Greening intergenerational relationships

What do I remember most about my maternal grandfather? The smell of soil in his potting shed.

It’s such a strong memory that I feel his presence whenever I’m gardening. It’s rich, dark, full of nutrients and optimism. He used to grow almost all the vegetables and fruit he and my grandmother ate. His garden was alive with birds, insects and worms. 

He used his potting shed to escape from the world, it was his happy place and he carried it with him every day through the creases on his skin on his fingers which were rarely completely clean of the stain of soil.

Perhaps that’s the inspiration for the idea described below. I’ve been mulling on it a while, and in the spirit of Friday, decided to share it. 

Feel the fear and do it anyway

Why have I been reluctant to share until now? I suspect it’s because I fear the response will be to judge the idea and therefore me…as naïve, optimistic to the point of irrelevance, lacking understanding of the complexities of legislative mandates and funding rules.

But what is worse for me than that? The fear of nothing changing, of people feeling stuck to the point of powerlessness, the fear that future generations won’t know the joy of touching and smelling dirt or experiencing the regenerative cycles of planting seeds, watching them grow, harvesting their abundance, seasonal changes.

This may not be a great idea, it may not be a doable idea – what matters is that is might inspire other ideas that turn into a million/billion actions. And that is the point. So please, have a read. I’ve shared mine, I’d love you to share your ideas too – and who knows, maybe they’ll become realities.

The Idea

Simply put, my idea is this: in local areas, set up and incentivise growing networks that pair up the older generation (who tend to remember how to work the soil, grow plants in season, reuse and recycle) with children and young people (who now more than ever need a break from screens and the mental balm of nature) to design, plant and look after community gardens. 

These gardens can be focused on:

• growing edibles for local communities to eat or sell for community benefit

• growing plants to recreate ecosystems that feed and protect birds and insects

• growing plants that encourage natural water infiltration and the return to the original ecological drainage and water flows as a protection against flooding.

How could incentives work?

• People who commit to teaching, coaching and enabling the growing networks could receive rebates on their local council rates and charges (I’m assuming this would primarily be older people who may be retired or work part-time, but it could be anyone)

• Children and young people who commit to participating regularly could receive credits in their school qualification system, free breakfasts, lunches and afternoon teas when on the gardening site, free transport to the sites and back to school (or vice versa)

• Parents of children and young people who support their kids to participate could receive rebates on their local council rates and charges

• Every participant could receive a proportion of the produce grown for free to feed themselves and their families, with any surplus either shared with people in need or sold locally to fund more growing activities.

How could it be funded?

• Local councils could use money set aside for council garden and verge maintenance, drain clearage and storm-water damage remediation

• Privately-owned land, council and crown land, iwi or other indigenously stewarded land – could be given or loaned on long-term basis for the programme

• Schools and education ministries could use some of the money traditionally targeted at school transport, breakfast and meal supplements for children facing hardship, money set aside for participation-in-education schemes

• National and local health providers could use some of the money targeted on remediated the impact of loneliness and lack of exercise among older generations, and some of the money focused on targeting obesity and healthy-food promotion programmes

• Inland Revenue departments could incentivise local business involvement by tax rebates – for example for local cafes providing food for participants, for seed/plant and tool providers, for landowners prepared to give up or loan land for long-term schemes

• Other national and regional organisations could provide support and expertise in kind – for example, scientific and biodiversity organisations could provide training, guidance and on-the-ground encouragement.

Diversion of funds assumes the non-financial benefits from such a scheme are realised over time, but there would have to be some risk tolerance here – without proactive investment, we will always be spending too much money as the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.

What we could achieve

What I’d hope to see with such an idea is that:

• communities start to integrate across and within generations and socio-economic/political boundaries;

• our local environments start to deliver on regeneration of biodiversity;

• we proactively and systematically invest in the protection of the soil, birds, plants and insects that we rely on to live;

• we consciously relink ecology with food production;

• we can see and be part of actions to protect our environments from water damage from the inevitable climatic changes;

• we grow a sense of pride and ownership at a collective local level;

• we illustrate the potential for devolved decision-making and innovation at a community level, and opportunities for different thinking and settings for funding and incentive structures at a national level.