Food Not Lawns is a de-centralized

social movement A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and may ...

focused on replacing urban

lawns A lawn is an area of soil-covered land planted with grasses and other durable plants such as clover which are maintained at a short height with a lawnmower (or sometimes grazing animals) and used for aesthetic and recreational purposes. L ...

with food-producing organic gardens. The first group to use the name "Food Not Lawns" was founded in

Eugene, Oregon Eugene ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast. As of the 2020 United States Census, Eu ...

in 1999 by Tobias Policha, Nick Routledge, and Heather Jo Flores. In 2006, Flores published the book ''Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community.'' A self-described "avant-gardening collective", FNL's basic premise was to garner surplus resources, whether food, seeds, plants, tools, garden space, publications, or volunteer time, and channel them toward building better

food security Food security speaks to the availability of food in a country (or geography) and the ability of individuals within that country (geography) to access, afford, and source adequate foodstuffs. According to the United Nations' Committee on World F ...

for the

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

at hand. Born of Eugene's radical political organizing community in the late 1990s, Food Not Lawns was founded in 1999 by Heather Jo Flores and colleagues of the Eugene Food Not Bombs chapter.

Food Not Bombs Food Not Bombs (FNB) is a loose-knit group of independent collectives, sharing free vegan and vegetarian food with others. The group believes that corporate and government priorities are skewed to allow hunger to persist in the midst of abundance ...

, a free food-sharing

collective A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together to achieve a common objective. Collectives can differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an ...

, has a common concern with

food justice The Food Justice Movement is a grassroots initiative which emerged in response to food insecurity and economic pressures that prevent access to healthy, nutritious, and culturally appropriate foods (food should fit the cultural background of the ...

issues, and a similar stewardship and democratic approach. Neither Food Not Lawns nor Food Not Bombs chapters answer to a central decision-making body. Rather, they are examples of movements that operate on a premise of

anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessa ...

autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ...

and

self-organization Self-organization, also called spontaneous order in the social sciences, is a process where some form of overall order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system. The process can be spontaneous when suffi ...

. Anyone is free to start a Food Not Lawns group, and resources are provided through an interconnected network. Food Not Lawns chapters typically organize local

seed swap Seed swaps are events where gardeners meet to exchange seeds. Swapping can be arranged online or by mail, especially when participants are spread out geographically. Swap meet events, where growers meet and exchange their excess seeds in person, ...

events, build

community gardens A community garden is a piece of land gardened or cultivated by a group of people individually or collectively. Normally in community gardens, the land is divided into individual plots. Each individual gardener is responsible for their own plo ...

, generate web or print publications, and host work parties to help community members turn their lawns into gardens. According to the Food Not Lawns International Website,Food Not Lawns International Website
/ref> Food Not Lawns currently has more than 50 chapters worldwide. Similar movements have also started up, with names including Grow Food Not Lawns and Plant Food Not Lawns; merchandise can be found bearing any of the three slogans.

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://www.foodnotlawns.com/ Social movements in the United States Organic gardening Sustainable food system Permaculture