COMMING SOON

Lotus Community Gardens is an extension of Bahamas Lotus (BL), a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing local knowledge about food growing and the natural environment. The Lotus Community Gardens will be edible green spaces containing vegetables, herbs, edible flowers, and occasionally honey and even a chicken or two. Gardeners can harvest their crops after fruiting or when they have reached maturity. The fruits and vegetables are to be harvested and shared with the community or cooked into delicious dishes for community events.

The mission of this initiative is:

1. To enrich the community by partnering with individuals and groups to provide plots of land in central gathering places to plant vegetables, herbs, and edible flowers and enjoy the fruits of their labor. 
2. This is an opportunity for individuals and groups to “adopt” families in need, shelters, transition homes, homeless people, food banks, etc., and share their crops.
3. To provide the community with sustainable produce in times of natural or artificial disasters as well as during hard economic times.
4. To foster “green” programs, environmental awareness, healthy organic living, and a sense of community. 

Lotus Community Gardens are intended to be in every subdivision and managed by the neighboring community to benefit residents. This initiative aims to acquire allotments within the different subdivisions to encourage local residents to grow their own food in their community.

• Allotment Gardens should be 20’ x 20’ plots (minimum) 
• Communal Gardens should be one (1) acre (minimum)

Note: Both spaces are available for residents to plant, maintain, and harvest. Through its partners, Bahamas Lotus will provide compost and good soil, seeds, and seedlings and encourage plant sharing.

Some benefits of the edible garden initiative are:

• Good food access: This initiative will provide hundreds of people living in the immediate areas, including families, children and youth, and seniors, resources to grow their own fresh, nutritious food.
• Promotion of diverse food: Through this initiative, we help keep the Indigenous agriculture tradition alive, along with foreign produce, which will represent the community’s vibrant cultural diversity. For example, kiwi, strawberries, carrots, and garlic grow alongside Indigenous healing and ceremonial plants such as cerasee and sage.
• Physical health and community engagement: Gardening promotes good nutrition and physical health for all ages. Community volunteers play an integral role in the gardening, seed exchanges, and compost programs, which will run year-round.
   

This initiative will be open to everyone – it’s for kids and adults of all ages to learn to grow food together. It’s an exciting, creative edible laboratory where we experiment with organic, climate-friendly growing techniques and harness local knowledge to experiment with produce.

Climate change projections indicate that hurricane seasons are becoming more regular and increasingly devastating. Working land management sectors need to prepare for this future. Such events have caused severe damage to human life, settlement, local environment, and, above all, to the economic sustainability of the seashores. Floods/Surges have ruined agricultural land, destroyed livestock, displaced biodiversity, reduced value of human health, and demolished habitation. These unfortunate periodical incidents increase the vulnerability of communities, fracturing their sources of income and undermining their sustainability practices. Further to this, communities often adopt unsustainable income practices characterized by inadequate planning, inaccessible markets, lack of organizational skills, and poor coping strategies. Hence, there is a need for a holistic intervention in which disaster preparedness is combined with a mechanism that sustains and increases livelihood opportunities for the communities.    

Sustainable communities, acting as a catalyst, not only help avoid human, social, and economic losses but also create opportunities for social and economic growth, thereby enhancing the quality of life. This process is crucial for protecting the environment, mitigating disaster risk, and addressing climate change. It can lead to improved health, increased safety, and cost savings. Moreover, it fosters a sense of belonging among residents, encourages participation in collective activities, and facilitates the development of social networks.   

Bahamas Lotus promotes sustainable living through sustainable communities known as “Lotus Communities” by educating, designing, and building. These communities intend to focus on environmental and economic sustainability, social equity, food security (agriculture and our marine ecosystems) with the ability for sustainable trade and export (local to international), clean water systems and cycles, clean, renewable energy (production, storage, and distribution), disaster relief housing (sustainable temporary homes designed for hurricane recovery), affordable, sustainable housing (low-income cat 5 hurricane rated homes). 

The availability and price of fruits, vegetables, herbs, edible flowers, and other healthy food throughout the Commonwealth of The Bahamas are scarce and costly, reducing availability in low-income communities. Inflation and Food insecurity are influenced by natural disasters that destroy arable farmland, exorbitant import taxes, and shipping costs. During the past decades, farming in The Bahamas has experienced a drastic decrease as young people migrate from Family Islands to New Providence to pursue college and career opportunities, leaving an aging population of farmers who can no longer bear the demands of subsistence and commercial farming. 

Throughout history, community gardens have facilitated many practices and processes such as fruit and vegetable cultivation, health benefits, food security, community participation, community empowerment, recreation, environmental education, and income generation. Recently, community gardens have been revived to help mitigate the impacts of food shortages. Bahamas Lotus seeks to construct and establish three (3) Lotus Community Satellite Gardens, one (1) Lotus Agricultural Research Institute, satellite backyard, and community gardens for all age groups, ethnicities, races, incomes, and education levels. This will increase community ties and fellowship, help sustain neighborhoods, and improve families' health while building relationships among community members and creating a place to share information about bush medicine and Bahamian culinary dishes. 

Bahamas Lotus aims to provide opportunities for residents to become involved with Lotus Community Gardens. We hope to reduce the impact of food shortages throughout the country and strive to provide long-term food security by supporting local agriculture projects while improving economic, social, and environmental problems. 

Proposed Projects Objectives

1. To enrich the community by partnering with individuals and groups to provide satellite garden plots of land within communities and serve as gathering places to plant vegetables, herbs, and edible flowers and enjoy the fruits of their labor.      
2. To provide the community with sustainable produce during natural or artificial disasters and challenging economic times.
3. To foster “green” programs, environmental awareness, healthy organic living, and a sense of community. 
4. To provide hands-on exposure to teaching children about the source of fresh produce, demonstrate community stewardship, and introduce the importance of environmental sustainability. Studies suggest integrating environment-based education into academic programs can improve reading, math, science, and social studies and reduce classroom discipline problems.