Watson Fellow to Research Urban Agriculture

Campos plans to photograph his experience, interview people, and write about he learns.

The Wesleyan Connection
July 10, 2024

Excerpt:

Campos will venture to cities in Australia, France, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Singapore to study urban and peri-urban agriculture and its place in creating community and political engagement. This work is an extension of previous food insecurity research Campos conducted during a semester abroad in Argentina, Spain, and South Africa and work he did during Yuh-Line Niou’s congressional campaign in New York in 2022, he said.

“Dylan’s interested in how these are not just agriculture projects but also social projects,” said Erica Kowsz. “The project allows Dylan to bring together several of the threads he’s been following for years, not just his environmental activism, which is notable, or his academic interest in food systems and sustainability, but also his focus on political and community organizing.”

He will work with local farmers, community groups, and hunger relief organizations to see how locals in each region have attempted to address this problem. For example, while he is in Porto, Portugal he will visit a city farm that is using regenerative farming tactics to restore nutrients to soil contaminated by nearby abandoned coal mines. In Australia and the Netherlands, he will observe how community members use urban farms to discuss land-use policy. He hopes that the ability to spend multiple months in some places will allow him to integrate into the communities and then determine his role in engaging with them.

“One thing I’ve learned doing my research and my work is, that when it comes to alleviating urban food insecurity, is that one size does not fit all in terms of a solution,” Campos said. “What works in Argentina will not work in South Africa, which will not work in Spain, which won’t work in the United States.”

Complete story here.