Gardening for Food Well-Being in the COVID-19 Era

Esteve G. Giraud, Sara El-Sayed and Adenike Opejin
Additional contact information
Esteve G. Giraud: School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85281, USA
Sara El-Sayed: School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85281, USA
Adenike Opejin: School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85281, USA

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 17, 1-19

Abstract: “Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness”, is what millions of Americans strive for. The onset of COVID-19 has highlighted the disparities that exist among Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities, which are facing food access inequities. In this paper, we argue that engaging in growing food sustainably can improve food access, support food justice and enhance sense of purpose and well-being. We expand the notion of Food Well-Being (FWB) to include food producers—especially gardeners—and hypothesize that gardening has the potential to enhance FWB, regardless of the racial and socio-economic background. However, without policies tackling social and racial justice issues, structural barriers may hinder this potential. We use three studies to draw a rich profile of sustainable food gardeners in Arizona, USA and their well-being: (a) the children and teachers engaged in school gardens in the Phoenix metropolitan area; (b) sustainable gardeners and farmers in Phoenix and Tucson; (c) Arizona gardeners during the pandemic. The results show a connection between sustainable gardening and eudemonic well-being, and an impact on the five FWB dimensions (physical, intellectual, spiritual, emotional and social). However, without appropriate policies, funding and infrastructure, the impact might remain minimal, volatile and subject to tokenism.

Keywords: food well-being; food justice; sustainable gardening; Arizona; COVID-19; happiness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/17/9687/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/17/9687/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:17:p:9687-:d:624396

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().