Mission

Greener Acres builds infrastructure that catalyzes and continually supports sustainable community development, based on local food systems and green technologies.

Vision

We believe that food has the power to sustain a city.

Just as food can nourish the individual’s body and soul, so we believe that it can nourish the neighborhoods that individuals inhabit, and in turn the city that these neighborhoods form.

The key to understanding how food can sustain a city is to understand food as more than a commodity. Food is not a product. Food is a seasonal, cyclical system that creates connections between people, and between people and their environment.

Elements of this food system that happen in and around cities are collectively referred to as ‘urban agriculture’. As late as the turn of the millennium, formal support for urban agriculture was virtually unknown in cities in North America. This was understandable. Since the Industrial Revolution the developed world has thought of the food as a fundamentally rural concern. The recent groundswell of popular support for community gardens and farmers’ markets has been largely responsible for bringing the issue of food to the table of urban planning departments.

At the same time, planning departments continue to assist urban neighborhoods in their quest to differentiate themselves within their metropolitan region. A unique identity that is allied with environmental stewardship is recognized as the foundation of sustainable economic and social growth in an urban community.

These two areas of planning concern can be powerfully and logically aligned.

We envision the systematic creation of infrastructure for local food systems as a powerful planning tool that improves the social, economic and environmental health of communities. We work community-by-community to create an interconnected, vibrant, and sustainable metropolitan area.

Method

Greener Acres works through an innovative framework that is replicable, scalable, and adaptable to different economic, social, and cultural contexts. Our method can be characterized by the following process:

1. Select community
2. Plan
3. Implement
4. Evaluate
5. Improve
6. Establish franchise(s)
7. Repeat

By repeating this process, Greener Acres assembles a body of knowledge that advances the practice of localization and sustainable community development. We work openly, collaboratively, and in parallel, freely sharing information amongst ourselves and with all other individuals and groups committed to this agenda. We also lead by example by working ‘net zero’ in terms of energy consumption and carbon footprint.