Two men harvesting food in a community garden as a tool for climate action

Grow It Yourself: A Climate Action Tool

Now is the time for action. COP27, the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, must signal the end of debate and the start of action to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees. For many of us, it’s hard to know what more we can do as individuals. But one climate action tool we can use is to grow some of our own food and inspire others to do the same.

Let’s explore why growing your own food is important by looking at the results from our first ever GIY community survey. These are the findings from 700 respondents located primarily in Ireland, as well as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and Puerto Rico. A note on our community before diving in: it is inter-generational and diverse, with households ranging from 1 to 10 people. And our community has journeyed with us, with 28% of respondents being engaged with GIY since before 2018. Our survey results show that:

  • More than 80% of GIYers feel worried about the environmental impact of how food is produced;
  • 80% of GIYers support in some way measures to address climate change even if it would create personal challenges in the short term;
  • 90% of GIYers feel worried about climate change in some way.

Why Grow It Yourself?

Personal Impact

We tend to think that individual action to tackle climate change must be a sacrifice. But with food growing, it’s the opposite – positive things happen when you put a seed in the soil!  Research* shows that the benefits range from improved well-being to better food and financial security.

Through growing it yourself, you will likely feel happier, less stressed and eat more healthily. And if you grow food yourself while entering adulthood or retirement, you are likely to feel more socially connected. This insight indicates that growing can be a social activity, which is emphasised by the finding that, while only 9% of respondents were part of a community growing initiative, 42% said that they would like to be.

At the same time, if you want to feel more informed and motivated to make sustainable food choices and to feel confident to try new things, GIY’s programmes, campaigns and resources are proven to support these, especially if you are in your late twenties to early thirties. Once you start growing it’s likely you’ll continue, so all the benefits that arise can become benefits for life.

Carbon Savings

A GIYer’s Garden

The average GIY plot is in the countryside in Ireland, while in the United States and UK it is in the built environment. In all cases, the typical approximate plot size is 30m2, which produces a harvest for 6 months of the year. At GROW HQ and in the homes of GIY team members, we have measured yield over the course of growing seasons across a typical blend of 10-15 vegetables. On average, 1m2 of growing space has yielded 4kg of homegrown veg. On a 30m2 plot, that comes to an estimated 120kg veg per year!

Our survey found that new growers (people starting with GIY in the last 2 years) harvest up to 100kg of vegetables a year, while established growers with 5 or more years of growing experience bring in a whopping 205kg of vegetables, which is more than the average Irish household’s annual food waste (150kg), worth upwards of €700.

Based on our review of other studies* and applying them to an Irish context, we estimate that if you grow, eat and compost 1kg of vegetables in an organic manner at home, in a community or school plot, you are saving approximately 1kg of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) from being emitted into the atmosphere. This is because you are growing and eating vegetables that have not been grown intensively using synthetic supports before being transported and stored along a fossil-fueled supply chain to finally be wasted in a methane-emitting landfill.

The 120kg veg grown by the typical GIYer equates to approximate savings of 120kg CO2e.

Why Growing Methods Matter

How we grow affects these emissions savings and, thanks to growing expert Richard Mee (Head Grower at GROW HQ), we have a robust list of low emissions growing practices. These include:

  • Not using synthetic nitrogen fertiliser
  • Not using pesticides
  • Not using peat-based compost
  • Keeping the soil covered at all times, either with crops or green manures
  • Cold-composting any food waste that is created

90% of GIYers are growing food using these methods, although it is important to note that growing in this way also supports local biodiversity, without which we would not have thriving gardens full of pollinators and natural predators.

Food Growing & Diet

Our findings also show that food growing influences our overall food practices, in particular our diet choices. We found that those that had been growing food for over 5 years were more likely to follow a lower emissions diet (as defined by the WWF Impact and Action Calculator) compared to new growers. Whether due to their higher yields or new attitudes towards diet, the emissions savings of this came out at just under 200kg CO2e.

GIY: A Climate Action Tool

Taking our findings of yield, growing method and dietary impacts, we estimate the emissions savings from home food growing to be approximately 300kg per annum after a 5-year period of growing some of your own food. This is the equivalent of 2.5% of the average Irish person’s carbon footprint. For context, aviation represents approximately 2.5% of global emissions. While we are only at the beginning of the journey to quantify the potential impact of home and community food growing, our findings suggest that a world full of growers could be a huge force for good.

Time to get growing

In spite of the clear benefits to growing your own food, the top two obstacles to GIYing are lack of time and lack of knowledge.

Having a community can help when it comes to time crunches, such as needing to water plants while away on holidays or the need for many hands at harvest time. Feeling connected is also important for our mental health, as well as strengthening our community, which is vital at a time when community spirit is the glue that can get us through challenging times.

Finally, motivation is more than half the battle when it comes to committing to an action or adopting a new habit. At GIY we can help you to become motivated, informed and inspired to take action. The majority of our GIY community started growing with us many years ago and we are committed to supporting others in the journey to Grow It Yourself. Now is the time to act!

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*an example of papers cited through desk research: Kortrite and Wakefield 2011; Bratman et al. 2019; Bailey 2020; Dobson et al. 2020