THE BENEFITS OF URBAN AGRICULTURE IN PHILADELPHIA

Philadelphia’s urban agricultural spaces provide a wide range of benefits, both to the people who tend them, who find community and nourishment there, and to the city overall. These productive green spaces support climate resiliency and a healthier environment, the local economy, and health and wellness. They support food sovereignty and food justice work undertaken by neighbors for neighbors. In Philadelphia and elsewhere, urban agricultural spaces are an integral part of a healthy neighborhood, co-existing with existing land uses and complementing potential new affordable housing and equitable development.

Local Profiles Food Justice In Action

Gardens in Philadelphia have for generations told the story of Black communities escaping sharecropping and Jim Crow in the South and bringing farming traditions to Philadelphia. Similarly, immigrants to this city have sustained cultural connections and traditions through growing. The formation of food justice spaces and organizations led by these communities have been instrumental in providing food production support in their communities.

> Glenwood Green Acres, a 3.5-acre space in North Philadelphia, is considered one of the city’s nine Keystone Gardens—a special designation from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) for gardens “distinguished by their large size, longevity, and commitment.” In existence for over 30 years, it is the largest preserved community garden, and one of the oldest. Growers cultivate heritage vegetables like collard greens, lettuce, peppers, eggplant, squash, string beans, okra, and blackberries. Started by a husband and wife who were gardeners and lived across the street, the garden remains active today, with many Black elders still tending their plots and sharing knowledge, produce, and stories with the next generation of growers.6

> VietLead is a grassroots community organization serving the Vietnamese and Southeast Asian communities in Philadelphia and South Jersey. Its Farm and Food Sovereignty Program stems from a belief that “the land provides refugees and immigrants along with other communities of color a source of self-determination through growing and cooking fresh cultural foods.” At two local garden sites, the group facilitates intergenerational relationships between youth and elders, grounds participants in the “history of our plant-cestors and people ancestors,” and fosters mental, physical, and emotional health among “descendants of a people impacted by war and trauma.”7

> Beginning in 1973, Norris Square Neighborhood Project (NSNP) has created and fostered places of gathering, cultural vision, and resiliency for the Puerto Rican community of Kensington and beyond. Through its network of six gardens, including Las Parcelas, all dedicated to Puerto Rican cultural heritage and the delivery of youth programming. NSNP continues to embody and reflect the cultural wisdom that is deeply rooted in community and intergenerational relationships therein. NSNP values the cultivation of young leaders in and around Norris Square, and endeavors to prepare these youth for a future in which art, agriculture, technology, and cultural awareness can be leveraged for individual agency and community prosperity.

Top:EddieCorbitt,ofGermantown,watershisplotatGlenwoodGreenAcres(PhotocourtesyofAkiraSuwaforThe PhiladelphiaInquirer).

Middle:StudentsgatheratFurnessCommunitySchoolGardenaspartofVietLead’sFarmandFoodSovereignty Program(PhotocourtesyofVietLead,www.vietlead.org).

Bottom:TomasitaRomeroandIrisBrown,leadersoftheoriginalgroupofwomenactivistsGrupoMotivos,standing infrontoftheCasitaatLasParcelas(PhotocourtesyofHistoricalSocietyofPennsylvania,www.philaplace.org).

Why Growing Food In Philadelphia Is Necessary

In many parts of the city, growing food is a necessity, as nutritious, affordable food sources are limited by historical disinvestment and structural and environmental racism. Indeed, in Philadelphia—where nearly one-quarter of the population (over 350,000 people) lives in poverty, surviving on less than $25,000 per year for a family of four8—part of the food access equation is the cost of food.

~70% of active gardens and farms are located in high-poverty areas where more than 20 percent of the population lives below the poverty level

~67% are in high-poverty areas where the population of people of color is greater than 50 percent

In Philadelphia, 78 percent of Black residents and 80 percent of Spanish-speaking residents live in high poverty areas. Data on active garden and farm locations show that they are located predominantly in these high-poverty, Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) neighborhoods, especially in North, West, and South Philadelphia. About two out of every three active gardens and farms in the city are in Racially Concentrated Areas of Poverty (RCAPs), where over 50 percent of residents are BIPOC and over 20 percent live below the poverty line. This affirms the role of urban agriculture in providing essential food, especially in low income BIPOC communities where need is dire and food stores do not provide enough access to fresh produce. According to the Department of Public Health’s 2019 Neighborhood Food Retail Study, in roughly half of the city’s Census Block Groups have fewer than one in every 10 food stores sell fresh fruits and vegetables.9 While gardens and farms could play a role in providing produce in those low-produce areas, only 20 percent of low-produce Block Groups have at least one active garden or farm.

~50% of Block Groups have a very low proportion of food stores that sell fresh produce (fewer than 1 in 10)

With land insecurity the number one issue for Philadelphia growers, the future of many active and essential growing spaces is uncertain. A full third are in areas with the highest intensity of new construction, making them vulnerable to demolition and/or redevelopment.

In fact, some gardens and farms have been lost to new development, which poses immense risks to gardens that do not have secure ownership; some have been demolished, only to remain vacant; and some are overgrown and overlooked today, after programs and resources that once supported community use of these spaces ended.

More than half (54%) of participants polled during the planning process said they know of a garden that is currently threatened, and 46 percent know of a garden that has already been lost due a range of reasons including demolition by land owners, redevelopment, and burnout or departure of garden leaders. An analysis of 2019 data from the Philadelphia Garden Data Collaborative, supplemented by data from the planning team and participants in public engagement, revealed a loss of over 140 known gardens and farms that were in existence and documented in the Community Gardening in Philadelphia 2008 Harvest Report by Drs. Domenic Vitiello and Michael Nairn of The University of Pennsylvania.10 The data also identifies new gardens that have taken root in the years since 2008, so the data does not show a net loss of over 140 gardens over this time period. Nonetheless, issues of land insecurity remain the number one issue for farmers and gardeners citywide.

LostandThreatenedGardenscards(e.g.,theimagetotheright) wereavailableatthefirstpublicmeeting.Eachcompletedcard allowedthePlanningTeamtoverifyandupdatethePhiladelphia GardenDataCollaborativedatabase.Theinsightssharedalsohelped betterunderstandcurrentthreatsandwhatwaslostandwhy.

—Public meeting participant

ABOUT PHILADELPHIA’S GARDEN DATA TRACKING THE FOOTPRINT OF URBAN AGRICULTURE OVER TIME

The maps and statistics about Philadelphia’s agricultural spaces presented in this plan rely on September 2019 community garden data provided to the Planning Team by the Philadelphia Garden Data Collaborative (PGDC). The Planning Team updated the database to reflect current conditions and returned the data to PGDC in October 2021 for ongoing stewardship. Years of study, data collection, and tracking preceded Growing from the Root’s data analysis. Below is a summary:

> Penn State Extension’s first garden coordinator, Libby Goldstein, reports 501 community vegetable gardens supported by Penn State Extension in 1994.11

> Community Gardening in Philadelphia 2008 Harvest Report by Drs. Domenic Vitiello and Michael Nairn of The University of Pennsylvania documents a decline in food producing community gardens from 501 in 1994 to 226 in 2008. The authors based their analysis on a list of over 600 possible garden sites received from Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) and Penn State Agricultural Extension; rigorous groundtruthing verified 226 food producing community gardens, a 54% decline since 1994.

> Vitiello and Nairn entrust their data to Amy Laura Cahn at the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia (PILCOP)’s Garden Justice Legal Initiative (GJLI) founded in 2011, which begins advocacy to preserve and protect local growing spaces by pursuing land security for existing gardens and farms.

> The Philadelphia Garden Data Collaborative forms in 2016, with PILCOP, PHS, Neighborhood Gardens Trust (NGT), Haverford College, Villanova University, and community growers (today, Soil Generation) working together to combine the 2008 Harvest Report data with PHS’s newest garden list and a variety of other sources. PGDC members then begin a lengthy process of cleaning the data, removing duplicates, fixing errors, and identifying gardens lost over time. NGT hires The Reinvestment Fund (TRF) to produce an initial map of community garden locations and parcels. Faculty and student research assistants at Haverford College complete the mapping and data cleaning effort, and the Collaborative’s partner organizations, supported by student labor from Haverford, Villanova, and Temple, ground-truth the new garden database and join it to parcel data from the Philadelphia Water Department. PGDC members update this database periodically, with notable contributions from Dr. Craig Borowiak of Haverford College and Dr. Peleg Kremer of Villanova University.

> The Growing from the Root Planning Team begins with PGDC’s community garden database and adds 2019 Philadelphia Food System data collected by Dr. Kremer on Institutional Gardens, Urban Farms, and Orchards, 2020 Philadelphia Orchard Project locations, 2020 NGT Owned and Leased Property data, and 2020 PHS CityHarvest data, plus survey data collected from participants at the first Growing from the Root public meeting. This is the data represented in the plan and returned to PGDC