A descendent of sharecroppers, a former professional basketball player, a man hailed nationwide as a visionary \u2013 you could make an hour listening to Will Allen fascinating if you stuck just to his personal story. <\/p>\n
But in an \u201cOn the Issues with Mike Gousha\u201d session at Eckstein Hall on Tuesday, Allen went beyond his own life and his pioneering work on urban agriculture to a broader and intriguing matter: His vision for creating a major economic base in Milwaukee around urban agriculture, and particularly commercial growth of fish in industrial sized tanks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re going to create thousands of jobs,\u201d Allen told Gousha, Marquette Law School\u2019s distinguished fellow in law and public policy. \u201cWe\u2019re the leading city in the nation in terms of food and water.\u201d He added, \u201cFish today, that\u2019s a huge opportunity.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Allen said two commercial aquaculture firms are planning to develop operations in the city and Growing Power, the urban agriculture operation he heads, is including tanks for cultivating fish in an unusual\u00a0 five-story building it is planning for its home base along W. Silver Spring Dr., west of N. 51st<\/sup> St.\u00a0<\/p>\n Allen said if he had a million pounds of lake perch fillets today, he could sell them all by tomorrow.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Allen started out with a small operation at the Silver Spring site in 1993. \u201cI looked at it as a great opportunity to sell my farm produce,\u201d he said. But the operation began to grow quickly, including through partnerships with several Milwaukee Public Schools that gave students experience with raising food.<\/p>\n \u00a0In 2008, he won a MacArthur Foundation \u201cgenius\u201d award and, in 2010, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He travels extensively and is frequently involved in healthy-food events with First Lady Michelle Obama. <\/p>\n But his view of himself is literally down to earth. \u201cThe main thing is, I\u2019m a farmer,\u201d Allen said. \u201cI try to touch the soil every day.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n He advocates healthy eating for all, but his priority is low-income and minority communities, many of them \u201cfood deserts\u201d with no major grocery stores and too many people who have bad eating habits.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really about social justice and food justice,\u201d Allen told Gousha. \u201cThere isn\u2019t enough healthy food in our communities.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But he expects things to get better, and urban agriculture to be a key component of doing that, both in terms of the food that can be grown and the jobs that can be generated.<\/p>\n \u201cI see change coming, and it\u2019s going to be led by the next generation,\u201d Allen said.\u00a0<\/p>\n