Models of governance in community gardening: administrative support fosters project longevity

ABSTRACT

Positive outcomes from community gardening contribute to the fulfilment of several agendas related to food and nutrition security, urban sustainability, and environmental education. Under this presupposition, several umbrella organisations in the public or nonprofit sectors have been supporting community garden projects. Bottom-up with political and/or administrative support is a governance model in community gardening in which the community plans, implements, and manages a garden with support from the government or non-governmental organisations. Several community gardens in Toronto, Canada, follow this governance structure, which is frequently associated with the success (growing and longevity) of these gardens’ initiatives in the city. This paper provides a better understanding of day-to-day needs in community gardening projects under this governance model, presenting the typical demands for support in different development stages. Using participatory observation and interviews, we approached community gardening initiatives spread in neighbourhoods with diverse economic, social, and cultural features. We interviewed gardeners, garden coordinators, representatives of non-governmental organisations, and government members. Considering the emic perspective, the governance structure that counts with administrative support seems beneficial to the longevity of community gardens, mainly in low-income areas. Despite the diversity of the projects that we studied, land access, funding, help with human resources, and educational opportunities are typical needs in these gardens. Future studies could specify the tradeoffs between bottom-up and top-down governance models in community gardening in distinct political and socio-economic contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Food and nutrition security
• urban agriculture
• food systems
• community garden
• urban governance

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Rhonda Teitel-Payne for her invaluable guidance in selecting practices for this research. She also helped us by providing a previous assessment of this paper content. We also thank the dear Lorraine Johnson that provided useful reflections and information after reviewing our manuscript. We thank the time spent by all the participants to answer our questions and their kindness for hosting us in their gardens and organisations. MCMJ: Conceptualisation; Data curation; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Writing – original draft; Writing – review & editing. CR: Conceptualisation; Formal analysis; Methodology; Project administration; Writing – review & editing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Availability of data and material

All relevant data are included in the article.

Notes

1 We refer to ‘community garden’ as the garden space or project itself and to ‘community gardening’ as the practice of cultivating the garden and the relationships embedded in this process.

2 For further information, see: http://torontourbangrowers.org/.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded partially by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development through a postdoctoral scholarship to MCMJ [grant number 150654/2019-7].