Growing Power

Growing Power began with a farmer, a plot of land, and a core group of dedicated young people.  The idea is to develop healthy food systems locally to provide high quality, safe, healthy, affordable food for all residents in the community.

ACM students visited one of Growing Power's six farms in Chicago, Iron Street Farm, an urban farm growing produce on the bank of the Chicago River in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago.  Built on an abandoned industrial site, the farm has numerous gardens and a warehouse that grow food year round.  It was ACM day at the farm, as Erica Hougland, who gave us the tour, is a graduate of Grinnell College, and Gillian Knight who also works there and helped arrange our tour, is a Lake Forest College graduate. 



Photos courtesy of Emily N. Summers



Will Allen started the nonprofit organization in Milwaukee, and his daughter Erika runs six farms in Chicago including Iron Street Urban Farm, Altgeld Gardens Urban Farm, Chicago Lights Urban Farm, Grant Park “Art on the Farm” Urban Agriculture Potager and the Jackson Park Urban Farm and Community Allotment Garden.

Local restaurants provide food scraps the organization uses for compost, which are housed in wooden boxes.  The farm uses aguaponics, where the water from fish tanks is used to fertilize soil, and then cleansed and circulated back to the fish tank.  There’s a vertical mushroom-growing station, greenhouses for planting, and six beehives on the roof. 

Growing power hires 200 young people in the summer, and youth programs reconnect folks to what is healthy food, where does it come from, and how to get involved.