An Overview Of Our Solution
An urban food forest is a farming technique which mimics the ecosystem of a natural forest, with food production in mind. This system is an ecological design, a philosophy and a set of ethics used to create a perennial self-sustaining landscape, based on the principles of permaculture. By encouraging biodiversity, improving human well-being and landscape sustainability and resilience, it provides many economic, environmental and social services to the city. Communities care for the food forest as their commons learning skills and building relationships for resiliency. With the help of the neighborhood, public landscapes can be transformed into productive and abundant food forests, which can be replicated in home, business and institutions’ landscapes.
Who is this solution impacting?
Community Type
Urban
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: Asia
General Information
Organization type
Nonprofit
Ecosystem (select all that apply)
Forests
Population impacted
6,000 directly involved, thousands via media
Challenge
Size of agricultural area
3 acres + 800 m² in Hsinchu, 7 acres in Seattle
Production quantity
1000 kilos
People employed
Mainly Volunteers, 6 stipends in Seattle
Solution
Describe your solution
An urban food forest is modelled after a wild forest, but is intentionally designed with food production in mind. It is a combination of forest and orchard using companion planting, a technic where crops help each other for pest control, pollination, providing habitat for beneficial creatures, and increase productivity. The space is effectively used to produce harvest on different horizontal levels: fruit trees make up the upper level, while berries, edible perennials make up the lower levels. By combining aspects of native habitat rehabilitation with edible forest gardening, the food forest increases biodiversity and ensures sustainable harvest for the community.
Every month, we organize “work parties” for planting our forest gardens, each one being designed with a different topic to inspire people to gather and grow their own food. A typical work party begins by a course given by a specialist, following by an activity and celebration through food sharing.
The Beacon Food Forest in Seattle was started in 2009 and the Hsinchu Food Forest in 2015. Both include fruit tree guilds, gardens, pond, rain water collector, compost, and citizen plaza for celebration and education.
The Hsinchu team reached out to Seattle team which visited Taiwan to share strategy, techniques and work. We decided to apply together in order to show that this model can be replicated in any city of the world, whatever the cultural or economic differences are.
Implementation
Describe your implementation
The implementation includes 4 main steps:
First, find the land. Both lands in Hsinchu and Seattle are owned by a municipal government. In order to maximize participation, providing access to the site is very important: there must be convenient public transit, safe bike routes, and some parking.
Second, find a core group of dedicated believers, who will introduce the concept to diverse local communities and engage them in the process. In Seattle, the co-founders hold a first public meeting introducing the food forest in February 2010. In Hsinchu, the core group (the NGO Wutong Foundation), started in 2015 an experimental project in a public park, and in August 2016, they presented the concept to the local community in downtown Hsinchu. In both projects, the responses from the diverse stakeholders who attended where very positive.
Third, create a relationship with the land manager and begin negotiations regarding the design of the site. Initial obstacles included the challenge of introducing this new project to the government and negotiate for permission to use the land as an all-volunteer group. We partnered with city employees for success. The community must be also consulted and engaged in the design of the site. We attended neighborhood events to share the vision and gain support.
Fourth, continue outreach and community engagement, in order to gather leverage support, grant funding and general involvement. We started by giving tours to the local community of our sites, that have resulted in many new volunteers. We observed changes in human behaviors: people coming into the site every day, passer-by stopping to read the sign, parents and schools bringing their children (and children bringing their parents) to the site on week-ends to help out in the gardens. Social media and mass email updates are also very effective for gathering interest and help the interested supporters to stay updated.
External connections
The support of the land owner is very important in making this project sustainable, as it helps to face many challenges and bring legitimacy to the project.
Throughout all the phases of the project, we involved city agencies, community groups, residents, schools, and even those that might not initially like the idea of an urban food forest. During the consultation process, the public could bring up concerns that might have been neglected by the core group, such as worrying that the fruit trees would produce mess. It can also encourage them to continue to participate as we show them respect in listening to their concerns. In Seattle, the main challenge faced by the design team was selecting the plants to include, because of the cultural diversity of people in the area. We accommodate this with the food trees arboretum, which houses unusual fruit trees that can grow in Seattle.
It should also be a high priority to establish larger groups that are committed to the project, in order to prevent the project from falling into disarray if the core people are no longer able to participate. In Hsinchu, we noticed that the work parties were not attracting as many people as expected. So we organized tree planting activities with local schools in order to attract new volunteers of new ages. The teachers were very happy of these educational opportunity.
We are related to many other sectors: Agronomy, Gardening, Forestry, Food Processing, Ecology, Education.
Results
What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?
Urbanization causes many ecological challenges. It reduces the uniqueness of local ecosystems and with growing geographical impact, endangers more species. It causes soil degradation, water run-off and pollution to waterways.
Then, concentration of urban populations increases air, water and land pollution, concentrating heat which influences weather patterns. This puts the areas at risk for weather-related damage, and trapped pollutants within the atmosphere, contributing to long-lasting environmental damage and health risks for those in the area.
Our solution lies in implementing food forest projects in urban areas. The results include: restoring the local ecosystem with native species, cooling urban heat sinks with forested areas, improving air, water and soil quality, reducing runoff, creating carbon sinks, conserving water in the landscape, improving local food security and local knowledge, creating human connections to nature. These increase cities’ resiliency to change.
Describe the context in which you are operating
Our urban food forest projects are located in Hsinchu (Taiwan) and Seattle (United States). With population growth, loss of arable land, dietary changes, increasing bioenergy use, climate change, both of these cities, as well as many other in the world, are subject to growing food insecurity issues: in case of blockage or major disaster, most of the cities will only be self-sufficient in three days. And with 70 % of the world population living in the cities by 2030 (already 78 % in Taiwan), we need to locate food within cities.
Food insecurity is a major issue that affects everyone. It is associated with health problems like diabetes, anxiety, anemia, depression. The nutritional value and the quantity of food are insufficient for most people. For many decades, food banks have been a large contributor to the needs of the hungry. While urban growth increases population density, it also increases social isolation, as people yearn for meaning and connection to community.
Our solution works for improved food security with local and healthy food for community, education to grow food, community, and increased well-being by providing outdoor activities.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
Urban green spaces act as important refuges for native plants and animal populations. Thus, our urban food forest has a very big potential for improving biodiversity in the local area. Whereas planting native species is always preferred, non-native species (that are not invasive) should also be considered. This is especially true of species planted for food.
Then, one of the design principles for a food forest is to create a diverse ecosystem including a lot of native species and perennial plants. At a time where exotic pest introductions are increasing and since urban development causes some of the highest local extinction rates, which can lead to potentially devastating effects from pest and disease outbreaks, it’s very important to build a resilient ecosystem.
There are currently more than 50 species in Hsinchu Food Forest, and bees, dragonflies, butterflies and other insects can now be seen on the site. There are over 400 plant species and 40 insect species at the Beacon Food Forest.
Language(s)
English, Chinese
Water
Urban trees and other vegetation have the ability to reduce contaminants making it to water bodies. Trees capture some of the rain on their leaves, until it evaporates, and directs water down stems and trunks into the soil, improving the health of our aquatic ecosystems. Improved soil organic matter retains water on site and makes healthy plants that survive dry conditions and reduced water. Thanks to our rain water collection system and our pond, we reduce the use of external water resources.
Food Security/Nutrition
The urban food forest improves food security in our local neighborhood. On one hand, nutritional value of the products is improved thanks to the use of organic farming technics. On the other hand, a portion of the harvest from the urban food forest would be able to provide food to local food cupboards and food banks and food forest volunteers.
Economic/Sustainable Development
In addition to food products and wood that our urban food forest provides, there is a lot of services. We found that it increases tourism in the area, as passer-by who are attracted by this innovative type of green space stop to read the signs. Stormwater runoff reduction accounts for up to 51% of total annual benefits from trees. At Seattle we have created an education collective for educators to earn a wage and community to learn.
Climate
In both projects, trees are the most important vegetation strategy for removing air pollutants which contribute to climate change and health problems. Trees act as a sink for CO2 by fixing carbon during photosynthesis and storing excess carbon as biomass. Urban forest can play a critical role in helping combat increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. We have measured increases in soil organic matter which also sequester carbon.
Sustainability
The cost for the material relies on grants from the city government or local agencies. Our solution aims to be a self-sustaining, food-producing ecosystem. Expenses are reduced by favoring perennial crops, while investments are minimal thanks to the use of second hand materials. In addition to the incomes that could be generated by the sale of forest products and by activities on the site, it has been shown that urban forests provide a lot services that increase the economic value of an area: they increase eco-tourism, provide stormwater management, reduce the urban heat island effect, among other benefits. It also provides market-based classes for employment and skills which empower community in micro enterprise and food production.
Return on investment
Hsinchu City government invested 100,000 USD for the first 3 years of the project. This includes: buying the trees, building the facilities, promoting and managing the concept, organizing courses and activities, inviting the founders of Beacon Food Forest for knowledge transfer. Seattle Food Forest invested 250,000 USD for infrastructure, plant matter and design services. This is a small investment considering the goods and services provided by urban food forests, that are likely to provide a more solid foundation for urban sustainability than the current “hands off” approach to urban forest management. The entire region benefits and the community has a park and food source.
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Replication and Scale
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
By modelling, education and inspiration, other food forests have begun around the world. This has been done from Seattle to Taiwan, as the founders of Beacon Food Forest came to Taiwan to transfer their knowledge and advices for building the Hsinchu Food Forest. This transfer or knowledge was included in the initial investment of the Hsinchu municipal government.
Cities have been increasingly recognizing the importance that urban forests have, and the many benefits they can provide a municipality. This kind of programs have been increasing during the last years. From Seattle to Hsinchu, but also in Detroit, Todmorden, London, Bruxelles, Albi, edible urban forests are providing food and hope. Many other cities now allow urban farming on both private and public spaces.