At 46 years old, Heidi Penix was diagnosed with breast cancer.

A Michigan native, she had just moved back from Texas to start a new job after losing hers due to the pandemic. But things were looking up: She also purchased her first home, in Detroit’s University District.

Penix wasn’t a farmer by any means, but she had been a believer in the food sovereignty movement. Her new home came with a yard left in disrepair after years of vacancy, so she contacted Keep Growing Detroit, an organization dedicated to food sovereignty, to buy seeds to start a garden.

On the same day, Penix was scheduled to pick up her seeds, she had a doctor’s appointment. That’s when she received the diagnosis.

“It’s always, now, so associated with cancer for me,” Penix said about that seed pickup after leaving the doctor. On the drive, she recalled saying, “We got to get the crops!” and “This is a really important thing. We just got to get it.”

Penix, now 48, has had a double mastectomy, but recently learned she has stage IV cancer with a metastatic bone lesion. Though the physical battle is grueling, she remembers how tending to the garden became a mental and emotional lifeline during her first treatment phase. Growing something in her backyard, however small, gave Penix a sense of purpose and a reason to keep going on the toughest days, she said.

‘When I couldn’t do anything else, I had this garden’

Penix’s garden is a canvas of organized chaos. It began with distinct sections: vegetables on one side, wildflowers on the other, and plastic fork prongs poking up to keep squirrels from walking on the plants.

Over time, nature had its way. Flowers like zinnias and black-eyed Susans, once intentionally planted in one section, began to spread. The marigolds, cosmos and calendula were now joined by goldenrod and poppies, creating a vibrant yet untamed space.

But Penix hadn’t always pictured herself as a gardener.

“I remember when I put the first seeds in the ground, I thought, ‘Well, this is pointless. Nothing’s going to happen,’” Penix said, laughing. “Then I remember when the first little seedlings came up, just feeling like I had done magic. I was like, ‘This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.’”

At first, Penix said, managing her garden was challenging, especially with the unpredictability of her treatment schedule. Urban gardening isn’t just about growing food: It also offers physical benefits, particularly for people recovering from chronic illnesses like cancer. Research has shown that light physical activity, such as gardening, can help patients stay mobile and in good spirits during recovery. A study of Detroit’s urban gardeners published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that gardeners reported improved moods, reduced stress and better management of chronic conditions.

The diagnosis hit Penix hard. She didn’t have a family history of the disease. Sometimes, the garden was the only activity she had the energy for. Weeding, watering or simply being in the yard became a form of therapy.

“I was sick, and I was really depressed, and things kind of fell apart for me. And then I had this yard,” Penix said. “It’s the place I just wanted to spend the most time. It’s been this ongoing frustration: Plan the garden. Get really excited. Then it’s like, ‘Well, I have to have another surgery (and) can’t use my arms right after I planted. And then everything kind of falls apart. … And then when I was really mad, I could pull weeds. So it was a good outlet.”

A new outlook on food

Penix now researches injury and violence prevention in a public health master’s program at Johns Hopkins University. She’s knowledgeable in the field now, but initially, she knew little about the impact of healthy food on overall well-being.

Her cancer journey showed her the importance of what people consume and how environments shape health. Penix started focusing on addressing issues at the root, rather than only treating symptoms with medication.

“I learned how important green space is to every part of the human health experience,” Penix said. “I think about how important having the green spaces is to people. And being connected to the earth and being able to have control of the food systems and being able to use land to be able to grow healthy food I think is a really important thing.”

Penix grows tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, eggplants and beans to use in her meals. (Though, her husband says, she sometimes goes overboard with certain produce). Growing produce helped increase her fruit and vegetable intake to improve her diet. Research shows produce begins to lose its nutrients as soon as it is harvested, making fresh food the best choice.

Penix said urban farming also helped her learn more about what goes into in our food, like pesticides and other agents she considers to be harmful, although some experts maintain these chemicals are safe.

Kate Bauer, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Michigan, emphasized that any pesticide residue on food is safe for eating and that there isn’t much research that says pesticide-free or “organic” foods offer more nutritional benefits than nonorganic food.

“Food is pretty healthy, even if it doesn’t look perfect,” Bauer said, noting to never eat food that looks expired or rotten. “It is definitely more important to use your money to get as much fresh produce as you can that your family can handle and eat and (to have) a variety.”

As the flowers in her garden faded with the arrival of fall, Penix said she felt both a sense of sadness and peace. Her approach to urban gardening has become a metaphor for life: It’s about letting things bloom, grow and fall when the time comes.

“It’s a constant process of learning what it takes to keep things alive,” Penix said, adding that the garden “is an ecosystem that I’m not in charge of. It needs tending, it needs to be kept refreshed. … It’s sad to see all my goldenrods just fade because those are so pretty.

“It’s that hard time to let things kind of be without kind of aggressively pruning, trying to make things pretty. Just let it fade. I’m trying to be good with that.”

The post Gardening Heals: Detroiter’s Cancer Treatment Eased by her Work With Soil appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Driving down Monterey Street on Detroit’s westside, there are more abandoned and vacant houses than occupied ones. Sidewalks are overgrown with grass, and stretches of land as long as football fields separate the homes that remain.

About midway down the block, between Wildemere and Lawton streets, is Fennigan’s Farms. You can’t miss it from the tall towers of bright yellow sunflowers waving in the wind. As you walk up, there’s a table with tomatoes and a sign that reads “Free Produce.”

Amanda Brezzell is the co-founder and creative director at Fennigan’s Farms. Brezzell said the farm and design firm’s mission is to be a resource to the community, helping Detroiters achieve food sovereignty by providing fresh, accessible food, some at no cost.

According to a report sponsored by the Michigan Association of United Ways, about 69 percent of Detroit households surveyed find it difficult to afford the basic cost of living, including food. This is compounded by the fact that 39,000 Detroit households spend more than half of their income on housing alone, and that many find other necessities, such as utilities, auto insurance and child care, unaffordable.

“I just know what kind of help that would be for me, if somebody was giving me some of my groceries for free before I even had to get to the grocery store,” Brezzell said. “Even if it’s just a pint of tomatoes, that would have cost you way more. That’s three more dollars in your pocket or five more dollars in your pocket, or shoot, eight more dollars in your pocket.”

Brezzell said they believe urban farming is important for their neighbors’ health and well-being, and hopes Fennigan’s Farms becomes a community hub to accomplish just that.

A community-first approach

At its core, Fennigan’s Farms is an “agricultural design” studio. The team develops pop-up farmers markets, garden beds and community gardens to increase green spaces around Detroit. Fennigan’s also grows flowers to sell at local events.

The design work and floral sales are how Brezzell can offer free produce, which they say is important to giving their community locally sourced food options, eliminating barriers to access.

“Being aware of community needs is paramount to what we do,” Brezzell said. “We wanted to break down that immediate barrier to accessing food. I can’t drive you to the store, but if you’re walking past, I can give you something. … Food was never meant to be a commodity.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture considers an urban area a food desert if its poverty rate is at least 20% and if one-third of residents live more than one mile from a major supermarket or grocery store. By that definition, about 10% of Detroit is considered a food desert.

But the key consideration is access to fresh and healthy food, which remains a problem in the city, especially for Black residents, Brezzell and Bauer said. A poor diet and an inadequate nutrient intake can lead to several health problems, such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

“It’s about our food system taking advantage of certain communities,” said Kate Bauer, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Michigan. “This is not about a lack of education. Urban farming allows local people — individuals — to take back that ability to control their health, their bodies and what goes on in their neighborhoods.”

Fennigan’s Farms aims to be more than a local grocery store. Brezzell wants it to become a community hub, a place for residents to gather, share knowledge and engage in discussions about sustainable practices.

When planning crops, Brezzell said it’s important to consider the needs of the community and consult them about what they want to eat.

“Sometimes people are like, ‘Wow, you grow a lot of tomatoes,’ or, ‘You’ve got a lot of herbs,’ or whatever. Yes, because people in the neighborhood want tomatoes. They want potatoes, they want squash, corn, beans, et cetera. So we’re making sure to grow those things and not have to throw them away because people aren’t eating them.”

Creating a food-sovereign Detroit

Between 2017 and 2022, the city lost 10 full-line grocery stores, leaving 64, at that time. The addition of Black-owned stores like the Detroit People’s Food Co-op, Neighborhood Grocery and Linwood Fresh Market has helped to address the issue, but considering some suburbs like Livonia have more major grocery stores than residents say they need, Detroit still has progress to make.

“Looking at particularly African American or Black communities, I think it’s incredibly important (to) think about the overlapping and interfacing systems of injustice and structural racism that are impacting these communities,” said James Buszkiewicz, a research investigator at University of Michigan who has studied social determinants of health. “It trickles all the way down to this kind of (food access) … and access to opportunities that can impact food access.”

Urban farming offers a community-based solution to this problem, but Black urban farmers often encounter financial barriers to acquiring land or accessing water to grow food. Brezzell said they had to spend between $5,000 and $10,000 to get water for the farm.

“Food was never meant to be a commodity.”

Amanda Brezzell, co-founder of Fennigan’s Farms

The City of Detroit has initiatives to increase access through land-based projects like urban farming, but Brezzell said the support is still inadequate. They want policies that make sustainable farming simpler at the city, state and federal levels.

“It’s an economic opportunity,” Brezzell said. “It’s not just that I can’t buy the land. It’s not just the water. It’s about the fact that I need access to continue to do the things that I want to do for my community. But if it’s been commodified and turned into an economic opportunity that I’m not allowed to benefit from, then that’s just another form of displacement, right?”

An appreciation for locally grown produce

Recent research shows that living near community-based agriculture initiatives can have a positive impact on a person’s health.

Bauer’s research for the project Feeding MI Families shows that lower-income families have limited food options. Urban farming increases those options, cultivates a deeper connection to local food sources, promotes healthier eating habits and invokes a greater appreciation for local agriculture.

“Our health is really due thanks to farmers and all the people in the food system who can get healthy food to us,” Bauer said. “That’s why (there’s) all the efforts to get farms in schools and child care centers, to get kids exposed to fresh flavors. There’s a strong belief that knowing where your food comes from and knowing the process of growing the food … is going to shift your mindset to be more appreciative and open and thoughtful about the way you eat.”

Brezzell said the joy they experience cultivating land with their family and the conversations Brezzell gets to have with their neighbors gets them out of bed every day.

They hope the farm remains a resource for Detroiters, as a community hub for emergencies, a place to find fresh produce or just somewhere for residents to get together and talk about growing.

“I’m not sitting here thinking like, ‘We’re feeding people,’ or ‘I’m keeping people alive.’ I’m coming from the space of, you come by, you see free produce, and it sparks something in you,” Brezzell said of their mission.

“The community doesn’t need your … pity. Nobody needs your help from that mindset. People need access to resources so they can best take care of themselves with full autonomy. So offer your support.”

This article first appeared on Outlier Media and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Healing Soil: Detroit Urban Farms is produced by Outlier Media in partnership with Planet Detroit, with support from the Michigan Health Endowment Fund. 

The post From Sunflowers to Squash: One Detroit Farmer’s Push for Food Sovereignty appeared first on Modern Farmer.