Growing Roots: Cultural Food Insecurity and the Multifunctional Role of Collective Community Gardens of African Immigrants in Alberta, Canada

Community gardens have emerged in the literature as transformative spaces where communities develop self-reliant skills and strategies for accessing culturally familiar and healthy foods. However, complex barriers often limit interest and engagement, especially for the marginalized populations such as the Black immigrant communities. This study explores the role of collective community gardens in addressing cultural food insecurity and the general food insecurity in Black immigrant community. Additionally, the study explores the barriers to and facilitators of engagement of African immigrants in collective community gardening. The study adopted a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach guided by the socio-ecological framework through Afrocentric lens. The socio-ecological framework is a multilevel model that identifies how individual health behaviors and outcomes are shaped by interactions across personal factors to structural influences. The Afrocentric lens, on the other hand, outlines core principles to guide research with African communities: centering African experiences and ways of knowing, collective meaning-making, and highlighting community resilience and agency in knowledge production. The study’s methodological approach was guided by these fundamental principles of Afrocentric scholarship, culminating in an ongoing partnership with Sinkunia Community Development Organization (SCDO), a grassroots organization working with African immigrant households in Edmonton, Alberta. By adopting a CBPR approach informed by the Afrocentric lens, this study was designed to create spaces for meaningful engagement of participants in the co-creation of knowledge and evidence. The study employed a concurrent mixed methods research design to explore the prevalence of general and cultural household food insecurity, and experiences of engagement in collective community gardening. Data collection involved structured surveys (n=119) co-developed and co-administered with our community partner, SCDO to assess the prevalence of general and cultural food insecurity using the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS). In-depth interviews (n=10) and Afrocentric sharing circles (n=2) [with 8 people per circle] were conducted to explore lived experiences and collective meaning making on experiences of cultural food insecurity and engagement in collective community gardening. Participants for the IDIs and Sharing Circles were purposefully recruited through SCDO and the existing connections with African immigrant-serving organizations in Edmonton, Alberta. The survey participants were randomly selected through the existing community networks and from SCDO. The study findings uncovered a high prevalence of general household food insecurity (75.6%) and cultural (80.7%) food insecurity, higher than national average. Participants reported experiencing food insecurity ranging from mild (39.5%) to moderate (26.1%) and severe (10.1%). Using a socio-ecological framework, the study identified multiple intersecting barriers to engagement in collective community gardening: individual (e.g. limited knowledge about gardening, busy schedules, transportation challenges); interpersonal (e.g. lack of ethnic representation in gardens); community (distance to gardens); environmental (e.g. extreme weather); and structural (e.g. high inflation, unemployment, import tariffs, discrimination, and resource precarity). Despite barriers, participants demonstrated commitment in their participation in collective community gardening and in maintaining healthy cultural foodways. Those who accessed collective community gardens reported significant benefits through four key themes: cultivating connections through food production ('seeds of sovereignty'); building intergenerational bridges ('seeds of identity'); growing together across cultures; and embodying health and wellbeing through physical activity and access to healthy food options. Collective community gardens are, therefore, multifunctional spaces for knowledge exchange, building social capital, and cultivating neighborly connections that support wellbeing. This work contributes to emerging literature on the role of community-driven initiatives addressing cultural food insecurity. The study also explores the prevalence of cultural food insecurity, an area that is often not captured in literature and in national measures of food insecurity. By applying an Afrocentric lens and community-based participatory research approach, this work prioritizes community agency, experiential knowledge, co-creation, and shared meaning making. The findings challenge deficit-based narratives highlighting how African immigrants adapt and transform their environment through collective community gardening despite existing structural barriers. The high interest and engagement in gardening observed suggests potential for expansion of community-driven initiatives to support social and cultural integration of African immigrants in Alberta.

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