Socio-cultural and Economic Functions of Allotment Gardens
The Office International du Coin de Terre et des Jardins Familiaux, a Luxembourg-based organization representing three million European allotment gardeners since 1926, describes the socio-cultural and economic functions of allotment gardens as follows:
- for the community a better quality of urban life through the reduction of noise, the binding of dust, the establishment of open green spaces in densely populated areas;
- for the environment the conservation of biotopes and the creation of linked biotopes;
- for families a meaningful leisure activity and the personal experience of sowing, growing, cultivating and harvesting healthy vegetables amidst high-rise buildings and the concrete jungle;
- for children and adolescents a place to play, communicate and to discover nature and its wonders;
- for working people relaxation from the stress of work;
- for the unemployed the feeling of being useful and not excluded as well as a supply of fresh vegetables at minimum cost;
- for immigrant families a possibility of communication and better integration in their host country;
- for disabled persons a place enabling them to participate in social life, to establish contacts and overcome loneliness;
- for senior citizens a place of communication with persons having the same interests as well as an opportunity of self-fulfillment during the period of retirement.
Read more about this topic: Allotment (gardening)
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