Preface. Atlanta has planted 7 acres of land with edible and medicinal plants. Why can’t your city do the same? More than 70 other cities have. All towns have emergency plans. And after a natural disaster or oil shortage, when grocery store shelves empty out, a food garden might be a big help. My home town of Oakland is putting food forests in at Oakland Schools (OUSD 2021) and has 16 community and urban edible gardens. Even the U.S. Forest Service is promoting them (USFS 2018)

Community gardens create a sense of community, make residents healthier, and are a peaceful place to escape from city strife.

How to create one: Constructing a Food Forest, Planting Justice.

Food forests in the news

• Bukowski C, Munsell J (2018) The rise of community food forests. Sustainable America.
• OUSD (2021) Edible Forest Resources. Oakland Unified School District.
• USFS (2018) Community Food Forests. United States Forest Service.
• Yee A (2013) Food forests take root. Sustainable America.

Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com  author of “Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy“, 2021, Springer; “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, 2015, Springer; Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, and “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”. Podcasts: Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, KunstlerCast 253, KunstlerCast278, Peak Prosperity , XX2 report

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Ryan C (2021) Atlanta creates the nation’s largest free food forest with hopes of addressing food insecurity. CNN.

When a dormant pecan farm in the neighborhoods of south Atlanta closed, the land was soon rezoned and earmarked to become townhouses.But when the townhouses never came to fruition and with the lot remaining in foreclosure, the Conservation Fund bought it in 2016 to develop an unexpected project: the nation’s largest free food forest.

Thanks to a US Forest Service grant and a partnership between the city of Atlanta, the Conservation Fund, and Trees Atlanta, you’ll find 7.1 acres of land ripe with 2,500 pesticide-free edible and medicinal plants only 10 minutes from Atlanta’s airport, the world’s busiest airport before the pandemic struck.

The forest is in the Browns Mill neighborhood of southeast Atlanta, where the closest grocery store is a 30-minute bus ride away.

“Access to green space and healthy foods is very important. And that’s a part of our mission,” says Michael McCord, a certified arborist and expert edible landscaper who helps manage the forest.The forest is part of the city of Atlanta’s larger mission to bring healthy food within half a mile of 85% of Atlanta’s 500,000 residents by 2022, though as recently as 2014, it was illegal to grow food on residential lots in the city.

Resources like the food forest are a rarity and necessity in Atlanta as 1 in 6 Georgians face food insecurity, 1 in 3 Browns Mill residents live below the poverty line, and 1 in 4 Atlantans live in food deserts so severe, some find it more apt to call the problem “supermarket redlining.”

“We host lots of students for field trips, and for a lot of them, it’s their first time at a garden or farm or forest,” said McCord. “So here they get to experience everything urban agriculture and urban forestry all in one day. It’s really special.”

The forest is now owned by the parks department and more than 1,000 volunteers and neighbors are helping to plant, water and maintain the forest. In a day alone, there can be more than 50 volunteers working on the forest.

That work of maintaining the forest is done by volunteers is a testament to the forest’s ability to build community, said Carla Smith, an Atlanta city councilwoman who helped start the project.

“It’s really a park for everyone, said Smith. “Every time I go there’s a community there who respects and appreciates the fresh healthy foods. There’s a mentality there that people know to only take what they need.”