If you live in an urban area, you might not expect there to be nearby places to harvest your own food – sometimes right in the middle of a city.
Yet urban food forests can provide exactly that, along with a wide range of other benefits. These agroforestry systems have emerged in various locations, ranging from empty lots and public parks to former farmland and home gardens. Besides producing food, urban food forests can also help sequester carbon, improve biodiversity, and improve water and soil quality.
Although food forests are undoubtedly helpful for recreating natural ecosystems, they can also become an important part of local communities, providing city dwellers with access to green spaces and helping them connect with nature amidst the congestion of urban life. With their shady paths, the forests offer a welcome respite from the heat and provide much-needed wildlife habitats.
The harvests from urban and community food forests can also help to alleviate food insecurity. Many of the forests are open to the public, so that visitors can pick their own nuts, berries, and other fruits, while other forests are harvested by volunteers, with the food distributed to those in need. Regular events can help connect community members and encourage people to grow their own food, even with limited space.
And though they may look wild and overgrown, most food forests are carefully planted with native trees and shrubs, or at least species that won’t outcompete the native vegetation. Like a “real” forest, they are planted in multilayered arrangements, with trees creating a natural canopy above shrubs, bushes, and ground cover.
Growing food and community:
- Although they would ideally require minimal care, many food forests rely on the help of volunteers to mow, weed, and prune, ensuring that the forest is accessible to visitors and that the plants are healthy and able to bear fruit.
- Florida’s Miami-Dade County Public School District has thrown its support behind food forests, and dozens have been created in local schools over the past decade. In addition to being excellent outdoor classrooms for teaching children about agriculture, the food forests in Miami-Dade County are utilized by the school lunch program, while thousands of bags of fresh produce are provided for students to take home.
- Interested in visiting a food forest near you? Check out this interactive Community Food Forests map.
