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:
“Listening to learn isn’t about giving advice—at least not until asked—but about trying to understand exactly what someone means, how it is that someone looks at and feels about her particular situation.... Listening to learn from a daughter in adolescence, conspiring with her thoughts and feelings, keeps a mother in touch with a daughter’s growing and changing self.”
—Elizabeth Debold (20th century)
“Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. The power of invention has been conferred by nature upon few, and the labour of learning those sciences which may, by mere labour, be obtained, is too great to be willingly endured; but every man can exert some judgment as he has upon the works of others; and he whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of critic.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)