Growing a Garden City

Starred review from September 15, 2010
America is experiencing a food disconnect. On one hand, nearly one in four Americans say they regularly lack enough money to buy food. On the other, approximately one-third are considered to be clinically obese. It is a conundrum, to be sure, and yet the solution may come through something as basic as the community farm. In his profile of Missoula, Montana, Smith energetically demonstrates how one city embraced the local food movement through the establishment of city gardens, food kitchens, co-op subscriptions, college internships, and farm work-therapy programs to transform a population that was as much at risk as any in America into one that now stands as a model for community-supported agriculture. Through dynamic profiles of key players such as Josh Slotnick, director of the Program in Ecological Agriculture and Society; Tim Hall, head of Missoulas Community Gardens; and Tim Ballard, overseer of the Youth Harvest program for at-risk teens, the entire scope of this citywide confluence of actual needs and agricultural solutions is distilled to the personal level. Bright, vibrant, and buoyantly accessible, this effervescent celebration of the local food movement thrums with regional, national, and international implications.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)