Growing alone, growing together, growing apart? Reflections on the social organisation of voluntary urban food production in Britain

The organisation of an unpaid supply of labour is an essential but under-researched aspect of contemporary forms of urban agriculture, and a key restraint on its expansion. In Britain there are two dominant modes of practice, collective and individual, the former exemplified by volunteering activity on growing projects, the latter by traditional allotment gardens. This chapter adopts a comparative approach to explore the assumptions about human motivation, individual rights and effective social organisation that underpin these two modes. Both have strengths and weaknesses, and relations between them can be antagonistic, particularly when land is scarce, but areas of convergence have also begun to emerge, and both need to be accommodated if the voluntary supply of labour is to be maximised.