Start Date
2020 12:00 AM
Abstract
More and more community gardens are being established on brownfield sites, especially in food deserts in urban cores. While community gardens help to beautify neighborhoods and bring blighted properties back to productive use, a previous survey conducted by Kansas State University indicated that the potential of soil contamination associated with these sites, how to deal with it, and where to get assistance, is often not known. The majority of respondents reported no confidence in their ability to manage soil to mitigate human health risks associated with lead and/or other contaminants. While not all brownfield sites are suitable for growing crops, the majority of sites can be used as gardens after appropriate evaluation and by applying best management practices. In this paper we will provide information on steps to safely garden on an urban brownfield site, including how to get site history information; where, how and what to sample for; resources for soil analyses; understanding soil test results; what to grow in order to avoid uptake of potential contaminants by food crops; and best management practices focusing on reduction of both direct (soil-human) and indirect (soil-plant-human) exposure.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Hettiarachchi, Ganga; Martin, Sabine; and Carroll, Ann (2020). "Growing crops on urban brownfields: How safe is it?," Urban Food Systems Symposium. https://newprairiepress.org/ufss/2020/proceedings/18
Growing crops on urban brownfields: How safe is it?
More and more community gardens are being established on brownfield sites, especially in food deserts in urban cores. While community gardens help to beautify neighborhoods and bring blighted properties back to productive use, a previous survey conducted by Kansas State University indicated that the potential of soil contamination associated with these sites, how to deal with it, and where to get assistance, is often not known. The majority of respondents reported no confidence in their ability to manage soil to mitigate human health risks associated with lead and/or other contaminants. While not all brownfield sites are suitable for growing crops, the majority of sites can be used as gardens after appropriate evaluation and by applying best management practices. In this paper we will provide information on steps to safely garden on an urban brownfield site, including how to get site history information; where, how and what to sample for; resources for soil analyses; understanding soil test results; what to grow in order to avoid uptake of potential contaminants by food crops; and best management practices focusing on reduction of both direct (soil-human) and indirect (soil-plant-human) exposure.
