I engaged in the Advocates for Urban Agriculture (AUA) pot luck annual membership meeting Wednesday evening at the Garfield Conservancy. Part of the evening was spent in individual groups discussing what the future of AUA is to be, and much of our group’s discussion surrounded around how to improve web communications. How to gather e-mail addresses, how to provide more resources on the blog and websites, how to network through internet links.

On an interesting side conversation, I spoke with a south-sider living around 95th. Her reaction to all the brainstorming was that she knows a lot of people who don’t internet. Oh, they might check their e-mail or play solitaire – but blogging and that stuff, they don’t do that. Not the friends she knows.

And it caused me to think when I got home that we should remember non-electronic advocacy. A lot of the urban farming movement is as a result of those that want to unplug, get off the grid… and simplify. Many spend their free time in gardens, tending chickens, and engaging in environmentally sound practices – they like to shut off their computers (if they have them) and leave the blogs to us computer connects.

It’s a good point. In order to spread out into all Wards, or into four quadrants for neighborhood meetings, the outreach should also take into consideration the culture and neighborhoods being invested into. Not all are on the information super highway. Believe it or not.