Friends of community gardens need to raise a crop of ruckus about funding cuts

By MIKE HENDRICKS
The Kansas City Star

A year ago, City Hall was urging Kansas City Community Gardens Executive Director Ben Sharda to convert more weed-choked urban land to food production.

Now, the same bureaucracy threatens to ax the subsidy that for 25 years has helped keep the nonprofit group afloat.

“The ironic thing,” says Sharda, “is that Cauthen was talking about more community gardens on vacant lots that the city has to mow.”

Of course, former City Manager Wayne Cauthen is no longer calling the shots. And judging by pending staff budget recommendations, no longer is it a city priority to help poor and low-income people grow their own food.

Which is why there should be a crowd of angry gardeners at today’s Housing Committee meeting. Sharda asked for a show of support in hopes of restoring what amounts to more than 10 percent of his budget.

Among those planning to testify is City Councilwoman Beth Gottstein, who argues that her council colleagues should reject the staff’s short-sighted recommendation.

“Every other city of our size or bigger is doing everything it can to nourish its urban gardens and urban farmers,” Gottstein said.

What with the lousy economy, public interest is on the rise. While promoting our vegetable gardening how-to book at home and garden shows last month, my wife and I heard people say over and over that while they wanted to grow their own food, they couldn’t garden at home for one reason or another.

Why not a community garden? That was our suggestion. They’re sprouting all over town, and one reason for that is Sharda’s organization.

Besides providing garden space on properties it owns or controls, KCCG helps others start group gardens.

Unfortunately, the same forces sparking demand have taken a toll on the group’s finances. Kansas City Community Gardens’ main benefactors — charitable groups and foundations — have less to give.

“We went in the hole big time last year,” Sharda said.

Meaning that city funding is more important than ever. It amounted to $39,000 last year, Sharda said. Among other things, it pays to rototill gardens in some of the poorer parts of town.

What’s odd is that the pot of federal money that the city funding came from is even larger this year than last.

So why did city staff cut Kansas City Community Gardens entirely from its budget?

Housing and Community Development Director Shirley Winn refused to discuss it when I put the question to her Tuesday.

Maybe the folks attending today’s meeting will have better luck getting an explanation.

Foes, backers of urban gardening dig in

By DONALD BRADLEY
The Kansas City Star

Sure, it’s tomatoes and cucumbers now, but what’s next — straw hats and funnel cakes?

That’s a chief reason that Center Planning and Development, an umbrella group of south Kansas City neighborhood groups, is coming out hard against the city’s urban agriculture plan.

The group’s leadership wants it known they do not oppose the basic idea of homeowners growing fruits and vegetables for home and even commercial use. But they say the current proposal, which will be discussed Wednesday by the City Council, is far too loose in what it allows.

They don’t want residents to peddle produce in their front yards. Grow it, fine, then take it to a farmers market, Center Planning board member Stacey Johnson-Cosby said Monday.

“This wouldn’t stop someone from putting up a big tent in their front yard and selling T-shirts,” Johnson-Cosby said.

Katherine Kelly, executive director of the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture, takes a more grassroots perspective.

She believes much of the opposition comes from more upscale neighborhoods with modern supermarkets and where residents have cars.

“They talk about excessive traffic coming into their communities. Well, that sounds good to people elsewhere,” Kelly said today.

Kelly defended the plan, saying that many parts of Kansas City do not offer access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Urban agriculture could change that.

But she did say that amendments to the ordinance probably would address some chief concerns.

The City Plan Commission endorsed the proposal last month. Councilman John Sharp, who represents the Southland’s 6th District, is a strong advocate of urban agriculture.

Supporters say final approval would transform vacant lots and backyards into community gardens for healthier eating and, in some cases, profit.

According to the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture, the new practice would turn “unused, vacant and unsightly spaces into productive use as an integral part of a beautiful, lively and healthy neighborhood.”

Supporters point to Detroit and Milwaukee as cities out front in the movement.

But opponents say those cities aimed the gardening mainly at vacant lots and blighted areas. They content Kansas City’s proposal could threaten neighborhood integrity by allowing front-yard vending at all hours.

“This is about quality of life and property values,” said Johnson-Cosby, who is also a real estate agent.

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Posted on Wed, Apr. 21, 2010

Rosedale is fertile for urban gardening

By MARY SANCHEZ
The Kansas City Star

Kansas City’s council members might want to peer westward as they hash out ordinance changes making it easier for urban gardeners to share their bounty.

Look across the state line, over Rosedale way, for a sprouting (pun intended) example of what’s possible.

The one consistent pitch in the discussion is that changing the city’s ordinance would promote healthier eating in the lower-income neighborhoods saddled with higher rates of obesity and all the health complications, too.

Advocates envision taking what the urban core has in abundance — vacant lots — and partnering the space with gardeners eager to till, plant and harvest the new “back 40.”

As one speaker before a city panel yesterday noted: It is not so much that urban areas are “food deserts,” but rather are “food swamps” sinking with poor health choices.

Try finding a Whole Foods quality grocery on the East Side and people will rightly look at you as if you have a hole in the head. But fast food is sure plentiful, along with corner markets offering sugar- and sodium-laden products.

Enter Rosedale, a community with few sidewalks and no major grocery, but 25 churches within four square miles. There, a healthy movement has been pieced together through church involvement, grants, volunteers and ingenuity. Nine community gardens will grow this summer.

A Sunday farmers market will open May 16 and veggie vendors will include locals, a Johnson County synagogue and a Liberty church.

A grant by the Menorah Legacy Foundation will allow people with Vision Cards, the state food assistance program, to double their funds by shopping at the farmers market. Fruit trees are being planted in Rosedale, and one church has a weekly meeting for kids to pick, cook and learn about fresh food.

Meanwhile, Kansas City is essentially deciding how to regulate people selling what they grow. One person’s residential tranquility could be threatened by cucumber-seeking crowds. Some urban gardening enthusiasts, however, find that tranquility boring and want to share their crops. The council’s more hesitant members are right to insist on restraints on signage advertising produce for sale, hours of operation, etc.

The Unified Government still has some tweaking to do on its gardening laws, and gardeners are watching Kansas City. As the area’s overarching governmental entity, the tone Kansas City sets can matter to surrounding towns.

Right now, urban agriculture is a blooming health fad. But it could wither if not engrained into social norms by ordinance, examples and nonstop promotion.

What’s needed is a little socially engineered cultivating, if you will.