Written by Kevin Bayuk | 28 September 2010

The future of life on this planet may depend on what we eat. Factory farmed junk food is the #1 cause of climate change, but we can save the planet by going organic. The greenhouse gas emissions from factory farms, deforestation, industrial crop production, food processing, and long-distance distribution make the food sector the biggest cause of climate change, responsible for at least a third of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Factory farmed meat, dairy and eggs alone may contribute as much as 51%! But we can change food system pollution into food system solutions. A worldwide shift to local, organic food production would drastically reduce food system emissions and turn the world's farmland into a carbon sink to capture and store 40% of global greenhouse gas pollution.

Excerpt from Organic Consumers Association's "Food Agenda 2020: The Organic Alternative

Benefits of Kitchen Gardens

Community Health

We know that our culture is facing a nutrition-related health crisis. It starts with the rise in obesity and leads to other diseases.  Diet and obesity related diseases (heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes) are the biggest killer in the Unites States today.[2] Obesity costs Americans 10% of our health care bills, approximately $150 billion dollars per year. This figure is expected to double in the next 10 years to $300 billion per year.
Not only do kitchen gardens provide fresh, healthy vegetables and encourage healthy eatting, they also give us an opportunity for exercise and human interaction. Kitchen gardens can be adapted for any skill and ability level, from individual gardens in barrels to entire backyards with perennial vegetables and fruit trees.

Community Building

As any current San Francisco gardener can attest, a garden becomes a magnet and a catalyst for community health just by being visible.  As neighbors see eachother enjoying the bounty of a kitchen garden, perhaps pausing in the morning to enjoy the sweet flesh of a sun ripened strawberry, it often leads to sharing garden knowledge and garden surplus.  Connections are made and bonds are established simply by seeing food production so close to the kitchen.  A catalyst, because every gardener discovers the dilemma of too many zucchini or so much arugula they could feed the neighborhood. Surplus happens in a garden.  Community bonds frequently follow a surplus as extra veggies and fruits are shared with neighbors. The garden caring and neighborly sharing leads to a diverse diet promoting improved eating habits and stronger community bonds.

Local Food Production

Today lettuce in the supermarket may have been shipped all the way from Turkey, while the apples may have come from China. Shipping these distances greatly reduces freshness and consumes a lot more fuel. Producing local benefits the entire planet by reducing the enormity of waste in the industrial food system.  At least 40% of the food produced in the US is wasted; lost in harvest, distribution, processing, packaging and consumption.[3] The average food-producing backyard garden can prevent between 5,000 to 11,000 lbs of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere, the equivalent of removing one car from the road for a year.[4]  Kitchen gardens enable food to be harvested at the moment of consumption eliminating the opportunity for this gross waste. By producing food locally, our community can produce healthier food that is packed with nutrition, bursting with heirloom flavors and good for the planet.

Ecological Restoration

Urban life often disconnects its citizens from the earth's natural cycles and urban agriculture can reconnect us with these cycles and each other. When working with a garden people develop a deep appreciation and dependence on the natural world, which leads them to lowering their impact on the planet. Nature deficit disorder, bee colony collapse disorder, excessive carbon dioxide emissions, overflowing landfills, stressed wastewater treatment facilities - all might be, in part, addressed by a robust backyard kitchen garden movement.  Each garden is a potential sink for food scraps (recycled by worms and compost piles), greywater, carbon dioxide (taken up by plants in spaces that might have once been covered by concrete) and provide habitat for pollinators, diverse populations of insects and, at the same time, provide a living classroom and encounter with vibrant living systems for youth raised - and anyone living - in the city.

Green Jobs Training

Studies are showing that the green collar jobs of the immediate future require skills and experience with urban food production, waste composting, sustainable landscaping and similar knowledge.[5] Each kitchen garden installed is a training facility for green collar jobs.  Similar to a barn raising, the program focuses on local, motivated volunteers, working with friends and neighbors who would then help install each other’s gardens. This program incorporates the concept of "each one teach one."  Prior to a garden installation, a host would have opportunities to participate in the various phases of several other garden installations, providing benefit to the health of the individual and the community while providing the program with many of its resource needs.  From planning and designing gardens, acquiring materials and raising seedlings, through actual installations and harvests, the program grows as the gardens grow, the gardens grow as the community grows, and the community grows as the people grow.

(Originally published on Kitchen Garden SF)

Register today and take part in the 350 Garden Challenge on 10/10/10