Community gardens in urban settings, including some in Muskegon, Mich., have been experiencing people stealing produce from the gardens. It's become an ethical dilemma.
Brian Clinsky didn’t want to call the police on the produce-stealing grandmother.
“You actually notice a difference when you have twenty peppers, and then five one day, and none the next,” he said. “She said ‘I’m entitled to this because this is my community.
But is she?
It’s a problem that Chris Bedford, a filmmaker, activist, and community organizer has been hearing from some community gardeners in Michigan. He is the chief organizer of the farm to school program in Muskegon and is involved with community gardens in the area.
“It happens everywhere.” Bedford said.
He wants to help community gardeners establish an ethical way of dealing with an issue that some see as stealing while others might view as the neediest of a community helping themselves.
Outside Clinksy’s community garden, a sign reads, “Only active, registered gardeners are allowed to harvest in the garden.” Below the message, he lists his phone number for people who want to get involved. He has seven adults and several kids who regularly volunteer to work. In exchange, they are allowed to take food from the garden. That’s what Clinsky believes is fair.
“We had to set this rule after we started seeing people come in and get the food,” Clinsky said. “You can get food, but only if you work in the garden.”
The grandmother, some neighbors and a few people who would just pull up their cars and load in food weren’t following those rules. They just have wanted the food or maybe they were actually hungry.
“In a community like Muskegon, there are very high unemployment and high rates of malnutrition,” said Bedford. “So when someone is deservedly hungry or who is really needy comes by that garden and takes food, who are taking action to help themselves, it brings up an ethical question.”
Muskegon County’s unemployment rate reached 14.9 percent in July.
The grandmother told Clinsky that she was low income. But he suspects that she was collecting the food and selling it at the local farmers market.
“As a coordinator, it was depressing because if people were hungry and this is what they were reduced to, we have a bigger problem than just people taking food out of the garden,” Clinksy said.
Many church community gardens give food away to anyone for free, Bedford said. But to create a sense of self-reliance for people, there should be an exchange of work for food.
“How do we create a system that engages people so they can see ‘Oh this is what I can do and I can help here,’ and so it is engaging them into the community as opposed to just giving them food,” he said. “We need to be responsible to each other, and that doesn’t mean you need to be hungry. We can feed people, but they also need to be responsible to the community.”
If some people can’t contribute directly to the garden, they might be able to offer other skills to the community, he said. “Maybe there is a single mom who needs a babysitter, and they could do some babysitting,” he said. “They can take the food, but it should be in a system.”
And Clinsky has begun to create that plan for his community gardens. He and the rest of his volunteers encourage people they catch taking food to work in the garden.
Some do.
Clinsky did not press larceny charges on the grandmother. She has since apologized.
“All this big show happened over some tomatoes,” he said. “But my gardeners and I have reached a consensus on how to do it next year.”
Surveillance cameras are a new addition to the city garden.
“It’s unacceptable behavior,” Clinsky said. “Community doesn’t mean free.”