Atlanta creates the nation’s largest free food forest with hopes of addressing food insecurity
Initiatives to make urban cities more edible are catching on. There are at least 70 free food forests in the country
By Carly Ryan
CNN
Feb 22, 2021
Excerpt:
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, Atlanta’s 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.
