Urban gardening takes root in rubble of economic collapse

Care for some red currants?

In the midst of our economic implosion, the issue of food is front and center. Michael Pollan's Open Letter to President-elect Obama nails the issue on the head and brilliantly connects the dots between health care, the energy crisis and climate change.

...when we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases.

Hunger motivates every living thing. The urban gardening movement is taking root in many places. The Chicago area is growing at least two urban gardens, and Detroit at least one.

Growing Home provides job training for homeless and low-income individuals in Chicago through a social enterprise business based on organic agriculture.

The Talking Farm provides access to fresh and locally-grown food, job training and environmental education through the operation of an agricultural enterprise. Its vision includes both a physical space to grow food for sale to the community, as well as the educational and knowledge-sharing activities that emerge from the operations of an urban, organic farm dedicated to establishing sustainable food security for the Evanston/Skokie community.

Detroit's Garden Resource Collaborative Program is an effort to provide hundreds of home, school and community gardens access to resources and information in order to empower Detroit residents to grow, harvest, prepare, and preserve food for their families in their backyards and neighborhoods.

Active, committed people are behind the organic movement and it is gaining ground. Fortunately, it is the high, fertile ground.