Will Allen: CEO Growing Power Star

 

Mr. Will Allen is:

  • The founder of Growing Power
  • A 2008 MacArthur Fellow: Allen received a $500,000 unrestricted genius award. The MacArthur Foundation cited his practical solution to inner-city hunger as the reason he was chosen for the award.

BACKGROUND

Will Allen was born in Rockville, Maryland. He earned a basketball scholarship and became a professional basketball player at the University of Miami for years before starting a career in marketing. His marketing career lasted a decade after which he volunteered to assist neighborhood kids with their organic gardening project. It was around that time that he then decided to bring affordable healthy food to underserved, urban populations.

In 1993, Allen began with a farm and a farm stand and by 1995 he had created Farm City Link, an experimental agriculture operation in a large greenhouse in central Milwaukee. He used the money he got to renovate the structures and invited youths to come and learn agricultural skills. Today, 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 has expanded his vision that now includes Farm City Rainbow Farmers Cooperative, a marketing arm of more than 300 small farmers. 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. At 56, Allen believes one of his leadership challenges is to nurture the next generation of leaders.

  Will Allen fishing for tilapia by cpentecost via flickr

 

"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."

"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."

GROWING POWER

There is a revolution happening in the farms and dining tables everywhere around the world. Communities are desperately becoming aware of the dangers of genetically engineered foods. Growing Power offers a healthier substitute for the unlabeled, patented, and genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled our grocery store shelves.

Growing Power, Inc. is a nonprofit organization that supports the development and sustainability of community-based food systems, farmers markets, community gardens, school-based gardening, and agricultural projects usually done by using cheap, replicable, and innovative techniques that staffers develop themselves. The organization offers practical training and technical assistance in sustainable agricultural methods that can be practiced in urban or rural settings. A mission of Growing Power is to help provide equal access to healthy, high-quality, safe, and affordable food for support groups and individuals from different backgrounds.

  Photo by Rutherford H. Platt
 

Growing Power's Unique Practices

  1. Aquaculture: This is the symbiotic cultivation of plants and aquatic animals in a re-circulating system.
  2. Bees: European honey bees are used to better crop production and to produce honey and wax to create beauty products such as lip balm, soap, scrubs, and candles.
  3. Composting: Growing Power uses compost made with coffee grinds and recycled food, farm, and brewery waste.
  4. Livestock: Includes fish, worms, chickens, ducks and goats.
  5. Vermicomposting: Is the use of earthworms or red worms to turn organic wastes into very high quality compost. At Growing Power, worms are used to create a nutrient-rich, organic fertilizer and soil conditioner used on growing beds and as a value-added product that is sold. According to Growing Power, benefits of vermicomposting include:
    • Improving soil's physical structure
    • Improving water holding capacity
    • Enriching soil in micro-organisms, adding plant hormones such as auxins and gibberellic acid, and adding enzymes such as phosphatase and cellulase
    • Attracting deep-burrowing earthworms already present in the soil
    • Enhancing germination, plant growth, and crop yield
    • Improving root growth and structure.
  6. Growing power also offers workshops, internships, youth education, outreach projects, and tours around its farms.

Please visit www.growingpower.org for more information.

References
Information Liberation. (2006, March 26). The future of food. Retrieved November 11, 2009.

Institute for Sustainable Communities. (2009). Growing food, harvesting community. 2005 Award Recipients. Retrieved November 11, 2009.

Johanes, A. S. (2009). Fresh. Retrieved November 11, 2009.

Journey to Forever. (n.d.). Vermicomposting. Retrieved November 11, 2009.

McGirt, E. (2009). Will Allen. 100 Most Creative People in Business. Fast Company. Retrieved November 11, 2009.

Nelson, R. (2004). Growing power. Aquaponics Journal. Retrieved November 11, 2009.

Royte, E. (2009, July 1). Street farmer. New York Times Magazine. Retrieved November 11, 2009.

By Edwin Arisi, Graduate Assistant
and Marilyn Simpson-Johnson, LGSW
Extension Family Welfare Specialist

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