The Buckeye Book Community (BBC) is the only common learning experience shared by all first-year students. By participating in the BBC, students will begin to recognize the academic expectations of college, expand their perspectives, wrestle with new ideas and engage in challenging conversations with peers. By attending campus events and discussing the book in their University Survey course throughout fall semester, all first-year students will foster connections with peers, faculty, staff and resources inside and outside of the classroom. It is important for all first-year students to read the book as their first step in joining these dynamic conversations as members of the Ohio State community.

 

The son of a sharecropper, Will Allen had no intention of ever becoming a farmer himself. But after years in professional basketball and as an executive for Kentucky Fried Chicken and Procter & Gamble, he cashed in his retirement fund for a two-acre plot just outside Milwaukee’s largest public housing project. The area was a food desert with only convenience stores and fast-food restaurants to serve the needs of locals. Despite financial challenges and daunting odds, Allen built the country’s preeminent urban farm, now a food and educational center that produces enough produce and fish year-round to feed thousands.

 

Employing young people from the neighboring housing project and community, Growing Power shows how local food systems can help troubled youths, dismantle racism, create jobs, bring urban and rural communities closer together, and improve public health. Today, Allen’s organization helps develop community food systems across the country. 

 

An eco-classic in the making, The Good Food Revolution is the story of Will’s personal journey, the lives he has touched, and a grassroots movement that is changing the way our nation eats.