Would you let someone grow produce in your yard, for food justice or for profit?
Grassroots groups are helping people without land access join a yard-sharing program to grow food for their communities.
By Colleen Hagerty
The Counter
12.17.2020
Excerpt:
Hargins, a 36-year-old part-time talent strategist at the National Immigration Law Center, started growing food at home because he wanted more nutritious options for his family. He soon found that he grew more than they could eat, so he turned to social media to start a “crop swap” with neighbors who were dealing with a similar excess. Launched in 2018, Crop Swap LA has since moved towards a more expansive yard-sharing model.
“Really, our goal is to take unused space and farm it to create green jobs, sell that food, and create better health,” Hargins said.
Urban agriculture, which includes cultivating plants and raising livestock “in and around cities” for local consumption, is practiced by more than 800 million people worldwide, according to the United Nations. While yard sharing might not have the name recognition of initiatives like community gardens, it’s a trend that has emerged in cities across North America, including Denver, Chicago, and New York City. For space-strapped areas, yard sharing offers an appealing partnership between those who want to grow their own food but lack the skills to do it and those who have the technical know-how but no space of their own to apply it.
Hargin’s foray into urban farming was also driven by bigger concerns, including how inequality in cities has created a divide between communities that get access to healthy food—higher income, often white—and those that do not. Hargins decided he wanted to put his agricultural knowledge to use in South LA, a chronically underserved area when it comes to food options.
