Sustainable Gardening for Economic Inclusion, Poverty Reduction, and Culture Preservation

Sustainable gardening activities can be the basis to reduce poverty while preserving culture. By generating economic inclusion, gardening can provide the entry point into society for vulnerable communities. Community stakeholders in Mexico City and Northeast Ohio were studied to analyze whether sustainable gardening can generate economic inclusion while preserving culture. Through in-depth interviews, the relationship between these three components is analyzed. In particular, topics such as gardening experience, family traditions, institutional support, economic barriers, use of technology, cropping methods, and social integration were explored. From conception to implementation and analysis, the goal of agency building reinforced social sustainability. In addition to interpretive qualitative interviews, experiential research was conducted through a “working-with” model where the communities in reference contributed intellectual resources to the project-based research design. Primary results fall into three primary categories including gardening methods, cultural preservation, and economic factors. In each analyzed case, implications of cultural preservation emerge as a foundational motivation to maintain the particular agricultural practice. Despite significant economic barriers, including high poverty rates, the cases in reference nonetheless maintain traditions, thus highlighting the importance of culture. Negative economic implications suggest an absence of institutional support, which contribute to issues of poverty and low quality of life. Social implications indicate a level of marginalization that contributes to the aforementioned economic and institutional barriers.