Will Allen is a former professional basketball player, but after his hooping days ended, he decided to trade the court for crops. Allen is credited with being a pioneer in the world of urban agriculture. Specifically in Milwaukee, beginning in 1993 as a farmstand, he’s known for starting Growing Power in 1995.
The agriculture giant and his nonprofit initiative revolutionized how the city thought about local food production and education. Growing Power ceased operations in late 2017 in the face of legal and financial problems.
Although Growing Power dissolved, the organization sowed the future of flourishing urban agriculture initiatives in the city. Many people involved in urban farming got their start with Growing Power. Allen continues to farm, educate and feed the community through his farm and farmstand in Oak Creek.
Will Allen’s Farmstand sits on a long stretch of road on Drexel Avenue in Oak Creek, just across the street from the original 25 acres where he began his farming career. I stood next to his large black pickup truck and the farmstand this summer as Allen perched on the edge of the truck bed to chat.
Allen explains what urban agriculture looked like as he entered the field in 1993.
“Well, there was a program called Shoots and Roots that was run by Milwaukee County, and they had some vacant lot production going on back then in the inner city. But what happened after that, they pretty much shut down all those gardens in the inner city for whatever reason. I don't want to get into it, but you know, and the ones that remained were the ones on the outskirts of the city, still within the city proper, but not in the inner city," Allen says.
He says there was a lot of agricultural knowledge among people who had moved north from the South, but many were hesitant to return to farming.
"There was a lot of knowledge from people from the South, but they didn't seem to want to go back into agriculture after all the bad things that happened, especially to Black people in the South,” Allen says. “So I actually started out here in Oak Creek. Right across the street were 25 acres, and behind my house, right behind you, another 25 acres that I farmed. And then I was asked to help some folks in the city, and that's how I kind of got involved in the city.”
Allen, who grew up farming, was working in sales and sales technology for Procter & Gamble at the time. But he left the job and got further involved in urban farming. He says he bought the last remaining farm in the city of Milwaukee, on 55th and Silver Spring.
“The farm was established in the late 1920s. It had six or eight frame greenhouses, and they were in bad disarray. The city owned the property, and I was able to buy it for a decent price, and that's when the work began,” says Allen.
Growing Power became a catalyst for urban agriculture in the city.
The nonprofit focused on educating youth and employing locals, but it also was a place where Allen perfected and pioneered farming techniques such as his aquaponics system.
He integrated fish into his city farm, creating an ecosystem that could sustain all the proper nutrients for the plants he was growing to feed the community. This technique allowed him to also grow in stacked beds, maximizing smaller urban spaces.
Allen was a radical grower who had a global influence. He wrote books to sow children’s interest in growing food, spoke across the nation, and taught other farmers and communities the techniques he created.
Despite its closure in 2017, Growing Power left its mark.
“The legacy has been that I've trained most of the people that got involved in urban agriculture in the city of Milwaukee.
So if you talk to most of those people, which you probably have, they'll probably bring up my name because they came through our trainings. We trained them, and hopefully some of them are starting to work in those communities. There’s lots of land, there are probably more than 2,000 vacant lots in the city of Milwaukee, so there’s land,” says Allen.
Allen acknowledges the strength of urban growers and the action being taken by communities to localize food production. But he says the farming world he once knew is not the same.
“Well, I think the biggest change — it's very difficult to find people who want to get involved in growing food because it’s hard work. I mean, look at this year, when you have 80- or 90-degree temperatures and humidity and everything. It's very difficult,” says Allen. “Our Hmong community has done a great job over the years since they moved down from Minnesota years ago and got involved in the farmers markets. Without the Hmong farmers, we wouldn't have farmers markets in this city. Back when I was going to farmers markets, we would go to 13 markets in one day, and it was difficult, but that’s the way things were back then.”
Allen says today there are farmers markets throughout the city and suburbs, but a lot of them don’t have vendors offering produce.
“They have a lot of people selling everything but food. And we need food, people need food at a reasonable price, because the prices in grocery stores are outrageous. So we need people growing food, but there aren’t a lot of food growers anymore. If you go to a farmers market, I bet you 50% of the vendors there are not farmers — they're just selling other stuff,” says Allen.
In that same vein, where have we found success in urban agriculture that we may not have had in the past?
“Well, I think there’s been some success with a few of the groups that really have sustained themselves. There hasn’t been many because, like I said, it's hard work, and it's hard to find people who want to do the work. So I think that's the biggest challenge. I think there are a lot of challenges, and I think the cities haven’t gotten on board to help develop the growers and provide the funding that’s necessary for folks to grow inside the city — to be able to develop these vacant lots, to be able to have the right kind of soil. Because it’s something I came up with years ago: It’s all about the soil,” says Allen.
Allen still uses his farmland and skills to educate those who are interested in farming. He hopes to continue to build the next generation of Milwaukee farmers.
“I love to train young people who are interested. I have two 20-year-olds that I’m training right now who want to be farmers. So that’s what it’s going to take. I’m also working with kids with autism here on this farm, and that’s very satisfying to me because my youngest grandson, I have five grandsons, has autism. So it’s very gratifying to me to be able to see what changes can happen in their lives when they touch the soil and when they grow food,” says Allen.
