In Puerto Rico, Activists Transform Abandoned Land To Build Food Sovereignty

A collaboration between tree-planting organizations in Washington D.C. helps Catholic church properties to plant and care for trees. The free trees are an effort to combat urban heat and benefit the local environment.

Volunteers of a nonprofit tree-planting initiative in Paris are planting pocket forests, based on Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki’s method, to increase biodiversity and combat extreme heat. These mini-forests are made of native species planted close together at random to mimic a natural forest.

Urban farms across the United States are bringing affordable, fresh, and healthy foods to communities facing food insecurity and are forming connections with residents along the way.

The nonprofit Bees in the D maintains 220 beehives at schools, businesses, and other nonprofits it partners with across Detroit. They are bringing bees back to the city to pollinate urban gardens and support the local ecosystem.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations and government agencies are connecting farmers with people in need by making fruits and vegetables more affordable or even free. For example, Bueno Para Todos, a small farm in New Mexico, has planted new fruit trees alongside a vegetable garden, and allows people to pick what they want and pay how they can, either with money or by helping on the farm. Scaling these efforts can be difficult if communities want to encourage growing more local food.

At one high school at the Menasha Joint School District in Wisconsin students are growing their own vegetables inside a classroom. That’s because they have their own a hydroponic garden, a garden that does not require soil. The homegrown produce is part of their meal program and is leading to positive effects. Students express more interest in learning about vegetables and feeling more connected to gardening. “They have a very personal connection to that produce.”

Creating and supporting local food systems requires public-private partnerships in urban planning. Across the United States, nonprofit organizations such as Trees Atlanta in Georgia successfully work with cities to operate and maintain community orchards, or "food forests", on public lands. Planting food forests with several layers of fruit-bearing vegetation reduces the prevalence of food deserts, adding both green space and nutritional value to communities.

The Prospect Community Garden has proven to be a valuable resource for students attending the elementary school in learning how to eat healthier. Local residents help out and receive produce from the garden, which in turn, strengthens their community pride.

Community leaders are working together to address the issue of food insecurity in Mansfield, caused not just by lack of access to grocery stores and fresh food sources, but also often by unemployment, high housing costs, low wages, poverty, and health care costs. The North End Local Foods Initiative is installing food gardens in these communities, creating access to fresh produce, to educational opportunities, recreational activity and more.

In Phoenix's historically Black neighborhoods, community organizations have transformed vacant, heat-trapping lots into thriving urban farms. One initiative, Spaces of Opportunity, converted a 19-acre abandoned site into a community farm with 250 garden plots available. Spaces of Opportunity serves over 1,000 residents each month, and other community farming initiatives also help in providing food and jobs for participants, many of whom are formerly incarcerated or unhoused.