks ago, at a community meeting in North Philadelphia, I witnessed a scene that seemed somehow symbolic, prophetic, even. The meeting — an energized rally by the Eastern North Philadelphia Coalition, a group trying to acquire vacant land for a neighborhood-managed land trust — had just ended, and community members were filing out.

At the door was a young, bearded white guy, passing out seeds.

“Free seeds!” he shouted jubilantly. “Take them home, plant them, have better food, save money!”

It seemed to embody in a single moment all the hope, passion —and, frankly, dubiousness — of the urban agriculture movement that is sweeping Philadelphia.

There’s nothing radical about the idea of raising edible crops in the city: It’s been done for ages. And Philadelphia, it cannot be denied, has plenty of land — including thousands of vacant lots.

What is a little more dubious is the sheer distance between what urban agriculture’s most idealistic proponents want it to mean to Philadelphia — a self-sufficient means of food production for the poor, a source of jobs, a cure for the ills of urban obesity and malnutrition —and its reality on the ground so far.

Whether that distance can be breached may be put to the test soon. In recent years, urban agriculture has had the luxury of defining itself in opposition: to a culture of cheap, pesticide-dependent produce; to a society increasingly isolated from and ignorant of the origin of its food; and to a city which has sometimes seen vegetable gardens on vacant lots as impeding development —rather than vice versa.

But about a year ago, something surprising happened: The city itself began to get all … urban aggy, with various city agencies coming up with proposals to sponsor new inner-city farms. Urban agriculture, all of a sudden, is in. The problem, quickly becoming apparent, is that no one quite agrees on what, exactly, it’s supposed to be.

See the rest of the article here.