The idea to quantify the food grown in community gardens is not new. It has been accomplished in several cities in the past few years, and the Farming Concrete research team would like to give many thanks to the studies that came before us. While these previous studies were not necessarily community-based, they gave our research team two models to look at when designing our methods for 2010, and we owe many aspects of our work to their precedence.
In 2008, Boston Natural Areas Network researched gardens in Boston, MA. They found that Boston’s community garden yield was worth over $1.3 million.
“That is an average value of about $431 in fresh food each gardener could put on his or her family table.”
Download the article here.
In 2008 and 2009, UPenn faculty members Domenic Vitiello, Michael Nairn, and Jeane Ann Grisso quantified the production and documented the distribution of food from community gardens and farms in Philadelphia, Camden and Trenton. They estimated that Philladelphia gardens produce $4.9 million of summer vegetables. View and download the individual harvest reports here.
Using different methods, both studies began to answer the question of how much food is being produced by thousands of community gardeners in small urban spaces. We look forward to continuing our project another year, and hope to get closer to a NYC citywide estimate, as our predecessors were able to do.