Project New Village also has beds in the garden where it cultivates food for sale at its two neighborhood farmers’ markets, People’s Produce Market in Southeastern San Diego and Lemon Grove Farmers’ Market. The farmers’ markets are meant as an economic opportunity for growers; however, few are certified producers and the garden, especially initially, has had trouble attracting growers. The garden and farmers’ markets are the nonprofit’s “primary tools to improve food access, food security, and environmental wellness” . The nonprofit emphasizes the local African American community in the neighborhood, which drives leadership and participation in the garden. Neighborhood residents are incorporated in leadership through Resident Leadership Academies – multi-week programs that “empowers people with the knowledge, tools, strategies and commitment to make positive changes at the neighborhood level” – and participation in management and decision-making. However, other skills like grant-writing, business planning, and financial advising require additional support from outside the community. Nonetheless, residents get the final ‘okay’ on any changes in the direction of the nonprofit. Histories of oppression and structural racism also factor heavily into Project New Village’s mission to solve disparities in the food landscape including access,square pot growing, and selling food. For example, a definition of food justice on a dedicated page on their website says, “Food justice… recognizes the food system as a racial project and problematizes the influence of race and class on the production, distribution and consumption of food.
This encompasses farm labor work, land disputes, issues of status and class, environmental justice, public politics and advocacy” . Interestingly, this focus of food justice, community, and food insecurity creates a close discursive connection between Project New Village and Coastal Roots Farms above, despite their stark geographic differences and approaches to justice . Indeed, all three gardens take quite different approaches to justice. Relying on Schlosberg’s trivalent approach to justice, which includes distribution, participation, and recognition, we can begin to unpack the multiple shades of justice that color these different operations. Coastal Roots Farm’s justice practices and definitions center around distribution, specifically the outcome of improving food access. Pop-up farm stands in less fortunate areas, donations, and “pay-what-you-can” farm stands that allow buyers to pay whatever they can afford aim to increase access to organic produce. However, one farm staff member noted that at their own farm stand, they have had trouble reaching “less fortunate people” because the neighborhood is generally wealthy. The organizational structure of the farm provides few opportunities for participation of local communities, especially marginalized communities – positions are typically staffed by professionals and all growing is done by farm staff. Decision-making and farm management are also part of a hierarchal structure connected to the large foundation that finances most of the farm’s activities. These practices are inconsistent with many definitions of food justice that go beyond food access and charitable donations to include the participation of marginalized groups in challenging exploitative and unjust configurations of the food systems. Further, recognition of the underlying socio-economic conditions of uneven food access are not mentioned on the farm’s website or during interviews.
Solutions Farms does not make claims to promote justice; however, their practices produce distributive justice by providing income and workforce training to a marginalized group, namely homeless adults with children who are concentrated in Vista. This produces enhanced food security among the participants who reduce their dependency on government aid to meet basic needs. However, decision-making is top-down and recognition of the structural factors underlying homelessness are not mentioned. Mt. Hope Community Garden appears to stand on all three legs of trivalent justice, but especially on participation. The garden focuses on improving local food access by creating growing opportunities and local ‘good food’ distribution channels , it places a clear emphasis on empowering the local, marginalized communities it hopes to serve by including them in its management and decision-making processes , and it recognizes the racially-based injustice and oppression that has created the need for grassroots intervention in the neighborhood . Yet, there are still nuances. Bosco and Joassart-Marcelli note that while focusing on the non-Latino Black community is a worthy goal – indeed, African American growers make up less than 1% of the county’s farmers and have historically been disadvantaged – it may unwillingly exclude other groups that call Southeastern home and may not have nonprofit representation. And while the highly participatory structure promotes a sense of community and sovereignty over decision-making around local food systems, in some cases, it prevents time-effective decision-making. The three urban agriculture spaces I have examined have markedly different relationships to capital. The organizations’ tax returns on publicly available IRS form 990 illustrate vast disparities in access to capital .
Project New Village has significantly less access to financial resources – in 2014, its net assets were in deficit by over$17,000 dollars. The majority of their revenue is program service revenue, which includes government contracts, with some contributions from grants, gifts, and donations. Project New Village, specifically the garden, admittedly has struggled to find appropriate funding sources that match the mission of Project New Village and Mt. Hope. Available grants are highly competitive and may be less likely to go to organizations that emphasize participation and recognition– outcomes that are hard to measure – and struggle to demonstrate how they can “scale up” their activities. Alliance Healthcare Foundation, a major grantor in San Diego County focused on improving “health and wellness outcomes for the poor and most vulnerable,” is attempting to remedy the issue. Dan, their Research and Impact Analyst explains, “We’re trying to build frameworks and methodologies and best practices for the industry really, because no one seems to want to take on the challenge” – an admittedly hard task. Recently, they awarded Project New Village a Mission Support grant, which usually range from $25,000 to 100,000 dollars. The organization has also been able to secure other small grants to support collaborative efforts on social equity. As the nonprofit literature shows, small anti-poverty organizations in low-income neighborhoods often struggle to acquire the capital needed to carry on their mission . As a result, they are often forced to depoliticize or adjust their activities in order to secure funding. The lack of capital in Southeastern San Diego, as well as other low-income communities of color, is the result of past policies that have limited lending, prevented home ownerships, and deprived communities of equity building opportunities ,lage plastic pots conditions which also make these communities prone to gentrification .Solutions for Change and Coastal Roots Farm have been much more successful at attracting funding and generating revenue. Indeed, both organizations report net profits in recent years. Higher revenues and fewer expenses like rent give the organizations critical resources to support their programs and justice practices. In the case of Solutions Farms, access to capital has been critical for investing in expensive aquaponic technology and supporting infrastructure like a $20,000 generator that restores power in the event of an outage. Grants, such as the Alliance Healthcare i2 Innovation Grant, help the nonprofit manage these costs. Dan explains why the foundation chose to give Solutions Farms its $1 million-dollar grant in 2014: “We saw a great potential because it’s going to have the benefit of giving the homeless folks employment training and helping them learn how to operate in a hierarchical organized structure, and then it generates some revenue because they’re selling this food… we saw a third benefit of getting healthy food into the local schools. Then there’s hundreds of other benefits that are less … that aren’t really aligned with our mission but great; uses a lot less water and it’s just way more space efficient. And it’s really cool.
That’s worth something.” This quote illustrates the currency of neoliberal strategies like “workfare” and “market-oriented economic growth” in achieving funding. As an LLC, Solutions Farms is indeed capital-focused – in 2016, the enterprise reported $1,404,593 in assets with $522,851 in income. The economic characteristics of the neighborhoods in which these three organizations operate also contribute to their financial success. Daron Joffe, Founding Director of Coastal Roots Farm, admits the local wealth of Encinitas residents helps the farm: “Our disadvantage is we’re not near the market that we really want to serve, but our advantage is, we’re near the market of people who care and can help subsidize the market that we want to serve, right?” Indeed, at a community festival I attended at the farm in 2016, the Director of Philanthropy, told the crowd, “I know many of you have been extremely generous with what you’ve given at our different events and our year end online campaign, but we welcome additional support. It helps us to be able to do what we’re doing and to do it better and bigger.” In Southeastern San Diego, low median income and high unemployment create fewer opportunities for community donations to support the garden. Vista residents similarly lack capacity to support Solutions Farms operations. Instead, the LLC depends on profits from selling its lettuce to local restaurants to offset its costs, which has been successful in recent years – in 2016, it generated over $500,000 in income. It is also heavily reliant on government service contracts and rental revenues from properties it makes available to formerly homeless people through its programs. For political economists, capital is about equipment, machinery, buildings, and other human-made inputs . Ownership of the “means of production” like tools, seeds, compost, power generators, irrigation systems, greenhouses, and other inputs reflects and in turn reproduces illustrates power relations. Indeed, the owner of inputs is able to exert control over the workforce and profit. In the case of Solutions Farms, for example, the company owns the machinery and tools that make the aquaponic operation hum and the workers trade their labor for a wage, housing, and job training in a production facility. However, low-wage job skills and subsidized housing may not be enough to lift adults out of poverty in the long-run and the company will ultimately reap the benefits of the increased productive capacities of the aquaponics technologies, reinforcing the inequality. Solutions Farms, nonetheless, funnels its profits back into the Solutions for Change program: “All revenue generated by our social enterprise is invested into programs that are transforming lives and communities” of homeless families . Still, workers are unable to realize the full value of their production. Mt. Hope Community Garden practices communal ownership of garden inputs which removes top-down power dynamics and is consistent with their participatory model. Yet, perhaps because of the collective nature of ownership, the amount of capital shared is limited to a few tools and minimal garden infrastructure.Land is an undoubtedly important aspect of urban farming; however, it is increasingly expensive in urban areas, making access to land one of the most significant barriers to urban agriculture. Since the 2008 housing crisis, housing prices in San Diego County have steadily increased, with the median prices of single detached homes going from a low of $326,832 in March 2009 to almost $650,000 ten years later . This incredible rise in property values creates vulnerability for neighborhoods like Southeastern San Diego and projects like Mt. Hope Community Garden. Pascale Joassart Marcelli, Co-Chair of the Urban Studies program at San Diego State University and Project New Village collaborator, explains, “As long as the neighborhood is not really highly valued by real estate standards, then yes, the land is going to be available … [to] be used by a community organization… but the minute that there’s a more valuable use for that piece of land, whether it’s owned by the city or owned by a private owner, the incentives change … and they might want to do something else with it.” Indeed, it is common for governments to allow urban gardening on city properties since it is often preferable to a vacant lot; however, as property values rise, the highest and best use based on exchange value almost always wins and community gardens are displaced because they cannot pay market value . This process was poignantly illustrated by the experience of the South-Central farm in Los Angeles, whose eviction process has been depicted in the films.