By: Grace Ingraham
Urban gardening can take shape in many ways, from growing your own vegetables at home to growing them amongst others in a community setting. These are the types of garden spaces that Nora Faltmann, a Ph.D. student at the University of Vienna, focused on while researching food safety practices in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Styrofoam boxes with vegetables in suburban Ho Chi Minh City. Credits: Nora Faltmann.
Nora recently presented her paper, “Food Safety Practices in Ho Chi Minh City: Urban Gardening, Direct Marketing, and the Crisis of Confidence in Farming,” at the 2021 Food Matters and Materialities conference. Nora’s interest in the topic developed after realizing urban gardening movements sprouted throughout Ho Chi Minh City in response to individuals’ desire to know more about what goes into their foods and the growing fear of agrochemical residue*.
At the Conference, Nora explained that the public distrust of agrochemicals grew in Vietnam when the media reported that many farmers had separate gardens from what they sell versus what they personally consume. This implied that the food grown with agrochemicals is unsafe according to the farmers’ standards, creating the crisis of confidence in farming that exists today. Furthermore, farmers having separate gardens for personal consumption created a double standard that has caused widespread disappointment and ethical and health concerns. As a result, many citizens turned toward growing their own food.
Nora’s fieldwork involved exploring different types of urban garden spaces and interviewing the growers to learn their perspectives on the food safety crisis. First, she interviewed a group of female growers who began cultivating small quantities of vegetables in the windows of their homes – a method Nora called kitchen gardens. While engaging with the group, Nora learned that the kitchen gardens produced vegetables smaller in size, which the growers felt were safer for their families. For the researcher, this reveals an association the growers have created between size and safety, as larger vegetables from the market now connote the use of agrochemicals.
Urban gardens vary in size and scale. Nora connected with Mrs. Mai, a cancer survivor, growing her own vegetables via a rooftop garden at home. The garden began as a way for Mai to have more control over the environmental influences her body is exposed to – a concern important to her given the unknown health risks associated with agrochemicals. Nora learned that Mai’s control over the rooftop garden’s soil conditions and water sources provided her with a sense of comfort as she knew what goes into her foods.
Nora also met with the owner of a commercial garden project known as the People’s Farm, which provides urbanites the opportunity to rent land to grow their own vegetables and to receive maintenance services. During her interview with Mr. Duong, the farm owner, Nora learned that the farm’s purpose is to provide a ‘green haven’ for urbanites where safe vegetables are accessible, and customers can trust the farm’s growing conditions.
Nora’s research thus reveals that food safety is a primary concern and reason why individuals have turned to urban gardening practices in Ho Chi Minh City. When asked if she had any ideas for how trust could be rebuilt in the food system, she explained that she observed a desire for shorter food chains and small-scale production throughout her research. Her fieldwork demonstrates that urban gardening is time-consuming and requires financial investment for seeds, soil, water, land, and/or maintenance services. This creates uneven access to safe foods, to which Nora states, “There’s a huge difference between treating food as a commodity and treating it as a right.” Adopting shorter food chains would improve access to safe foods and begin to reconcile the crisis of confidence in farming by listening to individuals’ desires for the food system.
The Food Matters and Materialities team sincerely thanks Nora Faltmann for participating in the conference and sharing her fascinating research.
* Agrochemical residue refers to the pesticides, fertilizers, and insecticides left on foods from the growing process.