The San Francisco Giants just announced plans to open a 3,000 square foot edible garden behind the center-field wall at AT&T Park. The edible garden is the first of its kind; no other professional sports venue in the U.S. can boast that it too sprouts green beans, radishes and cucumbers for the delight of its fans. There are many reasons why the garden is exceptional and exciting, but perhaps the most salient is that it’s an important example of making food visible, of bringing food back to the city center. But, at the same time, what’s stopping it from being nothing more than just a glorified community garden?
It goes like this: back in the day, food used to be central to the city. Public Markets were a central feature of many cities in the 19th Century. But then came along the City Beautiful movement in the early 1900s and things started to change. Markets were, well, not beautiful and the theory went that there was no room for these “dirty entities” within the modern version of the city. And so food (and food distribution) started to take a back seat, a trend that has only continued. Take for example the many subdivisions that encroach on farmland, or the fact that gardens are typically hidden in backyards. We don’t see food, or the growing of food, anymore. Zoning policies are in part responsible for this hidden-food trend: front yard gardens are illegal in many communities, for example, and so are farmers markets and urban agriculture; zoning policies have had to change—through what are often contentious battles—for these visible food endeavors to legally take place.
But now we have a community garden in a very, very public space: a ballpark. AT&T Park had vacant land and opted to fill it in, not with more luxury suits or a high-end restaurant, but with kale, lettuce and tomatoes. Is this the “highest and best use” of the land? Not necessarily. But food can be an economic driver and it’s exciting to see food being considered in this way.
The utility of the garden as a “teachable moment” cannot be underestimated. 81 games—at least—will be played at the ballpark. The garden could have incredible TV exposure. If we want a sustainable food system—one that promotes and prizes eating local, sustainable food—and if we want to encourage eating more fruits and vegetables, there is real value in simply seeing Real Food grow and of including Real Food in the “it’s as American as baseball and apple pie” storyline. There really is no better place to feature an community garden than a stadium: it’s a place where all walks of life visit and where the last thing we associate with home runs are cherry tomatoes.
But we have to be quick to not let the story end there. Ultimately, if we want to get good food to good people we have to think about food distribution; we have to think about impacting the supply chain. Getting a peach from a local community garden or a small or medium farm to a supermarket is difficult. It either means linking up with the big name distributors of the world, like Sysco, which can be costly and problematic for a host of reasons, or forgoing the endeavor altogether. But scaling up is key part of moving local and sustainable food from just a fad to a driver in the marketplace. Food Hubs, however, are starting to fill this space, working to develop alternative supply chains so local and smaller farmers can actually get their goods to grocery stores.
Giants’ Garden provides a “teachable moment,” but it can do more—it can move the food dialog even further. What if stadium vendors are required to source a percentage of their produce from the Garden (or other nearby gardens or smaller farms?) Or if it linked to a local farm to buy their goods? Or if produce from the farm was sold at corner stores in food deserts? Giant’s Garden could be a glorified community garden or it could further the food dialog. It’s only the first inning, but with a little bit of hard work, a homerun is definitely possible.
Photo illustration courtesy of EDG Design Group
