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A simple search of "community growing" into your choice of search engine will come up with hundreds of thousands of search results. In fact, mine came back with 1.340,000,000 results. Amazing. I bet this was not the case 10 years ago, however.
Why is this though? It may be a combination of factors. A big one being advances in research, for example we now know that we should be eating good, healthy food, regularly, as this is important for just about all aspects of our health. The government recommends this, but where community growing comes in, particularly community produce growing, is our fruit and vegetable consumption.
Unfortunately, access to fruit and vegetables is not always possible. Lots of factors are at play, known as the Social Determinants of Health, something I talk about in a previous blog. It is therefore great that many community growing projects are popping up all over the UK. These projects offer access to healthy, fresh, locally grown fruit and vegetables for people from that local community, breaking down disparity, inequality and poor diet consumption.
There's more though. As already discussed, this community growing involvement and participation has even greater benefits for those involved. Looking again at government recommendations on physical activity, community growing is a form of gardening. Getting involved in these projects means the volunteers can benefit from the end product, fresh fruit and vegetables, but also the ongoing benefit of exercise and social integration. The Scottish Government published a comprehensive list of the benefits which you can read through here via the Edible Estates website.
A paper by Glasow University called Glasgow's Community Garden: Sustainable Communities of Care, really highlighted why community growing projects are having massive impacts, in this quote by one of the locals:
“I decided instead of sitting in the house all day, the garden would get me out and about. It gives me something to do… Me being epileptic as well, it [the garden] helps bring down my stress levels with having something on my mind […] I was in a bad way, drugs and stuff – working the gardens has saved my life” (Volunteer, April 2014).
The resource that I like to use is from Social Farms and Gardens and talks us through Physical Health benefits, the Mental Health and Wellbeing benefits Educational and Behavioural benefits as well as the Social benefits of Community Growing and Green Spaces. Check it out here.
Further resources if you would like to find out more about the impact community growing has on locals and their life: