Atlanta cultivates the largest free food forest in the country in Browns Mill

In the Browns Mill district in Atlanta there’s the largest free food forest in the country, an idea based on a community that called the residents’ contribution to fighting a scarcity of food safety and increasing awareness of sustainable development.

Free Food Forest is the first of its kind in Atlanta and offers residents a brand new style of public park. According to the press message of The Conservation Fund, Urban Food Forest already produces fresh fruit, nuts and vegetables for the community. “The food forest is approaching protection through the concept of agrooling – using agriculture, which integrates trees and bushes with food production to create healthy and ecologically resistant landscapes,” the organization said.

Located 4 miles south of the city center in the area identified as a food desert, the urban food forest includes over 7.1 akra and wears over 2,500 medicinal and edible plants, including large pecans, blackberries and Muscadine vines. Food Forest Steward Celeste Lomax said that this area isn’t any longer a food desert. “You have everything you need here in this food forest,” she told the Conservation Fund fund. “Nuts, trees and berries … We have starch, we have beans, we have everything here.” Aglanta noticed that the site was previously a working farm belonging to Ruby and Willie Morgan, who excess products left for neighbors.

In early stages, the plans of the area include the removal of invasive species in addition to restoring and protecting native plants. The forest can even contain community garden beds, fruit and nut orchard, herbal gardens, walking routes and accumulating spaces. Currently, 30 recent garden beds and over 100 fruit trees have been planted, which was a step in the right direction, because the project fights a scarcity of food safety in Georgia. According to Feeding America, over 1,400,000 Georgians face hunger, and over 400,000 are children.

A forest is greater than just food. “I want to be able to educate and teach people how to develop my own and how to become self-sufficient,” said Lomax. “We also employ a community using a food forest as an educational space and a holistic place to heal health and well -being.” In addition to the afternoon aromatherapy session, yoga and medicinal programs are conducted under the pecans.

Urban Food Forest is a collective contribution between the security fund, the Bureau of Sustainable Development and Resistance of the City of Atlanta, the Department of Parks and Recreation, Atlanta trees, local residents and various interested parties. Partnership with Greening Youth Foundation offers residents paid work on work force to organize them for green work opportunities and work in the park. Educational resources for all age groups are also offered on site.

The food forest has already noticed the help of over 1000 volunteers.