Lansing, Michigan, is a Mid-Michigan city with a growing urban agriculture system, including over 100 community gardens facilitated by the Greater Lansing Food Bank Garden Project (GLFBGP). It is also a place with a large refugee resettlement population. Twenty percent of the gardeners in 18 Lansing gardens directly managed by the GLFBGP are refugees and immigrants. These numbers are echoed across the state: there are over 500 community gardens in Michigan and 7 % of the population is foreign born. But little is known about the role of community gardening in the immigrant and refugee experience. Further exploration of how urban agriculture spaces like community gardens can function as spaces for belonging and inclusion is needed. We conducted an engaged research project in three GLFBGP gardens with high refugee and immigrant enrollment which included ethnographic interviews and drawings with refugee and immigrant gardeners and a focus group with garden leaders from 6 highly-enrolled immigrant and refugee gardens. We set out to better understand: 1) the motivations of immigrants and refugees to engage in community gardening and 2) the ways the community garden experience facilitates belonging and inclusion both in the food system and in the local community. Our results illuminated four factors that facilitate inclusion and belonging of immigrant and refugee gardeners in the community garden network: (1) Social cohesion facilitated by altruistic activities and community building; (2) The process of replicating and adapting knowledge and being able to learn and teach; (3) Diverse incentives to recruit immigrant and refugee gardeners; and (4) Place based vision and resources that facilitate inclusion and belonging. In this presentation, we will share the history of the GLFBGP, the steps it has taken to support immigrants and refugee gardeners, and the results from our research with refugee and immigrant community gardeners in the GLFBGP network. This research and the practices of the GLFBGP highlight steps to create a more inclusive and welcoming community gardening and urban agriculture spaces, as well as inform best practices for the alternative food systems movement.
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