Many challenges must be addressed before community gardening can be
implemented successfully including assuring land tenure, toxic land clean-up (in some
instances), and start-up costs. These concerns limit the ability of community members to
create and maintain gardens. Local governments have the ability to help their citizens
overcome these challenges. Unfortunately, the majority of cities have yet to adopt active
roles to promote community gardening or to help stem food insecurity within their
populations. The principal cause of food insecurity, lack of access to nutritionally
adequate foods, is multi-faceted. Any one community may need a variety of programs to
combat food insecurity as well as outside help from organizations with larger resources
such as state and federal governments.