In Milwaukee, Will Allen is revolutionizing urban agriculture throughout the world.
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In 1993, Will Allen was a farmer who saw that teens in a Milwaukee neighborhood needed employment opportunities and wanted to learn from him. He was operating a farm in nearby Oak Creek, but found a plot of land within the city limits of Milwaukee where he could sell and grow food.
Fresh fruits and vegetables were scarce in the neighborhood, and neighborhood kids wanted to grow their own. Allen put them to work renovating greenhouses and growing food for their community, which grew into a youth education corps still active today.
“What started as a simple partnership to change the landscape of the north side of Milwaukee has blossomed into a national and global commitment to sustainable food systems.”
“We’re only six blocks away from Milwaukee’s largest public housing project,” Allen said. “When people drive by the street and they see the greenhouses on the front, they have no idea that we feed about 10,000 people just from this farm alone.”
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Today, Allen – founder and CEO of Growing Power Inc. – “is recognized as a preeminent practitioner of urban agriculture in America and throughout the world.”
Growing Power now operates farms in Milwaukee, Chicago, and Madison – with plans for an innovative “Vertical Farm,” a 5-story solar-heated building with greenhouses, training areas, retail space, a demonstration kitchen, hydroponic and aquaponic tanks, and more. Since 2013, the program has built school-based and community-based gardens and has even donated tomato plants to Milwaukee day care centers to give children “access to healthy, sustainable food that’s grown without chemicals.”
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In 2008, Allen was awarded a Genius Grant from the John D. and Katherine T. MacArthur Foundation and is currently a member of the Clinton Global Initiative. He directs outreach projects throughout the U.S. and across the globe. In 2010, TIME Magazine named him one of its “100 Most Influential People in the World.”
Allen’s program currently produces more than one million pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables every year using a process called vermicomposting, which uses a special type of soil they create from more than 44 million pounds of food and organic waste from the region surrounding Milwaukee.
Allen was featured on a recent Oprah Soul Sunday. Watch his interview here:
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#67: Alvin Irby, Barbershop Books << 100 Acts of Male Goodness >> #68: Your Chance to Save a Life
Do you have an Act of Male Goodness to share? Or know someone who should be profiled in this series? Email Kristi Dale [email protected] with “100 Acts of Male Goodness” in the subject line.
Photo: Growing Power