Roots to Work

Footage from the Roots to work launch event

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Project dates: February – October 2011
Lifetime employment within the same organisation is now exceptional rather than the norm, and high levels of unemployment mean that the job market is competitive. Individuals’ ability to find and keep a job has never been more important. Yet many individuals lack what are often called employability skills – things that employers value, ranging from confidence and initiative to reliability and timekeeping. A classroom is not always the best place to learn these skills.

Project overview and approach
CSD has conducted a review of the evidence on how involvement in community projects which grow food in urban areas can help people to develop employability skills and ultimately find work. We worked with Capital Growth, which is a partnership initiative between London Food Link, the Mayor of London Boris Johnson, and the Big Lottery's Local Food Fund. Capital Growth offers practical help, grants, training and support to groups wanting to establish community food growing projects.

This new research report includes an outline of what employability entails, and brings together evidence in the international literature on how involvement in urban agriculture can help various groups to develop employability. The report then presents new findings from in-depth interviews with urban agriculture practitioners in London regarding the extent to which urban agriculture develops employability.

Expected impact

The project provides evidence which can be used by urban agriculture projects to demonstrate the impact they can have on employability. It also provides organisations that fund urban development projects with a fuller, better substantiated picture of the skills development benefits of urban agriculture projects. Finally, the findings of the report may enable urban agriculture projects to improve the way they develop employability skills, improving the service participants receive.

Key Findings

• Community food-growing projects in London reach people in need of employability skills, including people facing a range of difficulties such as long-term unemployment, physical or mental disability, addiction, homelessness and English language barriers.
• Participation in community food-growing projects can help develop the confidence and social support networks that underlie employability.  Community food-growing projects can develop transferable skills that are important for working life, including self-management, problem solving, and interpersonal skills such as the ability to work well in a team, to support others, or to lead others.
• Community food-growing projects can develop technical skills which prepare individuals for jobs, they can transfer enterprise skills, and they can encourage engagement in formal learning.
• Community food-growing projects can facilitate transitions into work by providing references for participants, enlarging their networks of contacts, and sometimes connecting them directly with employers.