Didn’t know there was a war on in the United States? Well there is a battle for good, locally produced food.

Have you read about Victory Gardens? The World War generations experienced something amazing that has conveniently been erased from our country’s collective memory: When called upon during times of conflict, Americans stood up and did their patriotic duty by cultivating a garden.

Millions of pounds of fresh food and produce were raised during the war years—as much as 40% of all vegetables consumed nationally.

5,285,000 Victory Gardens in the United States

According to The War Garden Victorious, Indianapolis “estimated the value of its war-garden crop in 1918 at $1,473,165. Denver placed its yield at $2,500,000 and Los Angeles at $1,000,000. Washington, District of Columbia reached $1,396,5000.”

Thanks to propaganda (“your garden is a munitions plant”) there were 5,285,000 victory gardens in 1918. The City of Rochester, New York alone had more than 15,000.  The “estimated value of our war-garden crops for 1918 (was) $525,000,000! A half billion dollars!”

Before you get visions of Mike Meyers as Dr Evil, let’s quickly translate that figure into 2010 dollars. A half billion dollars in 1918 would be worth  $7,875,000,000 today. And that’s not small potatoes.

500 Community Gardens in New York City

During WWI Americans using urban patches that ranged from a tiny garden in New York’s Bryant Park to “the railroad right of way near the tops of the White Mountains” for war gardens. The National War Garden Commission challenged the patriots of America:

“To the importance of putting all idle land to work, to teach them how to do it, and to educate them to conserve by canning and drying all food they could not use while fresh. The idea of the “city farmer” came into being.”

Today New Yorkers working in 500 community gardens are raising fresh food by the bushel basket, often in neighborhoods where access to fresh produce is limited.

Thanks to the research efforts of Farming Concrete, we know the value and weight of produce created by 67 of those 500 community gardens.

• 67 gardens comprise 1,200 plots
• 1,200 gardeners (give or take) raised 39,518 plants
• 39,518 plants produced 87,690 lbs of food
• 87,690 lbs of food is worth $214,060

But here is the statistic that really caught my eye. All this work, all this fresh food was produced on just 1.7 acres of land, or 71,950 square feet. The parking lots at suburban malls are bigger than that!

Believe in the Power of the Urban Garden

I caught up with Mara Gittleman, project director for Farming Concrete, to ask her how this research might be used. She described how most people understand the social value of community gardens but far fewer focus on the economic benefits. Since her research only focused on food production, there were no calculations for environmental benefits like waste mitigation as food scraps get turned into compost or rainwater run-off is contained in produce soil.

local food community gardens

Gittleman believes that individual gardeners can use the data to recruit members. By gaining visibility for gardens it will be harder to see land converted to development when the garden is more firmly embedded in the community. Farming Concrete is already sharing its materials and methodology with community groups across the United States and in the UK.

So what will you grow today on your urban patch?

Continue Reading

Farming Concrete Report

It’s Fun to Garden. Really.

The War Garden Victorious