Until the plan is finished being developed (summer 2025), all sections of Wild Willpower PAC’s state platform are written within Google Docs.
Although Iowa recently passed a Right to Garden Act, in its current form it does not guarantee access to soil. Although it bars local governments from restricting people from growing, the vast majority of renters and homeless Iowans have nowhere to legally stick a seed in the ground. Many landlords do not allow (or do not have the space) to allow tenants to garden, and even though tenants who live on the south side of the building may have the option to grow on their porches, (a) tenants on the other sides of the apartments don’t tend to get enough sun, and (b) it is severely restricting to have to carry water back and forth from the sink instead of simply setting up hoses with automatic timers or soaker hoses – only things that people with access to a reasonable amount of soil tend to have access to.
Wild Willpower PAC proposes to expand and improve Iowa’s Right to Garden Act via creating a new public works program which will create thousands of jobs across the state: Civilian Restoration Corps. One of several tasks the CRC will be assigned to do is to set up community gardens in ever town and city across Iowa. Gardens will be set up using the most efficient techniques that can be researched, and will have hoses with automatic timers (for plants which require more water), as well as rain caches hooked up to soaker hoses (for plants which thrive via a slow, steady stream of water).
Such gardens will ensure not only the right to garden, but also the right to access a garden. Although Iowa has guaranteed the right to garden, via the C.R.C., the state will take a proactive role to ensure all Iowans may access that right. This is how we (1) solve environmental issues, (2) end Iowa’s food insecurity crisis, (3) create a replicable model that can be used in other states and around the world, which will in turn solve their environmental issues and end food insecurity in those locations, and (4) create thousands of good paying jobs throughout the state which will lift the economy while getting people out into nature.
Please read Wild Willpower’s proposal to expand Iowa’s Right to Garden Act here.