How community capacity building in urban agriculture can improve food access in predominantly Black communities

ABSTRACT

Black Americans face disparate health burdens of diet-related chronic diseases. Black Americans who live in communities with inadequate access to healthy foods are at an even greater risk for disparate health outcomes. Urban agriculture in communities with inadequate access to healthy food can complement the existing traditional food system and can make a difference in the accessibility of fresh fruits and vegetables and subsequently, increase fruit and vegetable consumption. However, integrating urban agriculture into a local food system can be challenging. Community capacity-building efforts have the potential to enhance organizational development and enable collaborations to enhance efforts to incorporate urban agriculture into communities with inadequate food access. This study used Chaskin’s relational framework to describe community capacity-building efforts to enhance urban agriculture in predominantly Black communities. We found that strategies for community capacity building in urban agriculture include building on existing resources, community engagement, expanding organizational capacity, identifying threats to community capacity building, and identifying ideal solutions to enhance community capacity-building efforts. Urban farmers, gardeners, and advocates identified these strategies to strengthen local control of the food environment through sustainable urban agriculture. Additional research is needed to further identify community engagement strategies that emphasize sustainability, such as workforce development efforts, building networks for new growers, and strengthening connections between farmers, gardeners, urban agriculture advocates, and community residents.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban agriculture
• African American community
• community building
• community capacity building
• community gardens
• community-based organizations

Acknowledgments

We thank Orrin Williams from the University of Illinois Office of Community Engagement and Neighborhood Health Partnerships for support in our community engagement efforts. We also thank Viviana Okakpu from Advocates for Urban Agriculture for their assistance with connecting our team with urban farmers.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Illinois at Chicago Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy [662064].