A heartfelt thanks goes to Sarah Parsons and to the memory of our mutual friend Liam Rattray whose life was tragically cut short by a drunk driver in May 2011. A number of times before Liam’s passing, the three of us would discuss at great length about the need to explore the many alternative food systems taking root in major cities around the country and see how urban environments can benefit from them. Those conversations truly inspired me to see how I could get more involved in promoting food production in my own community. With assistance of my business partner Marcus Penny, who is the co-founder of Retrofit A Million we were able to become a strategic partner with the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance (WAWA) to ensure that modest means communities within Atlanta have access to healthy and fresh food.
The Urban Garden Resiliency Oasis (UGRO) is a ¾ acre urban garden situated in the heart of West End Atlanta, and was created to provide value added programming for our Applied Mentorship Program for Sustainability (AMPS) EcoTerns. For a majority of EcoTerns, it was the first time they were able to immerse in gardening and experience how healthy food is grown by creating an urban garden with their own hands! Indeed, since we first broke ground in 2011 we have been able to build a water catchment system, two new compost areas, seven raised beds, a trellis, and a labyrinth in order to create an amazing space for community involvement. The resiliency oasis of our name is very intentional for us in order to not only create a space for urban food production in a food dessert but also establish a beacon of light to overcome the wars of our time. By this I mean, we are building for an era when gardens are front and center for hopes and dreams of a better world or just a better neighborhood, or even the fertile space where the two become one. Every time I enter UGRO, I am spurred by the hope to overcome the alienation of food, of labor, of embodiment, of land, the conflicts between production and consumption, between pleasure and work, the destructiveness of industrial agriculture, the growing problems of global food scarcity, the education debt we owe to urban youth. The list of ideals being planted and tended and sometimes harvested is endless, but the question is simple. What crops are you tending? What do you hope to grow? Hope? Community? Health? Pleasure? Justice? Urban Gardens represent the idealism of this moment and its principal pitfall, I think. An urban garden can be, after all, a sanctuary to retreat from our problems or the ground you stand on to take on the world. 
I have been so blessed to work with a tremendous group of volunteers, corporate groups, AmeriCorps members and Atlanta youth to build UGRO. Special thanks goes to Sarah whose transcendent beauty and knowledge about growing ensures I have the inspiration to see that UGRO is properly maintained. We share a mutual commitment in promoting a second “green revolution”, one that attempts to undo the destructive aspects of the first one, to make an organic and intimate agriculture system that feeds minds and hearts as well as bodies, that measures intangible qualities as well as quantity. In all honesty, so far we produce barely enough of a harvest to donate our food, but of course UGRO’s logic isn’t merely volume. The first green revolution may have increased yield in many cases, but it also increased alienation and toxicity, and it was efficient only if you ignored its fossil fuel dependency, carbon output, and other environmental impacts. It was an industrial revolution for agriculture, and what UGRO is promoting now is distinctly postindustrial, suspicious of the big and the corporate, interested in the old ways and the alternatives. This is more than a production project; it’s a reconnection project, which is why it is also an urban one—if we should all be connected to food production, food production should happen everywhere, urban and rural and every topsoil-laden crevice and traffic congested island in between. 
By working with Green4All, Georgia Organics, Southeastern Horticulture Society, the Atlanta Local Food Initiative, Truly Living Well, Farmer D, Atlanta ToolBank and West End Neighborhood Association partners and local faith based organizations, the goal of UGRO is to become a site that will train a new generation of agtivists committed to providing fresh, healthy food available to all Atlantans, especially modest means communities and communities of color who typically have reduced access to quality produce at affordable prices.
UGRO is committed to attracting urban garden practitioners to provide urban agricultural training & leadership through research and teaching to sustain an Atlanta ecosystem, enhance local economic development, and improve the quality of life in an urban setting. For more information about the program and to find out how you can help support UGRO, please checkout UGRO’s facebook page or contact Imran Battla at imran@retrofitamillion.org
