Growing food produces far more than food, it shapes health, wellbeing, resilience and quality of life.

Yet for many people, food security is something discussed only at national or global level, through conversations about supply chains, imports, climate pressures or rising costs.

But food security is also relveant much closer to home: at household level, at community level, at local level. It is shaped not only by what happens in global markets, but also by local food systems, access to fresh produce, growing knowledge and community resilience.

At the same time, many people have become increasingly disconnected from food production. Most people buy food, far fewer grow it, and fewer still save seed, understand seasonality or have direct experience of producing even a small portion of what they eat.

Horticulture contributes to far more than food production alone. Growing food can improve access to fresh produce, support healthier diets, encourage physical activity and time outdoors, and it can strengthen communities, rebuild knowledge and create opportunities for intergenerational learning.

In community gardens, allotments, schools and households, growing spaces often produce benefits that extend far beyond the harvest itself.

I am not suggesting that home growing can solve every food challenge or replace wider agricultural systems. Rather, I am looking at the simple question: what role can horticulture play in supporting food security and healthier communities?

Few people in Ireland have spent longer on that question than Mick Kelly. He founded GIY in Waterford in 2008 after a decade working in IT, and has since co-presented and produced Grow Cook Eat and Food Matters on RTÉ, written five books including The GIY Diaries, and written food columns for The Irish Times and the Irish Independent. He is an Ashoka Fellow and a member of the Irish Food Writers' Guild.

The Challenge

Food systems face growing pressures, climate disruption, rising costs, supply chain instability, geopolitical uncertainty and changing consumer habits are all shaping how food is produced, distributed and accessed.

These pressures affect food security at national level, but they also affect households and communities in practical everyday ways. For many people, access to affordable, nutritious food has become more challenging, and wider health concerns linked to diet continue to grow.

Poor diet is increasingly recognised as a major contributor to preventable health problems, including obesity, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Public health discussions often focus on improving diet quality and increasing fruit and vegetable consumption, yet many people still struggle to access or prioritise fresh food.

Alongside these challenges sits another issue that is less frequently discussed: disconnection.

Over recent generations, many people have become increasingly disconnected from food production. Food often appears as a finished product in shops, with little visibility of the systems, seasons, knowledge and work behind it. As this disconnection grows, knowledge can also be lost.

• Knowledge about seasonality
• Knowledge about growing
• Knowledge about seed saving
• Knowledge about food resilience

Knowledge that was once passed naturally between generations is increasingly less common.

Food security is not only about supply. It is also about resilience, knowledge, capability and connection.

• How much do people understand about producing food?
• How easily could households or communities increase local food production if required?
• How resilient are local food systems?

These questions are part of a much bigger conversation. Food security is not only about large-scale agriculture or global supply chains. It is also about the role households, communities and local growing systems can play in creating healthier and more resilient societies.

What Does the Evidence Say?

The relationship between horticulture and food security has attracted increasing attention from researchers, public health organisations and food-growing movements in recent decades.

While food growing is often viewed simply as a hobby or lifestyle activity, a growing body of evidence suggests that horticulture may contribute to food security, diet quality, community resilience and healthier lifestyles in important ways.

The evidence does not suggest that home growing or community growing can replace wider food systems or large-scale agriculture. Rather, it suggests that horticulture can play a valuable supporting role at household, community and local level.

Food Growing and Access to Fresh Food

The most direct contribution horticulture makes to food security is increased access to fresh food. Growing food at home, in allotments or through community projects can increase access to fresh fruit, vegetables, herbs and edible crops.

Meaningful food growing does not always require large amounts of land. Productive food can be grown in raised beds, containers, small gardens, balconies and even window boxes. Even relatively small-scale growing can improve household access to fresh produce.

Food Growing and Diet Quality

Diet is one of the more closely studied areas. Observational research has long found that people who grow food tend to eat more fruit and vegetables, but studies of that kind cannot rule out the possibility that people who already eat well are simply more likely to garden.

Randomised trials, which can separate cause from coincidence, are rarer. The most rigorous one to date found real but modest effects, and it is worth being precise about what it did and did not show.

Growing food does not simply produce food. It can influence how people eat, how much they move and how connected they feel to the food on their plate.

Food Diversity and Nutritional Diversity

Food security is often discussed in terms of access and quantity, yet diversity matters too. Modern food systems tend to concentrate around a relatively narrow range of crops and varieties, selected for shelf life, consistency and transportability.

Horticulture creates access to far greater diversity. Home growers can choose from thousands of varieties of vegetables, fruits, herbs and edible crops, including heritage varieties, unusual cultivars and culturally important foods that may never appear in supermarkets. This matters not only for biodiversity, but for dietary diversity, resilience and food choice.

Seed Saving, Knowledge and Resilience

Some of the most important contributions horticulture makes to food security are less visible and harder to measure. Growing food helps preserve practical knowledge about seasonality, seed saving, soil and varieties suited to local conditions.

Over time, seed saving and local adaptation can also improve resilience. Seeds saved from crops grown successfully in Irish conditions may become increasingly suited to local weather, soils and growing challenges. This reflects a broader truth: food security depends not only on food supply, but also on knowledge, skills and the capacity to produce food.

This Is Already Happening

Research provides one perspective on the relationship between horticulture and food security, but practice provides another. Across Ireland and internationally, horticulture is already being used in ways that improve access to food, encourage healthier diets, strengthen communities and build resilience.

GIY: Growing Food, Growing Change

Few organisations have done more to change the conversation around food growing in Ireland than GIY.

Founded by Michael Kelly in Waterford in 2008, GIY has encouraged people across Ireland to grow some of their own food, whether in gardens, raised beds, allotments, schools or workplaces. Growing food increases access to fresh produce, encourages healthier eating, builds practical skills and helps reconnect people with food production. It also creates confidence. People begin to realise that growing food is often far more accessible than they first imagined.

Confidence and knowledge are important components of resilience. The more people understand about growing food, the stronger local food systems can become.

Kelly's description of the ability to grow food as essential infrastructure is worth pausing on. Infrastructure is something a society plans for, invests in and maintains, not something left to chance or to hobbyists. If growing capability is treated that way, the questions change: who has access to growing space, who is teaching the skills, and who should be paying for it?

Community Gardens and Allotments

Across Ireland, community gardens and allotments are creating opportunities for people to grow food at household and community level. The visible output is often fresh produce, yet the wider benefits frequently extend far beyond the harvest.

Community food-growing projects create opportunities for learning, participation and social connection. Neighbours meet neighbours. Skills are shared. Knowledge is passed on. For some communities, these spaces also improve access to fresh food and create stronger local resilience. A single growing space can contribute to food, health, connection, knowledge and community simultaneously.

School Food Gardens

Schools are increasingly recognising the value of growing spaces as places for learning, food education and practical engagement. School gardens can help children understand where food comes from, how it grows and why seasonality matters. They also create opportunities to learn practical skills that are becoming less common.

Growing food at a young age can build confidence, curiosity and a stronger connection with healthy eating. School growing spaces are about more than horticulture. They are spaces where food, health, education and environmental awareness come together.

Seed Saving and Food Resilience

Some of the most important work in food resilience happens quietly and often outside mainstream attention. Seed saving organisations, heritage growers and home gardeners play an important role in preserving diversity, protecting knowledge and maintaining resilient food systems.

Seeds saved from plants grown successfully in Irish conditions may, over time, become increasingly adapted to local soils, weather and growing challenges. This creates value that extends beyond individual gardens. It strengthens diversity, preserves resilience, protects knowledge and keeps important horticultural skills alive.

The Wider Value of Food Growing

When viewed through a wider lens, food growing contributes in three important and interconnected ways.

One reason horticulture is so relevant to conversations around food is that it creates multiple benefits simultaneously. A single raised bed may produce food, improve diet quality, encourage physical activity, strengthen practical knowledge and create social connection all at the same time.

Many interventions focus on a single outcome. Horticulture often contributes to several at once. This does not make it a complete solution to wider food challenges, but it helps explain why horticulture deserves greater recognition within conversations around food, health, resilience and community development.

What Opportunities Might Exist?

Food security, diet quality and community resilience are shaped by many factors, and horticulture is only one part of a much wider question. But are we making the most of the wider value food growing can offer?

Households and Home Growing

Many people assume growing food requires large gardens, specialist knowledge or significant time. In reality, even small growing spaces can produce meaningful amounts of food. Herbs, salads, soft fruit, vegetables: raised beds, containers, small gardens, balconies and windowsills can all contribute.

Could more people be encouraged to grow at least some of their own food? Not to become self-sufficient, simply to become more connected to food production and more confident in growing. Even small changes at household level can have wider cumulative impacts.

Schools and Young People

Schools may represent one of the greatest long-term opportunities. School food gardens can help children understand where food comes from and how it is produced. They can build practical skills and healthier relationships with food from an early age, and create opportunities to connect food, health, science, ecology and environmental awareness in practical and engaging ways.

Community Growing and Social Capital

Community gardens, allotments and shared growing spaces create opportunities that extend far beyond food production. They can improve access to fresh food, strengthen community connection and help build local resilience. As concerns around social isolation and community fragmentation continue to grow, these spaces may deserve greater attention and investment.

Public Health and Healthier Diets

Many of today's major public health challenges are linked directly or indirectly to diet and lifestyle. Food growing sits at an interesting intersection between food, health and behaviour. It can improve access to fresh food, encourage healthier eating, promote physical activity and strengthen understanding of food. Could horticulture play a larger role within wider conversations around public health and prevention?

Local and National Resilience

Recent years have highlighted how vulnerable food systems can be to disruption. Climate pressures, economic uncertainty and supply chain shocks all influence food security. How resilient are local food systems? How much growing capability exists within communities? How much food-growing knowledge is being preserved? Could horticulture play a larger role in strengthening resilience at household, community and national level?

A Wider View of Food & Food Security

Food security is shaped by many factors. Agriculture matters. Supply chains matter. Climate matters. Economics matter. Policy matters. There are no simple solutions and no single interventions capable of solving every food challenge. The purpose of this page has not been to suggest otherwise.

Instead, it has explored a simpler question: what role can horticulture play?

The evidence and examples explored throughout this page suggest that horticulture may contribute far more to food security than is often recognised. It can improve access to fresh food, support healthier diets, strengthen communities, preserve practical knowledge and build resilience.

Research is examining these relationships. Food-growing organisations are promoting them. Communities are living them. Households are experiencing them.

The value of horticulture may not lie in food production alone. Its contribution appears to emerge through a combination of food, health, knowledge, connection, capability and resilience. Taken together, these help explain why food growing deserves greater recognition within wider conversations about health, resilience and community development.

Perhaps the most important lesson is this. Growing food produces far more than food. A single growing space can produce food while also improving diet quality, encouraging physical activity, strengthening knowledge and building social connection. Few activities create so many benefits simultaneously.

Food and food security represent just one example. The same questions can also be asked about mental wellbeing, physical health, education, biodiversity, climate resilience and the places in which people live. The wider challenge is not simply understanding what horticulture is. It is understanding what horticulture can help us achieve.

Explore more of these themes in the Beyond Gardens series, or contact Peter with a question about growing food in Irish conditions.