Agro-Ecological Restoration at Troy Gardens

“Agriculture and ecological restoration thrive when they incorporate the distinctive needs and assets of local people and ecosystems. This means that from farm to farm and region to region, thriving ecosystems look different.”
– “Restoration Agriculture and Our Watershed,” Rock River Coalition Newsletter

In the fall of 2016, a team of Agroecology students and I wrote an ecological restoration management plan that analyzed opportunities for Troy Gardens to integrate food production and ecological restoration. The following spring, we authored and published an article about this partnership in the Rock River Coalition newsletter.

Goals for Agroecology Team:

  • Review cases of persistent ecological degradation throughout Troy Gardens.
  • Produce an Ecological Restoration management plan that integrates food production.
  • Offer solutions that leverage the interests and commitment of Troy Gardens volunteers, visitors, and community gardeners.
  • Partner with a local organization that wanted support in restorative land management.

Goals for Community GroundWorks:

  • Understand opportunities for different parts of Troy Gardens to support each other, ecologically and programatically. They find that the many different parts of their organization have trouble collaborating.
  • Understand opportunities for volunteers, visitors, and community gardeners to use and enjoy parts of Troy Garden’s that they do not usually explore.

Goals for Rock River Coalition:

  • Collaborate with farmers to restore wetlands in current agricultural fields, to protect and enhance water quality.
  • Maintain their stream-monitering program.
  • Produce seasonal newsletter to showcase work with volunteers, supporters, government agencies, and legislators.

Project Documents:

Document Title: Restoration Master Plan
Authors: Tracy Campbell, Amanda Hoffman, Carrie Lierl, Alex Steussy-Williams
Editors and Contributors: Evelyn Howell, Shelly Strom
Date Completed: December 21, 2016. Edited August 4, 2017.
Document Description: This plan analyzes opportunities for ecological restoration at Troy Gardens, emphasizing the resources of community agriculture in forwarding restoration goals.

Document Title: “Restoration Agriculture and Our Watershed” Article for RRC Newsletter
Authors: Amanda Hoffman
Editors and Contributors: Tracy Campbell, Evelyn Howell, Carrie Lierl, Alex Steussy-Williams, Shelly Strom,
Date Completed: December 21, 2016. Edited August 4, 2017.
Document Description: This plan analyzes opportunities for ecological restoration at Troy Gardens, emphasizing the resources of community agriculture in forwarding restoration goals.

Success Stories

  • We learned from and with agricultural and restoration practitioners outside of academia. We cultivated a wider audience for our class project by writing for RRC. I value Agroecology commitment to public scholarship, where we share knowledge in ways that reaches people beyond an academic audience. I learned about the power of public scholarship after taking an Agroecology seminar with Professor Mike Bell.
  • We increased awareness of an issue and modeled a collaborative relationship. Dave Hoffman shared that the timing of the article coincided with their work on “Actually Restorable Wetlands.” Funded by the DNR, they explore “What farm fields could be ideal for wetland restoration?” Dave points out that environmentalist organizations like RRC have contentious relationship with farmers. But restoration “benefits the both of us…keep soil, keep nutrients, phosophorus that is binding on those soils out of those waterways. Certain cities with runoff from sewers is one thing, but we have a lot more agricultural land than we do city streets…It would benefit everyone to do something like Troy farms…We try to have a board member on the board that is a farm. We had one retire…we haven’t found someone to take his spot. There are certainly farmers out there doing good work…We are progressing. We’ve seen positive outcomes from our work…going back to the grants that we’re getting for the actually restorable wetlands.”
  • We visioned a more collaborative Community GroundWorks as they are visioning their future. After the project I asked Shelly about how our restoration plan could be useful for Community GroundWorks. The organization is trying to evolve, to ensure that they leverage their resources to meet their goals. Our plan is an example of visioning a more collaborative Troy Gardens, that Shelly can share with stakeholders as they plan for the future.
  • We pushed the boundaries of Restoration Ecology to include food production. Shelly offered that one valuable outcome of our project was uniting ecological restoration and agriculture. She was excited, calling that intersection her “passion.” She was also glad for the opportunity to revisit other management plans and documents.

Read the Ecological Restoration Plan Profile to learn more about the journey of this project.