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 “Ecosystem services are the benefits that ecosystems provide to
humans. In a natural ecosystem, these are things like natural
medicinal products or carbon that’s sequestered by forest trees. In
an urban context, it would be similar types of things. For example,
shade from trees provides microclimate control to keep us more
comfortable,” explains University of Illinois landscape
agroecologist Sarah Taylor Lovell.
Lovell and her colleagues investigated the ecosystem services and
disservices provided by home food gardens in Chicago, adding a
cultural dimension by looking at gardening practices in specific
ethnic communities. In an earlier study, they found a high density
of food gardens in Chicago were in African American, Chinese-origin,
and Mexican-origin communities.
The team visited and interviewed nearly 60 households across the
city, noting the types and relative abundance of the edible plants,
ornamental plants, and trees in each garden.
 “The number of species grown across all of the gardens was
comparable to the number of species found in a remnant native
prairie near Chicago,” Lovell reports. “But the vast majority of
garden species were not native to the region.”
The number of plant species in an area can have a direct impact on
insects, birds, and other wildlife, but non-native crops may not
benefit wildlife in an urban context to the degree that native
plants might. The researchers identified additional consequences to
urban food gardens in terms of ecosystem services.
“Most of the gardeners were using synthetic fertilizers to really
optimize production,” Lovell explains. “In doing so, they were
increasing some nutrients to a level that could lead to runoff and
contamination of surrounding environments. We also identified a
tradeoff between needing sunlight for your vegetable garden and
preferring a treed habitat for microclimate control. Gardeners would
sometimes remove trees or reduce the level of shade and shrubs.”
Despite these issues, the researchers noted that urban gardens play
an important role in the cultural lives of gardeners and may lead to
greater food security where fresh produce is not easily available.
“Each cultural group was specifically selecting ethnic crops and
propagating plants that were familiar to them,” Lovell says. “I
think, in some ways, especially for first generation immigrants
to Chicago, it’s a way to bring a feeling of home.”
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Several food crops, such as squash and herbs in the mint family, were common in
many of the gardens, but each cultural group grew plants that were unique to
that group. For example, collards and okra were only found in the gardens of
African Americans. Only Mexican-origin gardeners grew Papalo and tomatillo, and
only Chinese-origin gardeners grew bitter melon, yardlong bean, winter melon,
fuzzy gourd, and bok choy.
Chinese-origin gardens had the most unique assemblage of plants overall, whereas
there was more overlap between crops grown by African American and
Mexican-origin gardeners. Chinese-origin gardeners also were more likely than
other groups to utilize all available space for food crop production, often
creating tiered trellis structures to maximize space for vines and other twining
plants.
The work was innovative in terms of bringing a cultural dimension into the study
of urban ecosystem services, but, for the researchers, the bottom line came down
to people.
Lovell notes, “It was mainly about the interesting and unique connection between
cultures and their foodways. The study demonstrated a special connection between
what you can grow, how you grow it, and what your background is. Gardens may
have the potential to connect you to a historic past or your own community. If
there’s a certain ethnic group in a community, gardening becomes a way to
communicate with their neighbors, as a unique social network option.”
The article, “Ecosystem services and tradeoffs in the home food gardens of
African American, Chinese-origin and Mexican-origin households in Chicago, IL,”
appears in Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. Lead author, John R. Taylor,
is an assistant professor at Chatham University. Lovell and additional
co-authors, Sam Wortman and Michelle Chan, are at U of I. The research was
supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Hatch program.
[Lauren Quinn, Ph.D., News and Public
Affairs,
University of Illinois, College of Agricultural, Consumer and
Environmental Sciences]
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