Will Allen
Champion of Urban Farming, Entrepreneur
As the interview with Will Allen unfolds, you will see firsthand the combination of compassion, charisma and years of hands-on farming experience that have made him a formidable champion of urban farming. His success lies not just in solid farming practices, but in ingenuity, as well. His original two-acre farm in Milwaukee is notable not just for its urban location, but for the remarkable output that it has sustained.
Right now, there's not a lot of locally-produced food -- in most cities, less than one percent. We have a long way to go. It's a tremendous opportunity.Will Allen
About the Innovator
From a childhood on a tiny farm in rural Maryland to one of TIME Magazine's 100 people who affect our lives the most, Will Allen's life has been one of extreme and unexpected contrasts.As a student, Allen's life was defined more by athletics than farming. He was only marginally interested in the small family farm begun by his father, a former sharecropper. Already pegged as a future star by his sophomore year in high school, Allen would go on to become the first African-American to play basketball at the University of Miami, then follow it up with a brief career in professional basketball.
After a few years with Procter & Gamble, Allen became convinced that the key to his future lay in the farming experiences of his youth. He bought a well-used tractor and 100 acres of land in the Milwaukee suburbs and set to work. In the course of the next three decades, he would expand his vision and his enterprise, begin mentoring inner-city youth and evolve into one of the nation's most visible and successful advocates of urban farming.