Great Idea Club

We had a wonderful Idea Club at Sustainable Path on Monday discussing Sustainable Urban Farms. It was very well attended with a lot of people who have a strong background in urban farms, as well as many who simply grow their own vegatables. The conversation was particularly wide-ranging, covering food in people’s backyards to growing agriculture in buildings.

The expertise and interest was dazzling, as was a recognition of the problems to be faced. It was a real joy to watch a roomful of strangers come together for an intense dialogue about a difficult problem. It exemplified the systems thinking approach that Sustainable Path Foundation is attempting to foster.

But Idea Club can do more than simply foster discussions. We can connect people with actions in order to solve problems.

For example, one wonderful suggestion that came out of the discussion was to use public library space to demonstrate the possibilities for urban farming. Not only does the downtown Seattle Public Library have some space that could be devoted to growing crops but many other local libraries have space covered in lawns that could be more usefully devoted to urban agriculture. People would see the possibilities every time they visited the library and the costs could be supported by the food grown. Several people are going to talk with their local library about this.

A major difficulty we found from Monday’s conversation derived from the very large group of people who work on different aspects of this topic: Seattle Tilth, Master Gardeners, green businesses such as Cascadian Edible Landscapes, policy makers, individual homeowners, school districts, politicians, libraries, garden clubs and many more. But they very seldom have an arena to get together, discuss the problem and examine possible solutions, like we did on Monday. They remain in silos that hamper communication and innovative solutions.

The Idea Club attendees wanted an organization that supported communications BETWEEN these groups. Something like Idea Club but purely focussed on this single topic.

There were a couple of organizations suggested, so perhaps the silos will be more easily pierced and innovative ideas can find fertile ground. In the meantime, we are going to see what can be done to continue discussions like this. It was not only enlightening and purposeful but a lot of fun. If you’d like to help Sustainable Path convene groups on innovative ideas or connect creativity with action, let us know.

One Response to “Great Idea Club”

1. Matt Copeland Says:
   September 15th, 2009 at 6:32 pm

   found a report on Seattle Urban Agriculture Policies & Barriers, written by students in UW’s Environmental Law & Regulation program. here’s the URL:

   http://www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/ppatch/pubs/Urban%20Agriculture%20in%20Seattle%20Policy%20and%20Barriers.pdf

   There was an inspiring amount of enthusiasm at the meeting, has more been done to continue that discussion online/elsewhere?

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