Urban Farmer Promotes Sustainable Living

As the world is encouraged to become more environmentally conscious, urban farmer Will Allen is crisscrossing the globe, sharing his passion for self-sustainable farming while revolutionizing the food production process at the same time.

He and his protégé, daughter Erika, recently gave a keynote address about dismantling racism in the food system and how to pass farming onto the next generation during the annual W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food & Society Conference 2009 in northern California. Then it was off to Minneapolis to address the American Planning Association and later to the Mississippi Delta to help black farmers develop organic farming infrastructure.

“So I’ve been on the road a lot,” says Allen, the 60-year-old founder of nonprofit Growing Power Inc. who was spending a few days at his Milwaukee headquarters before jetting off again.

Allen, a former professional basketball player who joined the ranks of Corporate America after retiring, has known for several decades that his passion is farming, a skill his sharecropper parents passed on to him and his siblings, even after they migrated from the South to the Washington, D.C. area.  But it wasn’t until the married father of three left his sales position with Procter & Gamble in March 1993 that he was able to pursue his love fulltime.

He founded Growing Power in 1995, two years after purchasing the last remaining three acres of farmland inside the Milwaukee city limits.  Allen says he relied on self-funding and sweat equity to get his nonprofit off the ground, helping Growing Power grow from a volunteer organization to become a multifaceted nonprofit specializing in large-scale food and farming production, researching, training and youth mentoring.

In 2002, Erika Allen, 39, opened Growing Power’s Chicago Project Office, where she blends her love of agriculture and art to help inner-city communities create aesthetic self-sustainable urban gardens and urban farms. With 36 employees, Growing Power currently operates six gardens and farms —three in Chicago and three in Milwaukee — with the hopes of adding two more Wisconsin locations this summer.

Creating a career around his passion, allowed Allen to perfect his farming techniques for producing organic food.  He swears by his own composting formula that combines six million pounds of food residue such as coffee grinds and rotten fruit with 18 million pounds of carbon residue like old newspapers and hay to turn into high nutrient compost.  Red worms are added, producing beneficial bacteria, and voilà, within six to 12 months, healthy soil is created to plant “beyond organic food,” a phrase he coined to describe farming methods Growing

Power incorporates that “supercedes the [United States Department of Agriculture] organic food standards.”

“All of the existing soil inside our cities are contaminated so you have to grow new soil for healthy food,” says Allen, adding that the process creates several thousand yards of soil, which Growing Power retails for $75 per cubic yard.  Allen also relies on an aquaponic system to grow lake perch and tilapia, using a symbiotic relationship existing between the plants and the fish where the effluent from the fish help fertilize the plants and the plants help clean the water for the fish.

Growing Power’s philosophy is attracting people from around the world, including Ghana, Ukraine, Kenya and Macedonia, who want to learn its model so they can take it back to their communities and replicate it.

“This is it! People need to control their food system, to have food and land sovereignty and the ability to create their own soil fertility. With this so much could happen!” says Erika Allen, who holds a Bachelors degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Masters degree in art psychotherapy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. “They catch the passion and go back and bring us in to help set up the system, plan projects or provide mentorship.”

An Honorable Mission

Environmental experts also are taking notice.

Jonathan Kaplan, senior policy specialist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, is very impressed with Growing Powers re-circulating system, calling it “clever.”

“This helps reduce the waste stream coming from the fish and reduce fertilizer use for the plants. Those results mean a lot for the environment,” Kaplan says.  Allen’s innovative techniques are a reason why the NRDC20on Tuesday named him as a winner in its food producer category for the first-ever “Growing Green Awards,” which recognizes leaders and innovators in the sustainable food field.  Allen also will be awarded a $10,000 cash prize.  The NRDC also honored individuals in a business leader and thought leader categories.

The NRDC honor comes a day before the Kellogg Foundation announced it would give Growing Power a $400,000 grant to create green jobs in the inner cities of Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee.  Both awards follow the MacArthur Foundation‘s naming Allen among its 25 fellows last year, earning the urban farmer a $500,000 “genius” grant.  Growing Power also recently received a $100,000 green technology grant from the city of Chicago Department of Environment.

What’s That Smell?

Allen believes that providing good quality food is best accomplished through educating and mentoring of youth, which Growing Power does via its Youth Corps, which provides year-round gardening activities for neighborhood children ages 10 to 18 years, introducing them to healthy food options as well as possible career opportunities in the natural resources.

While many youth may not know more about food production beyond what they pick up at a grocery store or drive-thru window, Allen is working to change that, confident that once exposed, many inner-city children will opt for healthier, organic food selections.

“Sometimes they first complain about the smell.  When they get passed it, it’s hard to get their hands out of the dirt. The ones that complain about it the most in the beginning wind up being the leaders,” Allen says.

Anthony Jackson, 30, became involved with Growing Power 16 years ago through a work-study program offered through his church. Jackson, who sits on Growing Power’s board, describes Growing Power as an “eye-opening experience for kids who don’t get a chance to see things like” urban farming or get exposure to fresh fruits and vegetables.

Along with him, Jackson says he knows of eight to 10 other Youth Corps members who are walking the straight and narrow path thanks to their involvement with Growing Power.

“Will pushed discipline and hard work.  I went there and didn’t have any thoughts about college.  I didn’t even know what college was,” jokes Jackson, who now is completing graduate studies at Cardinal Stritch University.