This means he has nutritious, locally grown produce to offer his customers every week at Sun City Farmers Market in central Arizona. He’s been doing it for the past decade.
The key to his survival is adaptability.
“We’re trying to get away from supply chain issues. We’re trying to get away from water issues. We’re trying to get away from government issues. We’re trying to have our own closed system, so no matter what happens in the world, I have a full farm stand,” Allen told The Epoch Times.
Here, Allen and many other local growers are able to showcase and sell their products on tables under shade trees or canopies.
But only fresh non-GMO herbs, fresh-baked goods, fresh natural meats, and fresh seafood find their way to this market.
Like the soil he works in, he’s got everything he needs down pat.
A Sustainable World
It all comes down to sustainability, Allen said, and farmers moving to a more localized model.Farmers markets are naturally convenient retail outlets even during hard times.
“Last time, when we had the pandemic, we still had full tables of eggs. We still had full tables of produce. Since not everybody knows about farmers markets, [people] went to the grocery store and couldn’t find meat,” Allen said.
“They couldn’t find this, they couldn’t find that. People who do know about farmers markets didn’t have any shortages.”
Think small farm and garden—think close to home—and you’ll never be without food. This has been the mantra as green projects large and small continue to sprout in backyards and community spaces—even on city rooftops.
In New York City, Rauschenbusch Ministries operates the Hell’s Kitchen Farm Project, a nonprofit that has been thriving during the pandemic. The rooftop farm consists of 52 soil-filled plastic tubs set up on the 4,000-square-foot Metro Baptist Church rooftop in Hell’s Kitchen.
“We strive to do this growing fresh food on a previously underutilized rooftop for distribution through a local food pantry, providing community nutritional education, and organizing a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program,” it states.
“Sometimes we’ll have beekeepers come up and check on the bees,” Agina told The Epoch Times.
The New York Botanical Garden offers classes in urban gardening.
In fact, urban community gardens in the United States have been growing before and since the pandemic, playing a key role in sustainable urban farming, according to the Trust for Public Land, a conservation organization.
Green Thumbs in Waiting
In St. Johnsbury, Vermont, the Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital hosts a seasonal community garden with 32 active plots and a waiting list of green thumbs.“The [plots] are always taken—year after year,” said Mary Maurer, the hospital’s community health resource center coordinator. “One gal has had her garden for 15 years.”
“This year is busier than last year. I have more calls coming in. The residents who’ve been around longer will do perennials. One gal only does potatoes. [Others] a lot of tomatoes, lettuces,” Maurer told The Epoch Times.
“I had one gardener last year who said if they had extra they’d donate their crops. They couldn’t eat them all.”
She said that in difficult economic times people are interested in growing their own food to offset their grocery bills. Also, many people don’t have access to their own garden space, so the hospital’s garden plots remain in high demand.
The hospital also has a 550-gallon water tank for garden irrigation and composting sites to make natural fertilizer.
“Everyone is trying to be organic and not use [chemical] fertilizer,” Maurer said. “Some people come before work. Their time in the garden is before it gets hot, or later when it’s cooler. So it’s sweet to see people incorporate [gardening] into their day.”
“The ones who put the time and energy in it—they’re flourishing. Ninety-nine percent of people who want to garden, want to make it as successful as possible,” she said.
Small Gardens: They All Add Up
Christian Kanlian, a food systems consultant at Agritecture in Brooklyn, said his job is to help clients plan urban farming solutions and maximize growing space. The company currently has more than 300 clients from 40 countries.Farm One, for example, is an indoor vertical farm in Manhattan using hydroponic technology to grow culinary herbs used in New York City’s finest restaurants.
Kanlian said the company’s goal is to help build local and resilient food systems to meet the needs of a broad spectrum of consumers.
“There’s absolutely been an increase in our area. I think people are taking an interest in knowing where their food comes from,” he told The Epoch Times.
Kanlian said he only sees more interest in home and community gardens in light of their historical success in the United States.
During the Panic of 1883, for example, just 430 acres fed 975 families, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Five million World War I “war gardens” produced 528 million pounds of food, while small gardens fed 23 million households during the Great Depression.
“I think the trend toward regional [farming] is only going to increase. I think it takes [global events] to change things. A lot of it will have to come from cities and local governments to incentivize production,” Kanlian said.
It’s all part of his vision of creating a closed agricultural system free from the influence of farming conglomerates, “Bill Gates and the whole manipulated meat thing—people trying to mess with the fertilizer, mess with the foods, all this GMO stuff.”
“As time goes on, more people are realizing they don’t want [synthetic food]. If you asked me this question 20 years ago, you’d probably have one out of 100 [people] recognizing GMO food,” Allen said.
“‘Hey, how come my food tastes like plastic?’ People are starting to be more aware. I know the demographic that comes to the markets, they don’t like it. They’re specifically here because they don’t have interest in plastic meats.”