Introduction
When looking at the contexts that have come to shape and define an institution, there are several orders of magnitude to consider, ranging from the hyper-local to the national. Hackett Farm is our focal point, but it exists within a larger network of trends in food sourcing and distribution, inequality, and agricultural legislation. As well, contexts can often be defined and contained in discrete categories, including social contexts, political contexts, geographical contexts, technical contexts, etc. However, one of the intentions of the Engineering Studies major is to not only be able to identify and define these discrete categories but understand how they overlap and work together. For this reason, this section is titled “Socio-Political Context” to more completely address the variety of contexts affecting Hackett Farm through an Engineering Studies lens.
On a national scale, we will look at how community gardens are able to combat supermarket redlining and food insecurity, the increasing public interest in locally sourced foods, and national food safety standards. On a state level, we will look at how community gardens are being supported and what that means for their future growth, and how the state control of water access dictates the options for improving Hackett’s irrigation system. Finally, we will look at several local contexts specific to Hackett, including its storage and distribution system, how it collaborates with the five other community gardens, and what it means for an individual to run a community garden.
National Guidelines, Trends, and Supermarket Redlining
Supermarket redlining, also known as food apartheid or food deserts, is “a term used to describe a phenomenon when major chain supermarkets are disinclined to locate their stores in inner cities or low-income neighborhoods and usually pull their existing stores out and relocate them to suburbs” (Eisenhauer, 2001). Specifically, supermarket redlined zones (SRZs) tend to have a poverty rate greater than twenty percent and a third of the population must be living more than one mile from a grocery store. As of 2017, nearly 39.5 million Americans live in SRZs, up from 23.5 million in 2009 (USDA, 2009)(USDA, 2017). SRZs have severe negative effects on the health outcomes of the communities they encompass, manifesting as “increased risk for obesity and heart disease” (Lu, 2020). Because “community gardens provide a place where members of [a] community can have sustainable and reliable food sources and an immediate connection to their food”, the number of community gardens has grown by sixty-six percent between 2012 and 2018 as communities attempt to address these problems (BCTV, 2020)(TPL, 2018).
The West Ward, one of the four neighborhoods Easton encompasses, is a supermarket redlined zone itself. Hackett Farm aims to alleviate local food insecurity through both the distribution of their fresh produce and the access they provide to their raised bed growing spaces. As SRZs tend to be poor areas and grocery stores have little incentive to develop a location, community gardens present a cheap alternative solution allowing for low-cost growth and distribution. Designing our projects such that Hackett can operate at a low cost with minimal labor input is important to facilitating its growth and combating SRZs.
Under an even broader context, “the public’s attention on food production has significantly shifted over the past 25 years,” focusing more on “locally sourced and organic foods over those from factory farms” (Catlin and Sholtz, 2020). Catlin and Sholtz, two Lafayette Engineering Studies graduates, attribute this shift to a growing negative attitude to the traditional factory and industrial farming methods. This attribution is supported by the fact that a 2017 United States Department of Agriculture report on local agriculture found that “the number of farmer’s markets has increased by 395%, from 1,755 to 8,700, over the past 25 years” (Ibid)(Woods et al., 2017).
This increase in broad support is incredibly important for Hackett. Hackett is intended to operate as a hub farm for all of the Easton Garden Works-operated community gardens. These gardens exist across the city of Easton, not just in the West Ward neighborhood, meaning a wide array of communities encompassing a variety of socio-economic statuses are being served by these gardens. Understanding that this means the community gardens will likely see some degree of increased interest and involvement is an important context for why continuing to develop Hackett is important for the Easton community at large.
The passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in 2011 was an effort by Congress to “ensure the U.S. food supply is safe by shifting the focus to preventing contamination of the food supply, rather than responding to it” (FDA, 2021). This is done through a variety of new requirements, including “a written food safety plan, hazard analysis, preventive controls, monitoring, corrective actions and corrections, verification, supply-chain program, recall plan, and associated records” (Safe Food Alliance). These regulations apply to all “domestic and foreign food facilities that are required to register with” the Food and Drug Administration, or the FDA (FDA, 2020).
While Hackett is a community garden and is exempt from direct enforcement of the FSMA, it would be in their best interest to follow many of these guidelines to keep the community safe. Given the goal of these guidelines is to prevent food contamination, designing with food safety in mind is paramount to protecting the Easton community. This is particularly important to the wash station modifications which directly deal with food contamination. Because Ms. Wilcha hopes to expand the variety of vegetables being grown, ensuring that each of them can be cleaned appropriately will dictate the kinds of modifications made.
State Support and Bureaucracy
As noted above, there has been a growing trend across the United States of cities adopting community gardens (sixty-six percent growth in six years). Specifically in Pennsylvania, the passing of the Plan For Pennsylvania in 2019 provided funding for twenty-eight urban farms and community gardens across the state (BCTV, 2020). As well, Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding expressed his appreciation for community gardens saying that they play an important role in Pennsylvania’s food system and that they “feed communities in need, breaking down walls that block opportunity and bringing communities together” (ibid). This wholehearted support for the kind of work the GEDP is undertaking helps inform us that the farm will likely be of great importance in five or ten years, and designing with that in mind will help us to create and implement sustainable solutions.
Hackett, and all the GEDP operated community gardens for that matter, use city water, which is provided by the Easton Suburban Water Authority (ESWA) and regulated by the Pennsylvania State Department of Environmental Protection. The water source for the City of Easton and surrounding service areas is the Delaware River (ESWA). From the river, the water is processed for contaminants at the Easton Water Treatment Plant and is then piped directly to Hackett Farm or stored in holding tanks located nearby. Because the farm is using piped city water rather than an on-site well, the ESWA must do any maintenance or make any modifications to the irrigation infrastructure. Because there are a variety of both state and local regulations that must be navigated in terms of how and when these pipes can be accessed, who can do maintenance to these pipes, and a number of different water quality standards, making sure that any of our desired irrigation modifications are fully compliant is an important step in providing appropriate recommendations.
Hackett Specific
Although Hackett is where the vegetables are grown, it is not where they’re distributed. This is left to the Vegetables in the Community program (ViC) . ViC is a program started by Lafayette College where “students and faculty work cooperatively with neighborhood residents to deliver the produce, advertise, share food knowledge, collect and distribute recipes, and cook samples” (Lafayette College, 2019). Understanding the relationship Hackett has with Lafayette and the way our project is a continuation of that relationship is important for Hackett’s maintenance and growth. Specifically for the wash station, it informs some of our location and orientation choices, as they will dictate how quickly food is able to be stored and remain the freshest for its future distribution.
As has been mentioned, Hackett is one of the six community gardens that Ms. Wilcha manages. Hackett is the largest of them and the goal is for it to act as a hub where the other gardens are able to get their seedlings in the spring and drop their harvests off throughout the growing season. This is an important context for understanding why Hackett’s efficiency and development are paramount for Ms. Wilcha and her goal of expanding the reach of all the gardens. It also informs our project designs in terms of the spacing and freedom of movement necessary for Hackett to efficiently act as a hub. The combination of limited space and high maneuverability dictates how a project like the bed rearrangement should be approached.
Because Hackett is the largest community garden, it is often host to a variety of social events which contribute to the social cohesion of the neighborhood. In this past fall 2021 season, events like a bonfire with food and drink and a pumpkin carving event find a home at Hackett. Understanding that this space will not only be a home to vegetables but to people as well must inform our design philosophy. Safe and attractive designs are best when accounting for socialization.
Hackett is an almost entirely volunteer-run operation (Easton Garden Works). This must inform how the space is designed in terms of ease of use for people of a variety of backgrounds to be able to quickly and easily get involved. There will certainly be a select group who are more involved than others and learn to manage the space in a particular way. However, the design of the space must have obvious components to allow any layperson to walk on the farm and contribute. Complex irrigation systems, confusing washing and storage protocols, and varied bed spacing or sizing may be better suited to a farm operated by an individual, but not to a volunteer program like at Hackett.
Given our project revolves around infrastructure renovation projects, the issue of who finances those projects is relevant to shaping the scale of projects we can tackle, what materials we can use, and how those projects are approached. Hackett is owned the GEDP, an organization operating under the City of Easton, meaning it is publicly funded and relies on a yearly budget for all expenses. Ms. Wilcha has detailed to us that this budget is highly flexible based on her needs in a given year and on community involvement in the farm’s offerings. As well, because the irrigation on the farm, likely the most costly of our recommendations, is also controlled by the city, it’s likely that Easton can offer direct funding for that specific project rather than it being taken out of Hackett’s general budget. For the projects or project components Easton won’t be able to directly cover but that are still too costly given any budget limitations, grant funding is another good option. A variety of non-profits including the American Public Gardens Association detail stipends to community gardens wanting to complete certain projects with funding ranging from $4,000 all the way to $20,000 (American Public Gardens Association). With these funding options in mind, we can better plan our projects to take advantage of the various funding avenues.
Finally, farm layout, infrastructure, and systems tend to be highly individualized and personal to the individuals involved. Although much of the labor at Hackett comes from volunteers who must be accounted for when designing, the space is ultimately Ms. Wilchas, or whomever else may one day run the farm. It is paramount that the space functions such that she is able to get the most out of it. Not only does this mean our initial design suggestions must consider her specific desires and workflow needs, but that the space should ultimately be flexible and moveable so that personalized adjustments can be made as necessary. This will manifest in modular systems which can easily be moved around or switched out. Ultimately, both flexibility and precision are important principles for us to follow, though flexibility overtakes precision as a guiding ethos in our design recommendations.
Click here to go to our Wash Station breakdown.