|
Foodshed Site Links
|
Community gardens are seeing a resurgence across the country. They are so named because they involve the larger community in some way.
Reasons for their popularity are due to the many benefits they provide.
Their benefits include: (click for further detail below)
Community Benefits
Economic Benefits
Educational Benefits
Environmental Benefits
Health Benefits
Social Benefits
Community Benefits
- Help reduce crime
- Sometimes reclaim abandoned spaces
- Help create a community presence which may deter crime
- Increase homeland security (as well as being less vulnerable to disruption than other aspects of the current food system)
- Create beauty and tranquility
Economic Benefits
- Reduce cost of obtaining food
- Often reduces hunger due to location in low-income communities
- Teach people how to provide for themselves
- Promote local economies, including the non-monetized economy
- Provide opportunity for small-scale entrepreneurial activity
Educational Benefits
- Are a great education tool for both youth and adults about how nature works
- Connect us with nature
- Provide youth a constructive outlet for their energies
Environmental Benefits
- Promote less dependence on the global/corporate food system with
all of its environmental harms
- May reclaim abandoned spaces
- Are generally more intensive in yield per acre and therefore "consumes" less land
- May capture and reuse stormwater runoff
- Diminish the "heat island" effect in urban areas
- Provide the carbon dioxide fixation effects of plant growth
- Generally use little or no pesticides and builds the soil organically
- Shorten the distance of consumer to food, eliminating long-distance shipping, with its negative consequences such as global warming gas emissions and continual replacement of road (and other) infrastructure
Health Benefits
- Provide fresh fruits and vegetables (which may be organic as well)
- Fresh fruits and vegetables taste better, making healthy eating easier
- Provide exercise
- Provide an opportunity for those who love gardening
- Connect people with nature and the seasons
- Provide stress relief through contact with tranquil green spaces and the activity of gardening
- Improve mental health thru a variety of factors, including social contact and the sense of accomplishment in growing good food
- Provide an opportunity for exercise and fresh air
- Give people more control over what goes into their food
- Have more nutritional value in food that has not come a long distance causing nutrient deterioration
Social Benefits
- Get people more out in and involved with the community
- Bring people together and build relationships
- Provide a means for cultural expression and exchange
- Connect people with their communities
last
updated 2/19/07
|