The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People,… (2024)

This is an inspiring and progressive look at urban gardening and farming. Will Allen bought some abandoned greenhouses in Milwaukee and over time, he turned them into a massive food-growing operation. He grows fruit and vegetables, he composts, and he even figured out a way to raise fish.

His mission was to provide healthier food options for the urban poor:

"In inner-city communities throughout the United States, it is easier — and often less expensive — to buy a Twinkie or frosted cupcakes or a box of fried chicken than fresh vegetables or fruits. Our current generation of young people rarely eat fresh foods, don't know how to prepare them, and in many cases, can't even identify them. They have become entirely dependent on a food system that is harming them."

Allen shares his family story and the stories of some of his coworkers. This is a moving and inspiring book, and it points out some serious problems in our culture and society. Allen has worked hard to be involved in the community and to teach as many people as he can about ways to grow healthy food.

"Food should be a cause for celebration, something that should bring people together. The work of my adult life has been to heal the rift in our food system and to create alternative ways of growing and distributing fresh food. My return to farming was a kind of homecoming. As a young man, I felt ashamed of my parents' sharecropping past. I didn't like the work of planting and harvesting that I was made to do as a child. I thought it was hard and offered little reward. I fought my family's history. Yet the desire to farm hid inside me."

I recommend this book to anyone interested in urban gardening or our agricultural system.

Being a middle-class white guy, I haven't had to spend much time thinking about the history of race and food in America. Will Allen, the son of African American sharecroppers, has spent a lot of time thinking about it. His thinking and actions have landed him a MacArthur Genius award for his work to bring good food and good jobs to those confronting the "lingering disparities in racial and economic justice." Using highly intensive growing techniques (composting, vermiculture, aquaculture, etc.) in an urban landscape, Allen is able to crank out significant quantities of high quality food right where it is needed -- in economically depressed urban areas.

Prognosis: Every town in America needs a Will Allen.

p.35 "I believe that this quality of 'grit', the ability to withstand setbacks and disappointments, is more important to teach children than any facts we can cram into their heads."

p.63 "We all need a healthy environment and a community that lets us fulfill out potential."

p.73 "The benefits of the hard work that you do now may not be felt for a very long time. But if you plant seeds and continue to tend to them - and keep faith in the harvest - good things can come."

p.111 "... this experience should teach them that hard work brings rewards, though the payoff can often be a long time coming."

p.121 "The worms taught me, I couldn't expect to put them in a box with inadequate resources and have them do well. They required husbandry, ... The worms also made me reflect again on what it took to improve the lives of people. You couldn't place folks in the middle of a blighted neighborhood - without a strong family unit and without easy access to healthy food - and expect them to thrive. If you could create an environment in which people felt secure and healthy, though, you could provide the possibility of a better life."

p.129 "I know from experience that it helps to make a good plan before you launch into any project. Don't spend so much time on your plan, however, that you never get around to doing something. As Teddy Roosevelt once pointed out, it is better to be the man or woman in the arena - the one whose 'face is marred by dust and sweat and blood' - than it is to be a person who just talks about doing things. Be a person of action."

p.164 "When worms finished digesting the compost in a bin, I laid a sixteenth-inch mesh screen on top of the pile and placed pre-composted bananas or other recently fresh food on the top of the screen. More than three-quarters of the worms in the bin would routinely crawl up through the screen to eat the new food source. I then transplanted the harvested worms to other compost bins, where they could begin the months-long process of reproducing and eating their way through another pile. When people asked me how many staff members I had, I started saying that I had millions. I explained that my red wigglers were my hardest working employees, and that they never talked back to me."

p. 207 "As parents, we often want to protect our children from challenges. Yet it can be precisely in those moments when a child faces and overcomes difficulties - when he tries and fails, but survives and tries again - that character is formed."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TygoJA...

I read this book because I wanted to learn how Will Allen urban farms, and while I did learn that, this book offered me something of much more value: a firsthand and historical perspective of the connection between race and food/farming. Will's personal history combined with historical anecdotes really taught me a LOT about the reasons why parts of the US are still struggling with diet-related health problems and institutional racism within food systems.

I also really liked the writing in The Good Food Revolution. I think I was expecting a sort of manual, but in addition to a much needed history/awareness lesson, Allen also includes a lot of autobiographical details and personal experiences--specifically of one of his long-time employees Karen and her son. At first I wondered why a book about farming would spend so much time talking about the trauma of other people, until I realized that The Good Food Revolution is all about impacting these sorts of communities and individuals. When everything came together in the book for Growing Power it really did seem like a revolution, because look at all those lives it changed! These stories make Allen's success all the more important and meaningful.

Besides teaching me a lot of new things about urban farming methods in disadvantaged communities, The Good Food Revolution left me with a whole lot of inspiration and motivation to do something myself. It's one of my dreams to be able to work in urban farming specifically targeting communities that don't have access to nutritional food (or even healthy living situations), and I'm so glad people like Will Allen have paved the way for that sort of work. A great read!

We had to read this book for school and it was interesting except for any part about food. I was very interested in learning about his basketball career, the issues of marry his wife because of his race, his cancer, the fire, etc, but any part about his farm I honestly couldn't have found more boring. I like the idea he has. Every community should have access to fresh food, I 100% agree with that. I just don't want to read about it.

"The Good Food Revolution" is a about former pro basketball player, Will Allen, who abandoned the corporate life and committed himself to creating urban farm centers across the country to people the value of locally grown food to healing our environment, improving our nutrition, creating economic opportunity and healing one another. Allen explores how USDA engineered corporate farming who uses harmful fertilizers and pesticides. Corporate farmers also drove the small farmer out of business. Allen takes us on his journey which began on a farm, evolving to basketball, then an executive with Proctor and Gamble and KFC to deciding he wanted to return to his roots: farming; not just for himself, but to eventually counter the political-economic trends of USDA-engineered corporate farming, which also depletes the soil and nutritional content of produce, combined with the main grocers abandoning Black and poor communities and fast food industry targeting Black and poor communities, leaving them with little- to-no opportunities for fresh produce. He pioneered ways of replenishing the soil, recycling waste food from restaurants to create compost, and other innovative farming techniques to help heal local people he hired, as he drove and inspired a movement of small, local, urban farming across the nation.

In short, this book is a great inspiration. A combination of Will Allen's family history and his urban farming revolution, this book will inspire you to rethink what you're eating, who is growing it, and how you can help the food revolution Will began. I loved reading it and I really hope this book takes off!

He defies adversity and takes a gamble on a feeling in his soul that healthy fresh food should be for everyone, especially those who live in low income urban environments and growing healthy fresh food should be an economically viable, profitable business. He explores numerous paths to get to his goal (growing in greenhouses, worms!!, incorporating fish farming, lowering energy costs by using self-sustaining heating methods, introducing sprouts, which are high in vitamin D, into the wintertime inventory, and on and on!). He shares all of the knowledge he's gained farming and is actively training others to do just what he's done to change the American culture and to improve the health of our bodies and communities.

I would love to see his farm in Milwaukee sometime!

At one point, while describing a friend and employee Will Allen writes:

"She wants me to tell her story now.
'Don't pretty it up,' she said.
Sometimes on the sidewalks of Milwaukee, there will be a flower or a tall weed sticking defiantly out of the tiniest crack in the concrete. I realize that human lives can be like that. People find a way to persist even when they are provided the narrowest possibility."

Allen tells the story of persistence, whether it be in the people he knows and lives and works with or in the ambitious mission he began in the early 1990s when he set out to bring agriculture to the urban desert. The development of his project, Growing Power, is inspiring. with the amount of unhappy environmental news we hear daily, it is good to hear about such persistence and success.

Wow. Will Allen is a game changer. Looking for an inspirational book? This is the book for you. Instead of hoping to change the food system, Will Allen changed it for many small inner-city communities...and it all started with a dream that he could do it. Believe in yourself and others will believe too is the main theme in this book. The work he does is amazing. If you're interested in eating locally, eating organically, or eating economically, if you like "foodie" books, if you like memoirs about people who make a difference, this should be the next on your list to read. I loved it. I felt inspired by it. He is an awesome, awesome man.

Will Allen is a farmer and a retired basketball player from Wisconsin. He bought some greenhouses in 1993 to (make money and) provide some fresh food to a part of Milwaukee where there was a grocery black hole, and nothing fresh. This book follows his journeys from before getting the greenhouses to growing with the greenhouses. The stories of Will's family (who were farmers in the South) and the friends he works with. Way more than just what the title promised...
Makes me want to get my hands dirty (with compost and soil, and grow more of my own food).

I love what Will Allen did and what he's doing through Growing Power. He gives a lot of great advice and has a strong focus toward helping people emulate his success. My one hangup was that he was essentially given a 100-acre farm with accompanying house from his mother-in-law to start him off. He also didn't come from the urban environment he's trying to help which adds an interesting dynamic to me. That being said, he has had amazing and tangible positive effects on the lives of many people and his book is a feel-good rallying cry.

This book was required to read for the incoming first years for OSU. As a staff member, I was also required to read this book. Overall, the message was inspiring and it was wonderful to see what Alan achieved from where he started.

Sometimes throughout the book I found myself becoming uninterested with the micro details about others lives, but overall I was able to absorb the message.

It was not something that I would have picked up off the shelf on my own, but I am glad I have read The Good Food Revolution: Growing.

4.5. Will Allen is a visionary, and this book is inspiring. A nice blend of his background, interesting and alarming facts about farming in the U.S., and touching stories about the lives of people who are a part of the "good food revolution."

Is this a bad book? No
Did I enjoy it? Not particularly

The Good Food Revolution serves its purpose. It also has it’s audience, if you are interested in urban agriculture this is a book for you. I however, am not a part of that audience. I am all for sustainability and having access to fresh food. With that being said, there is a time and place for everything and my ENGLISH!!! class is not the time I would chose to learn about compost.

Milwaukee pride! So so educational - historically and scientifically. Excited to be part of this field in the future.

An inspiring story. Allen's journey keeps me moving towards my own garden and plant based life. This story reminds us how far removed we are from the earth, natural food, and that anything is possible, even a garden in the middle of a city.

This is a powerful and touching account of how a single person can get a community on board to make a vast difference and create a domino effect of “change” throughout the nation. Will Allen, once a sharecropper’s son, takes us through his journey of how he went from a professional basketball player, manager of several KFC chains and a salesman at Proctor and Gamble to return to doing the work he despised as a kid but later in life realized was his passion. Simply written with powerful messages, Will Allen takes us into the landscape of farming and shows us the trials and tribulations that stand in the way of growing fresh produce, which he insists everybody should have access to. He gives us a glimpse into the poorest communities, which the supermarkets have abandoned, and are instead filled with fast food chains, convenient stores and fried chicken stands. He unveils a broken food system and its profound effect on us all, costing us billions of dollars in healthcare costs. But despite all that is wrong, he leaves us with a sense of hope. Will Allen shows us that “A Good Food Revolution” goes beyond just raising, fresh and healthy food. He shows us that food can bring a community together and how growing it ourselves can teach us self discipline and can be used as a "therapeutic" tool in bettering our own lives and those around us. The message that Allen shares with us is promising in that even though there are many ways we can make a difference, we can start right now, today, in our own backyards simply by picking up a shovel and getting our hands a little dirty.

"In order to build a new food system, we're going to need a world without fences. We all have a responsibility to work together. We need everyone at the table. We're going to need black and white. young and old, rich and poor. We're going to need university folks who can study and foster new organic techniques. We're going to need politicians who can help create an easier political environment and public space for a local food system. We need entrepreneurs who can create niche food products and graphic designers who can create packaging. We're going to need planners who design inner-city neighborhoods with the idea of food security in mind. We’re going to need educators and nutritionist who teach people the benefits of healthy food. We're going to need architects who can retrofit old warehouses and greenhouses to the new purpose of growing food. We need contractors. Composters. Dieticians. Not least, we're going to need a new generation of farmers." pg 236

History gives us the stories of influential people who sacrificed all to the better good. I feel like I've witnessed the growth of another icon to add to that list, Will Allen. Allen, the son of sharecroppers, embraced his inner farmer and revitalized a community while teaching us what Urban Farming is all about. His story isn't glam; it's about real life as a child of the 60's, his struggles as a pro basketball player, traveling saleman and a man with a dream. It's the story of the people he met along the way that believed in him and he in them. The inspiration that Allen provides is thought-provoking and heartfelt; he writes, "Every moment and every event of a man's life plants something in his soul." Allen's soul is big, not just in the size of the man, but big in the amount of passion that he brings to his life and those who have had the opportunity to meet him and be a part of his dream. He reminds us that "the benefits of the hard work that you do now may not be felt for a very long time. But if you plant seeds and continue to tend to them -- and keep faith in the harvest -- good things can come." Keep faith in the harvest . . . Allen walked the talk and earned the prestigious MacArthur Genious Award by his eternal faith in the harvest. He continues to inspire others to believe in their dreams and look to the harvest in the pages of this book and the mission of Growing Power.

The book is great for those curious about the Urban Farming trend that is taking our country by storm, those that have a dream of bettering the lives of others, and those that may have lost faith in society. Will Allen, with alot of dirt under his fingernails and alot of sweat equity, shows us that there is hope.

This book combines a bit of memoir, relating Allen's family history with agriculture and the Great Migration, and how he himself got back into farming, with the story of how he started and developed Growing Power, the urban farming nonprofit for which he received a MacArthur genius grant, and which he's now trying to take national.

It's a book that could be inspiring to anyone interested in youthwork, local food, and sustainability, and Allen has a lot to say specifically about farming in an African-American context.

He also weaves in the story of the Parker family--Karen Parker, a hard-working single mom with a difficult life, was one of his first employees, and her family's story is powerful in its own right and also a great case study of Growing Power's community.

There were elements that were just briefly touched on (like the effects of farming on Allen's own family) that I wanted to know more about, but overall I found it an accessible and inspiring book, as well as a fast read. I'd have liked some meatier descriptions of his education programs as well, but I think that might be a different kind of book.

With this one fresh in my mind, I'm planning on re-reading Bill Strickland's Making The Impossible Possible, which tells a similar story of holistic urban revival, but coming from the starting point of the arts.

Living in Madison, I had heard about the work Will Allen was doing for years. I was very excited to read his book and I was not disappointed. What a fascinating tale of his life journey to the work he is doing and his vision for his ideas and dreams to continue past his lifetime.

We recently moved to Craftsbury Common, Vermont, the home of Sterling College, which is small unique college devoted to sustainable agriculture and community.
Sterling is one of only seven Work-Learning-Service colleges in the nation. Those three words - Work-Learning-Service - define how Sterling views the world, how we judge ourselves, and how we wish to be judged by others. All students work on campus, earning a portion of their tuition fees while serving the community.

When asked why they chose Sterling, most students talk about the importance of community. We believe that a strong and supportive community is an essential foundation for sustainability, and we strive to prioritize community in everything we do. The other thing students mention is the superb food - our dining hall serves the most delicious meals you will ever find on a college campus.

In hopes of fostering yet another link in the chain of communities working with reclaiming our food production, we have mentioned Will's book to Sterling and plan to donate a copy to their library.

Will Allen is a very inspiring person. I was only vaguely familiar with his organization, Growing Power, before I read this book. It is really amazing how he has harnessed the power of his community to do such amazing things with community gardens, aquaculture, creating healthy food choices in food deserts, inspiring disadvantaged youth, bridging race and socioeconomic gaps through food and farming, etc. Allen is definitely deserving of the MacArthur genius grant. The book itself is a really quick read, very straightforward, and the writing isn't all that great.

I am really jealous of the amount of compost Growing Power is able to generate. There is a picture of Allen standing on top of this huge pile of compost that just had me green with envy. I'm also curious about a lot of the boring logistical details of the organization. I would love to hear how they got so many businesses on board with providing compostable materials (including Walmart and Kohl's) and how they haul all these materials to the composting sites. What are the challenges in managing so many volunteers? What does their budget look like? How much do people get paid? How is the board structured and how do decisions get made? Have there been a lot of conflicts along the way as to what direction the organization should go? Just curious as to how you can really make urban agriculture work.

Will Allen is a bad ass. His story is inspiring and there's something for everyone in here - for the historian, the sociologist, the gardener, the farmer, the ecologist, the economist, the sports fan, the risk taker, the urban dweller/lover, the social worker, the entrepreneur. It's not the finest of writing, but there are plenty of moments of literary clarity to get you through. The story itself is engaging and uplifting. Throughout the book I kept thinking of different people I would recommend this book to and, in short, I would recommend it to everyone.

Here's are just two of my favorite aspects of this book:
-I really love how Allen & Wilson address race in agriculture/farming and its complicated historical legacy, particularly in the South.
-I love that the authors address social justice very holistically, drawing excellent parallels between a plant's soil and a person's environment and how that impacts growth, biologically and emotionally.

This book is illuminating. This book is hopeful. This book, Allen's story, is powerful.
Read this book. Draw inspiration and hope from it. Do it.

This is an excellent, inspirational book. It is as much about living a life well lived as it is about food. Will Allen doesn't preach about how to live a life with purpose and meaning - he simply DOES it. In doing so he provides an example for the rest of us.

I have had the privilege to tour Will's operation and to hear him speak. He is as committed and passionate in person as he sounds in this book. Having grown up in a rural area with a father who was an outstanding producer of organic food, I was skeptical. I am not anymore.

Along with developing a convincing case and sharing "how to ideas" to support Urban Agriculture, the book provides a good look into how we came to be a country that doesn't know where its food came from and why that is not in our best interests. The book is easy to read and entertaining but at the same time communicates some powerful and important messages.

Highly recommended for everyone who eats.

Over the past few months, I've had a strong desire to read organic cookbooks and books about revolutionizing how and what we eat. THE GOOD FOOD REVOLUTION is the 'aha' that my soul has been searching for and I'm so glad to have finished it. Let me add, as a political science teacher, I tell my students that they can change the world starting in their own neighborhood. Allen proves me right as he dug in his heels and shared his vision of growing good food for his urban community. I know this is the wave of the future - growing self-sustaining gardens,eating healthy, and curing ourselves from the diseases fast food have developed. I highly recommend this book to everyone that believes they can change the world. I'm excited. I'm encouraged. I believe in the GOOD FOOD REVOLUTION!

Summary: Will Allen is a former professional basketball player (mostly in Europe) and business man (mostly in Wisconsin). This story is about how he turned unused green houses from a defunct florist into the basis for a national urban food movement: Growing Power.

Thoughts: I heard about this book when Will Allen was interviewed on the radio show To The Best of our Knowledge, Will Allen on Urban Farming. From that interview, I expected a book about food policy. What I got was so much more than that and touched on a surprising number of my interests. More thoughts on my blog: Book Review: The Good Food Revolution by Will Allen

An inspirational book on growing food in an urban community and offering clues as to how one might go about it. I would have to say this might have limited applicability in other nations due to differing logistics and availability of fresh food. For instance, Southeast Asia nations have far more access to fresh produces but having said that the fresh food available are mostly laced with pesticides and grown with chemical fertilizers to which the book is trying to steer from. It offers insights into how one can start to grow their own food and the notion that in an urban setting, agriculture is difficult as a myth. You will be cheering for Will to succeed in his quest for better food for the urban poor.

I kept seeing will's book reviewed in mother earth news and finally decided to read it. It wasn't quite what i expected. It was a lot more autobiographical than i expected. I think this added a lot to the treatise he was making about the need for replacing (or at least augmenting) factory farming with a smaller urban based community food production model. Will's story is inspiring for his determination to do what makes him happy, his resoluteness and 'sticktuitiveness' in the face of numerous obstacles and mostly, his warmth and generosity towards others. ?..plus it made me want to expand my gardening abilities!

Simply put, Will Allen's book is exciting. His experiences are so varied, yet there is a common thread running through all of them. I love the way Allen writes about each part of his life, and relates it back to where he's at now, as the owner of Growing Power in Milwaukee. It's easy for the reader to understand that each step along his varied life path lead him in the same direction: one that promotes equal access to fresh, healthy foods for people of all demographics. Allen is a pioneer in thinking about how to grow food in sustainable ways in urban settings. I only wish more people in the lower-level political arena (such as city officials) were so forward thinking.

A brief, straight-forward and honest summary of Will Allen's journey to urban agriculture. What a life! So beneficial to hear his family history as well as his own evolution. I stopped at 4 stars because I had hoped there would be at least an index at the end of the book giving sources for more info on all that he talks about in the book- one wants to hit the ground running after this sort of read. In addition, the long side journeys through some of Mr Allen's associates at Growing Power were a bit distracting.

Mr. Allen the author runs a community garden in Milwaukee and heads an organization called Growing Power dedicated to urban farming. This book is his memoir. He came from a hardscrabble background and really made something of himself. He is an inspiration to us all and has touched a lot of lives through his community organizing and entrepreneurship. I enjoyed his ability to tinker with his operation and to always by looking for ways of doing things better, cheaper and differently.