Urban Gardening

Urban farming, is the practice of cultivating, processing and distributing food in or around a village, town, or city.. Many low-income residents suffer from high rates of obesity and diabetes and limited sources of fresh produce. In the developing south, food security, nutrition, and income generation are key motivations for the practice. In either case, more direct access to fresh vegetables, fruits, and meat products through urban agriculture can improve food security and food safety.

I first learned about urban gardening while attending Integrative Nutrition Institute, one of our lectures was taught by Daphne Miller , MD a practicing family physician, author and Associate Clinical Professor at the University of California San Francisco. Dr. Miller is the founder of the Growing Health Collaborative, which brings together experts from medicine, public health and agriculture, to build a “health sensitive” food system from the soil up. Miller is a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Medical School and completed her family medicine residency and an NIH-funded primary care research fellowship at University of California, San Francisco. She was a senior advisor for Prevention Institute, is on the Advisory Board of the Center for Health and Nature at Oakland Children’s Hospital, the UC Berkeley Institute for Parks, People and Biodiversity and the Edible Schoolyard Foundation and a past Fellow at the Berkeley Food Institute and the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine.  Her lecture really caught my attention as she discussed holistic farming for improved health from the ground up and the great benefits of urban farming.

While looking for family volunteering opportunities I came across an urban garden in need of family volunteering, I immediately registered myself and my family to volunteer a few hours on a weekend. I had the fortune to be able to speak with Leo, who has worked at this great garden for 4 years and was able to provide so much valuable knowledge. This Urban garden at one point was considered a food dessert zone. Food dessert zone are defined as parts of the country vapid of fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthful wholefoods, usually found in impoverished areas. This is largely due to a lack of grocery stores, farmers' markets, and healthy food providers. This was astonishing to us, as this Urban garden was located in a low income area in the city of Dania Beach, which is located near the City of Fort Lauderdale and Fort Lauderdale Real Estate, where one would imagine everyone would have access to fresh food and vegetables.

This wonderful Urban Garden is called The Patch Garden. I truly recommend you pay this little farm a visit whether its to volunteer or to purchase organic produce, take the family, make a day out of it, there is so much to learn on this farm, so much love from the volunteers, and most important let's all be part of the solution by spreading the word and knowledge. Let's continue to create the ripple effect, that will transform the world.