Who Grows?

by Bruce Schimmel

The ground may be cold and hard, but for farmers, winter is the sweetest season. Seed catalogs, with pictures of beautiful food, pile up on coffee tables, fueling a gardener's field of dreams.

But how many Philadelphians will plant this spring, and how many cannot, isn't clear. Basic info, like the location of community gardens and how to join, is scant. If you want to join a garden, you basically have to know someone — and you can still wait for years.

From backyard plots to squatter sites, community gardens to working farms, Philly's urban agriculture is a many-splendored but little-understood thing. And ignorance, sadly, is crippling earnest efforts to achieve the goals of Greenworks — the city's master sustainability plan — to increase food access, community gardening and foster working farms.

Things are stalled, in part, because urban ag is subject to so many agencies. Among its masters are Redevelopment Authority (RDA), the Planning Commission, Zoning Commission, Health Department, Water Department and the newly created Parks and Recreation.

The RDA, for instance, is charged with turning vacant land into tax-paying businesses; the Health Department wants to put healthy food into people's mouths; and at the Water Department, farms are needed to filter stormwater.

For now, there's no go-to department with a big, informed vision. Both inside and outside government many hope that with the arrival of Michael DiBerardinas at Parks and Recreation, agencies will start pulling in the same direction.

But this much we do know: Interest in urban ag is exploding. Community gardens — whose numbers fell dramatically between 1996 and 2008 — are growing again. Every week, the RDA gets inquiries. At the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, where Sally McCabe teaches, gardening classes suddenly doubled. What's particularly intriguing is why people garden today. "It's an amazing turnaround that I haven't seen since the '70s," says McCabe. "They garden for food."

That Philadelphians grow to eat, and grow a lot, was recently confirmed by Domenic Vitiello. The Penn professor also found that for community plots to thrive, gardeners must not fear losing their land. Which means the city must stop thinking of farming as "temporary" — as something pretty until something better arrives.

That farmers need a place of their own has been a tough lesson. Last year, when the RDA's Terry Gillen put out a Request for Proposals for commercial farming on an "interim" basis, the city's leading commercial farmer, Greensgrow's Mary Corboy, took a pass. You can't finance something that could be lost in five years.

Unfortunately, even old and established community gardens — like those at 16th and Spring Garden and near the airport — are at perpetual risk. In West Philly, the Mill Creek Farm is appealing to Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell for help in protecting their land from development plans.

Until urban ag is shielded from politics, farming in Philly won't flourish, and many are now turning to DiBerardinis for leadership. Meanwhile, farmer Corboy offers this advice: "Just give up the goddamn land, and get it over with."

(bruce@schimmel.com)