The Mothers of the Garden: Religious Pluralism, Food Justice, and Urban Agriculture

How do religious and cultural practices shape food needs, and how might thoughtful people and organizations better respond to food scarcity, including using the lived experience of mothers to better provide food for households? This paper takes up one organization as a case study, situating it in the larger landscape of the urban agriculture and food access ecosystem of a mid-sized Midwestern American city. The garden analyzed in this case study is a robust, interreligious, multicultural volunteer-run donation garden that provides fresh produce for a wide variety of recipient organizations. The principles it relies upon include attention to providing culturally and religiously appropriate food for recipients, and employing skills developed through maternal care in caring for the community.