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)
Famous quotes containing the words economic, functions, allotment and/or gardens:
“A society which is clamoring for choice, which is filled with many articulate groups, each urging its own brand of salvation, its own variety of economic philosophy, will give each new generation no peace until all have chosen or gone under, unable to bear the conditions of choice. The stress is in our civilization.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“The English masses are lovable: they are kind, decent, tolerant, practical and not stupid. The tragedy is that there are too many of them, and that they are aimless, having outgrown the servile functions for which they were encouraged to multiply. One day these huge crowds will have to seize power because there will be nothing else for them to do, and yet they neither demand power nor are ready to make use of it; they will learn only to be bored in a new way.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)
“Now I hold Creation in my foot
Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly—
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads—
The allotment of death.”
—Ted Hughes (b. 1930)
“Typical of Iowa towns, whether they have 200 or 20,000 inhabitants, is the church supper, often utilized to raise money for paying off church debts. The older and more conservative members argue that the “House of the Lord” should not be made into a restaurant; nevertheless, all members contribute time and effort, and the products of their gardens and larders.”
—For the State of Iowa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)