The issue of urban tree disparity can be tackled in many different ways. One of the main ways that we have talked about so far has been tree planting efforts in areas such as public parks, community spaces, and residential areas. But there is a growing movement toward more comprehensive and well-rounded tree systems, in specific food forests.

What is a Food Forest?

The Food Forest Project defines a food forest as “a diverse planting of edible plants that attempts to mimic the ecosystems and patterns found in nature.” Systems like this contain many layers of different types of plants ranging from fruit and nut producing trees and shrubs to cover crops that protect the soils to diverse pollinator plants to attract bees and butterflies. With the establishment of long lasting plants, food forests hope to create a resilient system that can both help to ameliorate the impacts of climate change, as talked about in a previous post, as well as provide fresh food to local communities.

A key tenet of many groups starting food forests is to improve food security in areas that are lacking access to fresh foods. A 2021 USDA study found that about 13.5 million US households were food insecure, meaning they did not have access to sufficient and nutritious food. While food forests are not looking to completely solve this issue, they hope to be able to supplement people’s diets to include more fresh fruits and vegetables that can be found in these areas. Almost all food forest operate in open ways: no gates or fences and open harvest for all. This allows people who want or need the resources to come and go as they please to take any food they might need to boost their meals.

Additionally, food forest place a large emphasis on community involvement. The creation and organization of many of these areas have been founded out of the concerns of citizens who are looking to address issues in their communities. For example, the Beacon Food Forest in Seattle was created after 4 individuals who petitioned their city for months to turn a grass plot into a functioning food forest. They succeeded and have been able to expand their operation to over 3 acres of food production, mostly open harvest but also a dedicated section to provide to local food banks.

Festival Beach Food Forest

While food forests are still catching on across the nation, Austin is ahead of the curve as the city already has a well established food forest. Located just north of the river on the east side of I-35 on land owned by the city, Festival Beach Food Forest is doing amazing work to increase food security and community engagement through the planting of these trees shrubs, and forbs. They principles of growth, connection, and celebration to uphold their mission of “growing edible forest gardens on public land that nourish, educate, and inspire”.

They host many events there including morning yoga, plant identification walks, and volunteer workdays. I had the opportunity to attend one of the workdays last month and it was a very exciting opportunity. So many of the volunteers are extremely passionate about the work being conducted there and it really showed me the critical role that volunteers play in situations like this. Because it is such a small project in the eyes of the city, most of the work is carried out by people doing it out of their own motivation, creating a strong group of action-oriented people.

St. Edward’s University Food Forest

Pulling from the amazing example of Festival Beach, St. Edward’s University decided to establish a food forest on our campus! Thanks to the work of a couple of strong willed university professors, staff members, and students, we were able to being the planting of on campus food forest in November 2022. With the help of many amazing volunteers trees were planted along rows in in along a hill out by the campus garden.

Since then, there has been lots of work put into the area. Our amazing arborist, Roy Johnson, with the help of many students, has done great work to maintain and elevate the area. More trees have been planted, more rows have been added, different cover crops have been added to protect and pull nutrients into the soil, mushroom block were broken down and added to the soils, and many more improvements have been made.

There are also many amazing future plans for the site. We hope to be able to expand the site in to the surround areas as well as establish a greenhouse to grow our own plants at the site. Additionally, student-led research is being conducted at the site to measure the impact that the food forest is having on the area to quantify the benefits that the system is providing. With many passionate people involved, I am extremely excited to see how the project proceeds!