“It’s all about the soil.” These were the words that rang through Schiff Banquet Center on Sunday night, Sept. 26, when Milwaukee urban farmer Will Allen spoke to a crowd of more than 200 as a part of the Ethics/Religion and Society Ecology and Sustainability lecture series. Allen strongly embodies the theme this year’s lecture series, Green Urbanism, through his work with the non-profit organization, Growing Power, Inc.
In 1993, Allen bought the last two surviving acres of the last remaining farm in Milwaukee, Wisc. Since then, he has started four farm sites in Chicago and grown his original farm to include six greenhouses; an aquaponics, or fish-farming, house; three vegetable greenhouses; an apiary, or bee farm with five beehives; three poultry houses; outdoor pens for livestock; a large composting operation including vermiculture, or worm compost; an anaerobic digester and a small retail store. The company operates on a $4 million annual budget and provides living wage employment for 55 people each year. Allen has been recognized by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people, and is a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, or Genius Award, which is a $500,000 grant given yearly to United States citizens who show exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work in their respective fields.
The son of a Southern sharecropper, Allen’s family moved to the outskirts of Washington, D.C. at an early age, but his father wanted his children to be exposed to gardening. After careers as both a professional basketball player and an associate for Proctor and Gamble, Allen went back to his gardening roots and has since been a key player in the Good Food Revolution.
By selling their locally-grown foods, Growing Power is able to ensure the quality and nutritional value of the food its surrounding communities consume, and likewise stimulate the local economy. “We’re always going to have food,” Allen said. “But is it food that is going to bring us to prominence?” Through Growing Power, Allen hopes to restore healthy foods into the Milwaukee area, recapture vacant lands lost to agribusiness and reinstate small, rural farmers into the food economy.
In addition to their gardening initiative, Growing Power, Inc. focuses on youth education, offering children from low-income backgrounds both academic and professional experience. They instituted a reading program that helped improve students’ literacy skills and grades in the local schools. They also offer three-month internship opportunities where interns work 60 hours a week assisting with community food system development, small farmer outreach, and urban agriculture.
For Allen, the most important part of his work is engaging the community. “Food is the one thing that really brings us all together, regardless of who you are,” Allen said. To pass on his knowledge to the next generation, he encourages the involvement of the community. “You have to have educators, planners, doctors, corporations and youth, and bring folks to the table to have a dialogue and leverage their strengths for success.” He encourages viewing the community as an asset to urban gardening, and wants to share his project’s success and sustainability efforts with the local communities.
For Xavier, Allen’s insights are a move towards more sustainability education and discussion on campus, which is exactly the goal that co-chairs of the Ecology and Sustainability lecture series, Dr. Kathleen Smythe and Dr. Elizabeth Groppe, had in mind. “We wanted to give students, faculty, and staff a chance to begin thinking about sustainability issues,” Smythe said. “We thought there was a strong need for a stronger climate of concern and education on campus.”
Growing Power, Inc. seeks the same goal; to set a concrete example of what a successful urban farming program looks like, and inspire others to follow that example and plant their own roots in the soil. “We have the means to do it,” Allen said. “We just have to have the will. We’ve got to roll up our sleeves and do it.”
