Growing Power is an urban agriculture organization headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It runs the last functional farm within the Milwaukee city limits and also maintains an active office in Chicago. Growing Power aims for sustainable food production, as well as the growth of communities through the creation of local gardens and Community Food Systems. They implement their mission by providing hands-on training, on-the-ground demonstration, outreach and technical assistance.
Its facilities include seven large greenhouses, a kitchen, indoor and outdoor training gardens, aquaculture system and a food distribution facility. Fish, worms, bees, goats, chickens, turkeys, and ducks are also raised there. Growing Power conducts workshops and demonstrations in aquaculture, aquaponics, vermiculture, horticulture, small or large-scale composting, soil reclamation, food distribution, beekeeping, and marketing. It also runs numerous collaborative projects and training projects, including a partnership with the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee to train city youth in gardening, in addition to hosting interns year-round.
The farm grows a wide variety of fruit and vegetables, and also farms tilapia and perch through the use of aquaponics. Thousands of people tour the facilities every year.
Growing Power was started by Will Allen, who bought the Milwaukee farm in 1993. Allen, a former professional basketball player, grew up on a farm in Maryland. In 2008, he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" for his work on urban farming, sustainable food production and with Growing Power.
Famous quotes containing the words growing and/or power:
“If we ever feel discouraged by the apparent constraints on humanity, about its lack of elbowroom and freedom of action, we should think of the Jews and the Greeks, insignificant, powerless, and tiny in the age of the dinosaur empires, yet providing the growing points for the next stage in human destiny.”
—Barbara Ward (1914–1981)
“The triumphs of peace have been in some proximity to war. Whilst the hand was still familiar with the sword-hilt, whilst the habits of the camp were still visible in the port and complexion of the gentleman, his intellectual power culminated; the compression and tension of these stern conditions is a training for the finest and softest arts, and can rarely be compensated in tranquil times, except by some analogous vigor drawn from occupations as hardy as war.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)