Abstract
AbstractUrban agriculture is a growing movement in cities across the United States, including the post‐industrial Midwest. Maintaining a resilient local food system is a challenge given the environmental, resource, and institutional barriers facing urban farmers. In this descriptive correlational study, we take an in‐depth look at the demographics, farm characteristics, motivations, barriers, and resilience indicators of individuals in the urban agriculture system in Lansing, Michigan, a city of the US Midwest with a growing urban agriculture system. Survey responses (n = 92) revealed that support actors, community gardeners, and farmers have descriptive differences in their motivations, with support actors (e.g. non‐profits, university extension, or municipalities) being most strongly motivated by social and environmental justice. Community gardeners reported the lowest barriers to engaging in urban agriculture. Individuals who reported stronger motivations for building community and social and environmental justice showed significant correlations to several resilience indicators, indicating that those motivations may be important to system resilience. Urban agriculture support agencies report high barriers and are most often consulted for informational and social support. These results can inform recommendations for organizations, local governments, and researchers working in midwestern urban agriculture initiatives to better assess and promote a thriving system into the future.
Highlights
The growth of urban agriculture has contributed an array of positive social, ecological, and economic impacts to its Abbreviations: GLFBGP, Greater Lansing Food Bank Garden Project; ICLB, Ingham County Land Bank; social-ecological system (SES), Social-ecological system.participants and their communities (Golden, 2013; Hynes, 1996; McMillan, 2008; McVey, Nash, & Stansbie, 2018; Mendes, Balmer, Kaethler, & Rhoads, 2008)
Responses were coded by individual agency name, condensed into like groups and assigned categories. We conducted this analysis of the limited qualitative data to provide richness to the abstract reporting about support networks in the quantitative questions. For this descriptive correlational study, we report on trends and correlations between urban agriculture actors, urban agriculture characteristics, demographics, motivations and barriers, and resilience indicators
Support actors had a more diverse range of destinations for their produce with over 45% reporting that they sold it to friends/family and restaurants/businesses
Summary
The growth of urban agriculture has contributed an array of positive social, ecological, and economic impacts to its Abbreviations: GLFBGP, Greater Lansing Food Bank Garden Project; ICLB, Ingham County Land Bank; SES, Social-ecological system.participants and their communities (Golden, 2013; Hynes, 1996; McMillan, 2008; McVey, Nash, & Stansbie, 2018; Mendes, Balmer, Kaethler, & Rhoads, 2008). The growth of urban agriculture has contributed an array of positive social, ecological, and economic impacts to its Abbreviations: GLFBGP, Greater Lansing Food Bank Garden Project; ICLB, Ingham County Land Bank; SES, Social-ecological system. Participation in urban agriculture increases access to healthy food, food security and sovereignty, education, and physical activity In addition to benefits to individuals and households, researchers have cataloged benefits of urban agriculture to the environment and communities. Across the US, urban agriculture contributes significantly to local food needs and individual and community resilience, i.e., the ability of local systems to flourish in the face of change and challenges (Barthel & Isendahl, 2013; Ernstson et al, 2010)
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