The challenge

Those who live in poor, urban areas often have little access to high-quality food. As large grocers flee inner cities, convenience stores and other high-priced alternatives become these neighborhoods’ only sources of groceries. These small stores rarely offer extensive produce departments; instead, residents choose among highly processed foods with little nutritional value. The Milwaukee neighborhood where Growing Power is located is one of these communities. Ninety-six percent of the residents are African American, 37 percent are under the age of 17, and 34 percent live below the poverty line. Much of the youthful population is unemployed. Teen pregnancy is high, and gang-related violence is common.

Seeds of commitment

Will Allen was a star basketball player at the University of Miami and a professional basketball player for six years. That’s the dream of many young men who later parlay their glory into a glamorous career in sports or entertainment. Allen took a different route. After a decade in marketing, he went back to his roots: He bought the last farm in the city of Milwaukee and began farming. “My motivation comes from a family tradition of passing on food and knowledge about the agriculture system to others. I grew up on a farm and in a culture that used food as a way to bring people together and transform society,” Allen says. “Inner-city youth, in particular, have very limited access to fresh, safe, and healthy food or the knowledge to prepare it, and that motivated me to do community-food-systems work for the future.” That love for the land, coupled with Allen’s passion to share his knowledge, changes lives. “If people can grow safe, healthy, affordable food, if they have access to land and clean water, this is transformative on every level in a community,” Allen says. “I believe we cannot have healthy communities without a healthy food system.”

Accomplishments

Allen’s work transforming communities began in 1993 with a farm and a farm stand. By 1995, he had created Farm City Link, an experimental agriculture operation in a large, run-down greenhouse in central Milwaukee. Allen raised money to buy and renovate the structure and opened the doors to young people to learn life skills, agricultural expertise, and community responsibility. Before long, Allen’s vision had broadened, and Farm City Link became part of Growing Power Community Food Center, the umbrella organization for groups advancing Allen’s vision for community agriculture.

Earthlinks began in 1997 as a youth-based project under the Growing Power banner. In the beginning, it was a way for youth aged 9 to 18 to grow, harvest, and sell worm castings, a rich soil amendment, and to raise tilapia fish in huge barrels. Today, Earthlinks has become the Growing Power Youth Corps. The tilapia now swim in a thousand-gallon swimming pool. Allen’s Milwaukee farm is a hands-on agricultural training facility where community members can train in horticulture, aquaculture, poultry raising, beekeeping, vermiculture (worm castings), land conservation, food processing, and marketing.

Allen’s vision has continued to expand and now includes Farm City Rainbow Farmers Cooperative, a marketing arm for about 300 small farmers from a wide range of ethnicities: African American, Hmong, Latino, Amish and Mennonite. The Market Basket program provides about 100 low-income families with a weekly box of fresh vegetables and fruits grown by the Youth Corps and farmers from the Rainbow Farmers Cooperative. Growing Power is also bringing newcomers into agriculture with its S.E. Wisconsin Immigrant Farming Initiative, which trains new immigrants, mostly Hmong and Somali Bantu, in sustainable agricultural techniques.

In 2002, Growing Power expanded its reach once again through a regional network of trainers in sustainable agriculture who spread this knowledge in cities, rural areas and Native American communities. “I do this work, which doesn’t feel like work, because I get a great deal of satisfaction from seeing people’s lives improve,” Allen says.

Leadership style

Will Allen considers himself a coach. “My background is over 40 years as a farmer with a background in team sports, having played high school, college, and professional basketball. I truly believe in the concept of teamwork, with each team member playing an important role to achieve goals.” To create an effective team, Allen works with his staff to develop skills. “Then,” Allen says, “I let the staff do their work, letting them know I’m there to support them.”

At 56, Allen believes one of his leadership challenges is to nurture the next generation of leaders. His daughter Erika helps him in this effort. “She helps educate me about what she and her peers are saying and thinking in terms of the community-food-system work, ideas that are innovative and fresh,” Allen says. “She has helped me to communicate with them, and this has allowed me to begin to make the transition into strengthening their abilities to lead.”

The future

Just as Allen believes in sustainable agriculture, he knows that Growing Power should be sustainable, too. He envisions a future for the organization that expands its work so communities across the country have access to safe, healthy food.. Allen sees his own role expanding into national policy work. “After having designed and implemented successful community food systems that are culturally appropriate, I need to help shape the next Farm Bill,” Allen says. “There are just too few grassroots people helping to shape policy.”

More about Will Allen and Growing Power

“When your boss tells you to do something, it’s usually something they don’t want to do. That’s not Will. Everything Will made me do, he did it first.”
- Anthony Jackson, member of Growing Power’s Youth Corps

“Growing Power's outreach programs are wholly impressive and, flat out, provide hope where otherwise absent. For instance, Growing Power has established the U-FiT (Urban Farmers in Training) project in partnership with First Presbyterian Church in Chicago. The church has dedicated four lots and a greenhouse it owns in the Central Woodlawn neighborhood. Community members worked the plots last summer and plan a bigger operation this growing season as the land has been purified for the chemical-free farming endorsed by Allen.”
- Chicago Tribune, March 17, 2004