As a teenager, Taja Sevelle lived on a farm, plowed fields and tapped maple trees. While recording a CD in Detroit, she became acquainted with huge plots of unused land, she immediately imagined long rows of crops – "I imagined part city, part country in Detroit."

The reality of poverty and poor access to healthy produce in the city, combined with Sevelle’s daydream of a hopeful harvest led her to found Urban Farming, an organization that plants food on unused land and space and gives it to people suffering from hunger and food insecurity. "During World War II twenty million Americans planted "Victory Gardens," which grew 40% of the country’s produce supply. Eradicating hunger in our generation can be done," says Sevelle, Urban Farming Executive Director and Founder.

Urban Farming began with 3 gardens in Detroit and that year gave away 1 ton of food. Today, Urban Farming provides fresh produce to an estimated 300,000 people in 30 cities across the country and abroad, including Detroit, New york, Los Angeles and Chicago.

According to Sevelle, "The only way the vision of getting rid of hungr in our generation is possible is by joining hands. One of the most important aspects of Urban Farming is our ‘Win-Win Relationship’ Guiding Principle."

Urban Farming reaches out to community members, businesses, Mayor's offices, churches, synagogues, owners of empty lots, and government agencies to plant gardens on unused city and county lots of land in addition to donated and private lots, walls and rooftops.

"In addition to feeding people, we beautify cities;" says Sevelle, "lower crime and attract developers. We like to say that we are a moveable feast – if a developer is willing to develop the land, we will move the garden, or work with the developer to create Edible walls, Edible Rooftops or Edible Landscaping – which can cut down on rain water runoff in urban areas as well as lower the urban heat index. Additionally, Edible Walls and Rooftops can cut down on 60% of the host building's heating and cooling bills. We constantly seek solutions that create Win-Win scenarios." With the help of Green Living Solutions, Urban Farming is the first organization to install edible walls in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles and in Harlem.

Urban Farming has also reached out to K-12 school systems, working with science, math and art teachers to engage students in Urban Farming.

"Some students are reluctant to get their hands dirty, but we encourage them to try it. They start with one tomato plant, and inevitably, they want to plant another, planting and growing food is a universally addicting experience. Soon, that reluctant student will have planted a whole row of tomatoes," Sevelle said.

Urban Farming measures results by the number of plants in each garden, and the weight of produce distributed to neighboring food banks. The Urban Farming Community Gardens are “borderless” for the surrounding residents whether they worked on the gardens or not, meaning community members are able to pick food at no cost, which seasonally includes, bell peppers, hot peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, tomatillos, strawberries, spinach, parsley, lettuce, chard, leeks, edible lavender and a variety of herbs.

Igniting the rebirth of locally homegrown food,Urban Farming is as they like to say, "taking Motown to Growtown."

For more information, please contact:

(877) 679-8300 or (313) 664-0615
info@urbanfarming.org

Look out the window. Literally. You know how painters are traditionally taught painting? The teacher places a flower vase, which looks deceptively simple to paint, on the table and tells the youngster to paint the vase. The teacher comes and looks at it and says turn around, bend down, look at what you have painted upside down through your legs. That is the traditional way to teach to see.

So look at our assumptions about technology or markets-suppose the opposite were true. Is there any evidence? Challenge your assumptions. This is basically looking at the vase upside down. Make yourself capable of doing this by building organized abandonment into your system. By asking yourself every few years, If we weren’t doing what we now do, would we want to start doing it? And if the answer is “probably not,” then maybe it isn’t the right thing to do anymore. This is not very difficult. It’s a habit more than a skill. But it’s a habit you have to practice.

Subscribe to Leader to Leader

The Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University is a think tank and action tank whose purpose is to stimulate effective management and ethical leadership across all sectors of society. It does this, in large part, by advancing the ideas and ideals of Peter F. Drucker, the father of modern management.

“The purpose of the annual Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation is to find the innovators, whether small or large; to recognize and celebrate their example; and to inspire others.” This year, the first place prize is $100,000. For more information about the Drucker Award, please visit the Institute website at druckerinstitute.com. For questions regarding the application or award process, please contact award@druckerinstitute.com.