In the midst of the cascading chaos happening around the world due to COVID-19 and the resulting economic and supply chain disruptions, shortages of critical supplies and food items are already happening. In response, a group of some 400 volunteers has come together around a new project called the Cooperative Gardens Commission. This project idea was launched by Nate Kleinman and the Experimental Farm Network last week, and is based on the idea of ‘Victory Gardens’ during World War II, where it is estimated that people grew about 40% of the country’s fresh vegetables from about 20 million home, school, and community gardens.
The ask is for people to grow and share as much food as possible from their front lawn to farm field to alleviate the repercussions of a potential collapse in the food supply. There has already been a huge increase in demand for seed and gardening supplies and in the first few days alone (before a big push for publicity), over 1000 people signed up to grow gardens.
If you are interested in learning more, or helping as a volunteer, check out their website.
You can also read the NYT piece published with a bit about the project.