About community gardens

An evaluation by Russ Grayson + Fiona Campbell - April 2000

< introduction < relevance < impact < efficiency < effectiveness < progress
< sustainability < recommendations < conclusions < full document for printing

INTRODUCTION

Nearly 20 years after the first sod of soil was turned in Sydney's first community garden, I produced this paper to assist local government, community workers and others make decisions about the use of community food gardens as foci for social development, environmental improvement and food production.

This evaluation is based solely on observations and experience in assisting to set up community gardens, training gardeners, advocating on behalf of community gardeners and writing about the community gardening experience in magazines and online.

Indicators

In this document, I make use of a set of indicators developed by the international agency Oxfam primarily for the evaluation of overseas aid projects. I have used similar indicators for monitoring and evaluating aid projects in the South Pacific and have found that they bring a broader contextual overview than simply evaluating according to a projectÕs specific objectives.

Indicators used to assess community gardening in this report include:

• relevance - to the needs or participants, to garden sponsors and to urban environmental improvement
• impact - how the gardens have affected the people involved
• efficiency - how well the gardens make use of limited resources
• effectiveness - whether the gardens really do achieve their objectives
• progress - how community gardens have evolved and the trends that are evident
• sustainability - whether the gardens are self-sustaining and their prospects for the future.

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PAGE UPDATED... Sunday, 30 November 2003