One of the most straightforward ways our project connects to urban agriculture is public health. When we visited Salinas, we noted that there seemed to be plenty of liquor stores and other establishments, but limited access to large grocery stores or fresh produce. Despite Salina’s being the “salad bowl” of the country, it also suffers from poverty and hunger on a large scale. According to California Institute for Rural studies, in 2010 Monterey County produced $4 billion in gross profit. However, nearly 25,000 individuals earn incomes lower than 200% of the Federal Poverty Level and as a result face dramatic food insecurity (Kresge, 2011). During our trip to Salinas, community members mentioned that there are no adequate and accessible grocery stores to choose from. It is without mention, that food deserts within low income urban communities have a negative effect on the city’s public health.
The homes in some parts of the city were very dense, and many of them housed multiple families at a time. Community members mentioned that the “green space” in some regions consisted of small, simple parks and only provided the bare minimum. The addition of urban agriculture pockets such as community gardens would provide access to fresh produce and healthier food options for nearby residents, as well as increase the amount of green space and variable (planning, spatial use, land use pattern things (sorry am looking for a good word right here lol)). This would also have a positive effect on residents’ health, whereas the larger commercial farms surrounding Salinas create a lot of negative health impacts (i.e. increased rates of asthma and other respiratory issues due to pesticide use). The rise of agricultural technology (AgTech) in Salinas and the urbanization of existing agriculture has created tensions between commercial farms and local farmers and growers. For example, Taylor Farms has a growing presence in the city and has plans to incorporate AgTech into their work. This incorporation would provide jobs for residents, but a portion of those jobs would involve operating machinery and working with agriculture indirectly, only furthering the divide between residents and their land and agricultural history. The educational aspect of urban agriculture could mitigate this loss of agricultural knowledge, and supplement the environmental learning that younger residents working with machinery may not otherwise engage with. Although urban agriculture could have a lot of positive impacts on under-resourced residents in Salinas, we struggled to weigh those benefits against the negative impacts that it could have on the community. An increased possibility of gentrification is one of the clearest impacts we noted. Green spaces are great additions to communities, but can also contribute to beautification and improvement efforts that drive up the price of housing in the surrounding areas and result in existing residents being displaced. We’ve already found that Salinas has a number of “redevelopment” projects underway, which oftentimes are either located in more affluent parts of the city or in regions with high populations of minority groups (which will then be at risk of gentrification). The addition of green spaces created through urban agriculture could be a potential gateway to more of these “redevelopment” projects. It also doesn’t make sense to expect many Salinas residents to start growing food on their own lots when many of the lots in the city would be too small to accommodate urban agriculture, and many people are renting rooms and living in very dense, overpopulated homes. Furthermore, a lot of them work in the agricultural industry daily, and may not be inclined to do agricultural work for free or think of it as an educational/relaxing space because their careers revolve around it. However, in a recent study, low-income employees in the agriculture industry wished they had employee gardens to combat farmer food insecurity. Another way could be to include farmworkers in urban planning and implementation of garden projects. By doing this it could potentially target specific communities by addressing their needs such as the elderly, children, large families within single households, and students. This potential co-creative process could allow a healthy and steady flow of information from community members to urban planners as mentioned in lecture. It is also suggested that wide-scale community gardens can reduce crime, improve neighborhood aesthetics, create leadership development and youth engagement (Kresge, 2011), not to mention create a more resilient community. Salinas is composed of diverse communities, and part of our project has been centered around understanding that diversity and the way sub-groups within the city interact with the environment. The ideas proposed in this study are applicable to the city’s unique sub-groups, especially low-income farm workers. This application creates a more resilient community, and demonstrates improvements in public health. Most of us didn’t have direct experience with urban agriculture, but we had some examples of ways we’ve seen it manifest at Stanford. For example, Arrillaga dining has a small greenhouse on the second floor, and a small community garden outdoors. Jasmin has also participated in gardening through her cooperative living space, which had a house garden that was integrated into the community. A point to note for the co-op garden is that it was created because they had the privilege and campus resources to make it part of their living experience. For a city like Salinas, with such a high poverty rate and many low-income residents, adding high volumes of small urban agriculture spaces would be much more difficult. Agriculture in Salinas has, up to this point, been a limiting factor on the city’s footprint. It isn’t necessarily something that’s been integrated into central parts of the city, as urban agriculture would be. Because of these space constrictions, we discussed the possibility micro-agriculture or greenhouses, that could potentially convert parts of existing green space (underused parks etc.) into community gardens to be used by residents. Sources Kresge, Lisa. “Food Insecurity among Farm Workers in the Salinas Valley, California.” Home, California Institute for Rural Studies, 2 Dec. 2011, www.cirsinc.org/rural-california-report/entry/food-insecurity-among-farm-workers-in-the-salinas-valley-california. Comments are closed.
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