Resilience has been highlighted as a key element of sustainable food systems moving forward, and refers to the agri-food system’s ability to cope with shocks and stressors. Many shocks due to climatic effects, such as increased incidence of drought, precipitation changes, increasing temperatures, spread of pests and diseases, and rising sea-level, are projected to increase. Not only are there climate shocks to consider, but also sociopolitical factors, such as the global COVID-19 Pandemic, and the recent Ukrainian occupation, which can pose critical threats to food security on both global and local levels. This raises the question: how can we make our food systems more resilient to shocks?
One possibility where a large knowledge gap still exists is community gardening, and other community supported agricultural initiatives. There are many different ways that communities can produce food, whether through individual allotment plots, community plots, or through relationships with local smallholder farms.
One such community garden utilizing a community grower method is the Santry Community Garden, in County Dublin, which was awarded Green Flag status in 2021, and placed in the Top 10 Green Flag projects worldwide. This community garden operates with a priority list for community members to work on and is open four days per week. When harvesting crops, gardeners get first selection for free, and the surplus is made available for visitors to the garden to take in exchange for a donation.
An example of community supported agricultural enterprise is the Harvest Day company, which works with 26 smallholder Irish farmers and producers to create seasonal organic produce deliveries throughout the country. They also provide seasonal recipes based around specific produce offerings.
Similarly, Grow It Yourself (GIY) is a social enterprise supporting community gardening through grants, selling of seeds and supplies, running programs, and seasonal guides in order to get people growing their own produce. GIY is partnered with several companies in order to run these large scale campaigns to fund growing projects in schools and other community groups.
There are also numerous cooperative farming initiatives that operate under various modes found all around the world, including the likes of Herenboeren in Holland, or the New West Jackson Co-operative Community in the United States.