1. Voting Habits
of the
Urban
Farming
Sub-Culture
Felicia Kloewer, Elizabeth
Bayer, Nico Curl, Elizabeth
Smith, Chris Thompson

2. Objectives
The objective is to immerse ourselves into the
urban farming community in order to understand
their political views.
With the upcoming 2012 election, this is an
opportunity to see how different groups in the
Eugene-Springfield community vote based on
influences by their sub-culture.
We decided to focus on the sub-culture,
urban farmers, because it is prominent subculture in our targeted region.

3. Definition of Sub-Culture
• A sub-culture is a group of people who break
from the majority culture.
• The sub-culture defined (urban farming) is a
group of individuals who live within suburban
settings but practice rural activities such as
farming and sustainable living.
• This group can identify with two main-stream
cultures but chose to intergrade aspects of
both.

4. How would you label the urban
farming community?
•
•
•
•
•
By the clothes they wear?
By the music they listen to?
Where they live?
What types of food they eat?
By their occupations?

5. Initial Thoughts
• Hippies living “offthe-grid”
• Liberal
• Exclusive
community
• Wariness of the
media
• Severe feelings
that the
government is
corrupted or
flawed

6. Execution
In order to better understand the chosen subculture, we focused on the three main types of urban
farming: personal, commercial, and donation-based.
Based on these different types we focused on the
differences and similarities of the farms and the
farmers.
To gather our information we decided to interview
our subjects because political opinions may be
considered sensitive information. To overcome the
issue of sensitivity, we worked along side the famers
at their farms or homes and got to know them
personally and therefore allowed for more honest
dialogue.

7. What is Urban Farming?
• Three types of urban farming:
• Personal
• Backyard plots or containers and/or pots
• For personal usage and generally not shared with
public
• Commercial (uncommon)
• Producing food for profit
• Using private or state-owed land
• Donation-based
• FOOD for Lane County
• Used for donating food to poor or disabled

8. Eugene Zones

9. Definition of Zoning & Urban
Farming
• City zoned into specific areas that
establish different types of development
• Agriculture (golden yellow) occurs on the
outer edges away from the city and most
residences
• Urban farms can be found throughout
residential areas such as public land (sky
blue), low-density residential (beige), etc.

10. Personal
• Bill Bezuk: Backyard
Farmer
– Sustainable living:
• Bee hives
• Chickens
• Nile Ann
– Sustainable garden
• Garden in containers

11. Commercial
• The Youth Farm splits their 95-100
thousand pounds of food between:


Pay a fee for
fresh produce
FOOD for
Lane County

12. Donation-based
• Food for Lane County
– GrassRoots Garden
– Churchill Community Garden
– Youth Farm
• The Grove
– Project Tomato: grew 500 pounds and donated it
to the University of Oregon for pizza sauce.
• Huerto de la Familia
– Sustainable gardening.

13. Meet: Merry Bradley
• Certified Master Gardener
• Head of the Grassroots Garden since 1991
– Produces 50-60 thousand pounds
donated per year
• The garden is almost
entirely run by volunteers

14. Meet: Tristan Fields
• 10 Years of gardening
experience at The
Grove
• 3 years on land
• Leads Project Tomato
– This program will teach
students about
sustainable agriculture.
– The tomatoes harvested
are turned into pizza
sauce for UO dining
facilities.

15. Findings

16. What Does Urban Farming Mean to
Them?
• “First and foremost, I love growing food for people
and feeding people.” – Ted Purdy, Youth Farm
– Community based organization with the goal of
feeding and distributing food
• It means sustainability because organizations, like
Food for Lane County, focus on building
sustainable futures for the community.
– Hopefully, this translates into urban farms in
backyards or in community plots in neighborhoods

17. Continued
• In short, urban farming means:
– building community
– growing food for people
– teaching people how to be sustainable
– Helping with social issues
• Like troubled kids, people with disabilities, lowincome families, etc.
• To Purdy, this is social work

18. Translation into Political Views
• Measures concerning sustainability, urban
areas, and farming are of importance.
– Like issues supporting “open space”
(undeveloped areas of land) to garden
• Another issues is under the Farm Bill.
– The government is reducing SNAP
(Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).

19. Why vote?
• Privilege
• Driven to vote because “it’s easier to be
cynical, but I find it much more satisfying to
embrace small changes, even if it’s not what
you’re wanting.”
– Ted Purdy
• Bring awareness
–Ban the Bag, May 1, 2013
• Seeing a change
–Passionate about making an impact
–Ban the Bag achieved in Portland.

20. Conclusion
• “Our overall goal is simple: to better the
community, get people involved and lead
by example.”
- Tristan Fields