Committing to change? A case study on volunteer engagement at a New Zealand urban farm

Urban Farm DB summary

This case study examines volunteer engagement at Farm X, an urban farm with a strong volunteer culture in Tāmaki-Makaurau Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, drawing on extended researcher participation and 11 in-depth interviews with volunteers and project coordinators. Engagement was helped by strong leadership, learning by doing, socializing around plants, and a sense of contributing to a movement. It was hindered by time scarcity, economic hurdles, and struggles over direction. Building on McClintock's (2014) account of the hybrid and contradictory nature of urban agriculture as a tool for social change, the paper identifies two trade-offs in both farm management and movement-building at Farm X: focused leadership versus volunteer agency, and asking more versus less of volunteers.