Seeding community: from urban gardens to communal kitchens as spaces for eco-social transformation

Written by: Espai Ambiental Team

At Espai Ambiental, we have always worked for a food model based on proximity and ecology. With food sovereignty as a central idea, food system must be fair, healthy and environmentally sustainable. On a practical level, we work on food as a right that must be guaranteed for everyone.

In our projects, we take into account the dimensions of multiculturalism, health and community building, as well as the environmental dimension. The food model in Barcelona still has many good things: consumer cooperatives, local markets with fresh produce, and many others. But the challenge of bringing quality food to all people is what mobilises us first and foremost.

A structural transformation is needed to bring quality food within reach of all social strata, with a model that brings producers and consumers closer together, that also encourages self-production, and that moves towards food infrastructures becoming increasingly community-owned and less in the hands of the market.

We would like to share some of our experiences in this field.

First of all, there is our community garden project. The aim was to create a space in a densely urban area where food is grown, but also where people meet, share knowledge, reconnect with nature and learn to organise themselves collectively. The ‘Volem ser horteres’ (We Want to Be Gardeners) project, launched in the Poblet neighbourhood (known also as Sagrada Família, as it is located near the famous monument) with the support of our Pla Comunitari (Community Plan), is a good example of this.

‘We Want to be Gardeners’ was born out of a shared need among the neighbours: to have a public, open, and community green space where they could grow vegetables, socialise, and reconnect with nature, as there was none in the entire area and other community gardens had disappeared in previous years. The idea emerged during the ‘Som Poblet’ (We Are Poblet) Community Days in June 2023, with the aim of creating an open, intercultural, and healthy vegetable garden. After months of meetings and conversations, and negotiations with the Council, the steering group was established in May 2024, with the support of our organisation.

The aim is not simply to produce vegetables, but to build a community of people. The garden is conceived as a collectively managed space, where decisions, tasks and knowledge are shared.

We live in increasingly dense, individualised cities affected by the climate crisis. In Barcelona, the distribution of green spaces is highly unequal: the Eixample district, for example, has only 2 m² of green per person, while the city average is 7.26 m². This lack of greenery also contributes to the urban heat island effect.

At the same time, public urban vegetable gardens still operate with individual plots and have a poorly diverse participation. Data analysed by Espai Ambiental indicates that in average 80% of users are men, the average age is 74.2 years, and only 3% were born outside Spain. This shows that there are still barriers to access and participation for many groups and that projects like ours are necessary.

These social challenges are compounded by environmental ones: drought, urban heat, and biodiversity loss.

In the face of this situation, we see various emotions in our neighbourhood: concern, powerlessness or ecological fatigue. But when working on an urban garden, we see hope in the users: seeing how a small space can become a place of meeting and transformation reminds us that we have the capacity to act. And it brings to the surface feelings of eco-dependence and inter-dependence: we need nature and we need other people. These feelings, in the city, are very valuable.

For initiatives like this to be consolidated, much more than a piece of land is needed. We need accessible public spaces, financial resources, training in organic and regenerative agriculture and, above all, community support. The role of the facilitator who manages the group, the motivations, the pace of the different people is fundamental. Support should not replace self-management, but rather help groups acquire the tools to make decisions, manage conflicts and become autonomous.

Alliances with local organisations, educational institutions, health services, associations for migrants or people with disabilities, and other facilities are also important.

One of the most significant changes seen is that our garden has become a way of building community. The ‘We Want to Be Gardeners’ group works a small plot of land but, above all, organises open activities, shares knowledge and defends the right of the neighbourhood to enjoy green spaces and manage them responsibly, even in contexts of drought.

The story of the project is, in itself, a small and symbolic victory: an idea that emerged from community days gradually took shape through meetings, conversations and organisation, until it became a driving group with its own name, ‘We Want to be Gardener’!. It is a demonstration that transformations often begin with a conversation between neighbours.

People who didn’t know each other have bonded, and it has been special that those with prior knowledge of agriculture have made it available to the rest.

The garden is, in effect, a school for everyday ecology. We grow in a regenerative way, look after the soil, reduce chemicals, encourage biodiversity, understand natural cycles and use resources responsibly.

We would tell policymakers that community gardens should be considered green, social and health facilities, not just simple plots of land for growing. Their creation must be facilitated, they must be distributed more equitably across the city, and it must be ensured that they are open, inclusive and connected to the neighbourhoods. Barcelona already recognises this potential in its 2019-2030 Urban Agriculture Strategy, but much more progress is still needed in its implementation.

As part of our community-strengthening food work, we have also helped to promote other community-based food infrastructures:

The Sant Antoni Community Kitchen, where we have facilitated the creation of the community group that manages the market kitchen as a popular food space with activities for family groups, women’s groups, an intercultural space, a space for older people and food rescue.

The Bloc4 Shared Workshop, a cooperative industrial kitchen for shared production, a sort of “atelier alimentaire collaboratif“ for social projects looking forward to produce processed foods, preserves and the like.

If we were to retain a single idea from these projects, it would be this: when we care for food, we also care for people; and when we build community, we increase our capacity to face crises.

A community garden, a kitchen or a local food workshop may seem small in the face of the great climate and social challenges, but it is precisely in these everyday spaces that we can experiment with other ways of living: more cooperative, ecological, inclusive and supportive.

These are, ultimately, seeds. Seeds that, when they find soil, care and community, transform the entire landscape.