Crisis Gardening

Gardening during times of crisis can have significant benefits to individuals and populations in terms of health, well-being, social and economic outcomes. So-called ‘crisis gardening’ can even be linked to transformative change in food systems through socio-ecological aspects of agroecology. In this book, crisis gardening is explored to better define, describe and provide recommendations about this activity globally. Diverse perspectives are offered from scholars around the world, providing an overview of gardening during crises with ties to agroecology. Such a perspective is critical as we grapple with food system crises, pandemics, climate change, biodiversity loss, mental health issues and political conflict globally.

• The first section defines and explains crisis gardening in relation to agroecology, transformative change in food systems and public health
• The second section describes case studies from around the world of crisis gardening from various social-ecological perspectives
• The third section provides policy and practice recommendations and how to scale up the lessons from crisis gardening to transform food systems, public health systems, and policy and landscape planning processes

Bringing together leaders and experts (academics, policy makers and practitioners) from around the world, the book provides case studies of crisis gardening and develops recommendations to harness the lessons from this practice.