American Community Gardening Association
Like its British counterpart, the American Community Gardening Association is devoted to building community by increasing and enhancing community gardening and greening across the United States and Canada.
Why? Community gardening improves people’s quality of life by providing a catalyst for neighborhood and community development, stimulating social interaction, encouraging self-reliance, beautifying neighborhoods, producing nutritious food, reducing family food budgets, conserving resources and creating opportunities for recreation, exercise, therapy and education. The ACGA website is packed with resources to help set up and run a community garden.
B.U.G. Farms
Backyard Urban Garden Farms or B.U.G. Farms is a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) company based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Since 2010 they have been using organic methods to produce a wide variety of vegetables. Their model is based on cultivating large, unused backyard plots in an urban setting to produce food for the Salt Lake City community. With under two acres they can support about 100 members.
Why? This model of urban farming should be thoroughly studied and practiced everywhere.
Point of Contact: Carly Gillespie
Dee River Ranch
The Dee River Ranch is a family-operated farm dedicated to land conservation and environmentally friendly farming techniques. Following the Hurricane Katrina fuel shortages, the ranch began using crops they were harvesting to make their own biodiesel to fuel their equipment.
Why? They have partnered with the University of Alabama, inviting students to the ranch for learning opportunities. Local schools attend educational exhibits featuring various aspects of farm life. Dee River Ranch also hosts field days each year to update other area farmers on the latest technological advances and farming techniques.
Point of Contact: Annie Dee
Delta F.A.R.M.
Delta F.A.R.M. (Farmers Advocating Resource Management) is an association of growers and landowners that work to implement recognized agricultural practices which will conserve, restore,and enhance the environment of the Northwest Mississippi.
Why? Delta F.A.R.M. is a good resource for learning sustainable farming techniques and water management.
E.A.T. South
The mission of E.A.T. South is to Educate, Act, and Transform by cultivating healthy and sustainable food sources in a downtown Montgomery farm, and cultivate a healthier and more sustainable Montgomery by nurturing the community and teaching how to live better, feel better and eat great to ensure healthy, balanced and sustainable lifestyles.
Why? E.A.T. South promotes the principles of food justice through education and sustainable farming. They empower community-led programs with resources to transform their local food systems.
Point of Contact: Farm Director Caylor Roling
Feeding America
The Feeding America network is the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization. Feeding America is committed to feed America's hungry through a nationwide network of 200 member food banks and 60,000 food pantries engaging the country in the fight to end hunger.
Why? Excess food grown in individual or neighborhood gardens may be donated to Feeding America’s food banks to help feed others in the community.
Green City Growers
Green City Growers converts unused commercial, municipal, educational and residential spaces into vibrant urban farms. They create harvestable space both on the ground and on rooftops. Green City Growers will design and install urban farms for clients, and they also operate urban farms themselves, including one on a rooftop at Fenway Park in Boston, where they are headquartered.
Why? Just as lawn services have long been a viable business model, urban farming services should do so as well.
Growing Power
Growing Power is a national nonprofit organization and land trust supporting people from diverse backgrounds and environments, by helping to provide equal access to healthy, high-quality, safe and affordable food for people in all communities. Growing Power implements this mission by providing hands-on training, on-the-ground demonstration, outreach and technical assistance through the development of Community Food Systems that help people grow, process, market and distribute food in a sustainable way.
Why? Growing Power has a number of educational arms that may be helpful to this initiative, including workshops, tours, and internships.
Hereford Food Partnership
The UK's Duchy of Cornwall was established in 1337 to fund activities of the Prince of Wales; they set up the Hereford Food Partnership in more recent times to coordinate the increasing use of food and drink from the county’s fertile farms within the county, as food is fresher and more nutritious near where it is raised than anywhere else on earth.
Why? Every county in the US with any notable agricultural base should have an organization like the Partnership. Urban farms may participate as well as those in the surrounding countryside.
Invest an Acre
Invest An Acre was developed in response to a problem that seemed like a paradox – many people living in farming communities that feed the world also struggle with hunger. IAA is a program of Feeding America, the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief organization, which provides food to more than 46 million people facing hunger in the United States each year through 200 member food banks and 60,000 food pantries. The Invest An Acre program is designed to engage food producers in the fight against hunger in rural communities across America.
Why? Neighborhood farms as well as rural farmers can donate excess food.
National Allotment Society
The National Allotment Society is the leading UK organisation upholding the interests and rights of the allotment community. They work with government at national and local levels, other organisations and landlords to provide, promote and preserve allotments for all. They offer support, guidance and advice to our members and those with an interest in allotment gardening. The US counterpart is the American Community Gardening Association.
Why? The British history of allotment gardening runs back three centuries, so they have as much experience as anyone. The Society hosts a great collection of resources on how to run an allotment garden.
Permaculture Institute of North America
Permaculture is the conscious design of cultivated ecosystems that have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems using native plants or those that are well adapted to the region. Permaculture integrates people into the landscape in such a way that the land grows in richness, productivity and beauty. The Permaculture Institute of North America supports students and experienced practitioners of permaculture in North America and Hawaii.
Why? Growing food using nature’s rules rather than the brute-force rules of the industrial food chain is easier and often less expensive.
West Alabama Food Bank
The West Alabama Food Bank was incorporated in 1987 as a non-profit organization whose mission is to help alleviate hunger and food insecurity in nine West Alabama counties including Bibb, Fayette, Greene, Hale, Lamar, Marion, Pickens, Sumter and Tuscaloosa.
Why? The WAFB will collect excess food grown in individual or neighborhood gardens and distribute it to agencies serving the needy.
Point of Contact: Food Bank Main Address