Will Allen, founder and CEO of Milwaukee-based urban farm Growing Power, sat down Tuesday with Mike Gousha for the most recent installment of “On the Issues.” In front of a packed house, he discussed his own roots as well as those of Growing Power and his “Good Food Revolution” initiative.

Allen was raised on a small farm outside of Washington, D.C. His father, a former sharecropper, and his mother, who came from a farming family, taught their children how to grow all the food the family needed. Even as a high school basketball star, Allen was not exempt from farm chores.

“As I look back on those days, I really appreciate what I had to do,” Allen said. “But as an 18-year-old basketball player, I said, ‘I’ll never go back to that farming again.’ And look at me now.”

In 1993, after a brief stint in professional basketball and corporate sales success, Allen bought a dilapidated nursery on Silver Spring Drive in Milwaukee. He dubbed the space, no larger than the size of a small supermarket, “Growing Power.”

With more than 20,000 plants and vegetables, fish and a menagerie of livestock, it has since become an iconic part of the Milwaukee community.

The urban farm is based on the philosophy that everyone should have access to healthy, locally grown and organic food. Growing Power raises only grass-fed and free-range livestock and mercury-free fish.

Angela Balms, a City of Milwaukee employee, asked Allen how he gets Milwaukee communities involved in these healthy food issues.

Allen said introducing kids to local gardens at a young age, such as those at some Milwaukee day care centers, sets the tone for their future involvement in agriculture. He added that many local students volunteer because they want to better the community they live in.

“Young people want to be a part of their communities and take responsibility for what my generation did not take responsibility for,” Allen said.

Allen has also engaged the local community by offering internships and work to at-risk youths and other volunteer groups. Advertising and public relations students at Marquette worked with Allen and Growing Power as part of a capstone class two years ago.

The students developed campaigns for Growing Power and similar group Slow Food Wisconsin that focused on utilizing social media to engage audiences, said Linda Menck, advertising professional-in-residence in the College of Communication.

“The students not only created a campaign for the organizations, they really learned about the organic food and sustainability movement,” Menck said.

She added that students who worked on these campaigns were instrumental in creating Marquette’s chapter of the Slow Food organization.

“Will really took the time to look at their plans and had a lot of positive feedback to give them,” she said. “It was one of the best and most rewarding campaigns to work on.”

Volunteers working on the urban farm tend to the gardens and animals and “touch dirt every day,” Allen said.

“I used to be asked all the time, ‘Why are you doing slaves’ work?'” Allen said. “I don’t hear that so much anymore because of better education and the First Family’s support of locally-grown agriculture.”

Allen credits First Lady Michelle Obama, with whom he has met to discuss initiatives to improve food quality, with raising awareness about what his and other organizations stand for: making healthy food easy to afford and obtain.

The time for action is now, Allen said, and the results will benefit the Milwaukee community on multiple levels. Sustainable agriculture will not only allow Milwaukee residents to stop choosing processed and chemically-modified food, but it will also stimulate the economy and create stable jobs in the community, he said. He pointed to abandoned buildings in Milwaukee like the A.O. Smith building that could be used for growing food or as a fish hatchery.

Growing Power, he added, has never laid anyone off and is continuing to create jobs despite the current economy.

“If we’re so idealistic that we don’t do anything, we hurt the people we’re trying to help,” Allen said. “We can’t be afraid to take a risk.”

Although he acknowledged the urban farm movement is still in its early stages, Allen said Growing Power’s mindset is simple.

“We all have to eat food to survive,” he said. “Why don’t we all eat good food?”