An Urban Food Forest for Peterborough: Planting for Our Future: Includes Final Report

Abstract

An urban food forest is modelled after a wild forest, but is intentionally designed and planted with food production in mind. Essentially an urban food forest is a combination of wild forest and orchard. They are made up of a close-knit community of plants that help each other. There are many benefits that an urban food forest can provide. They can improve the environment we live in; help build stronger, more resilient, communities; and can provide a host of economic benefits as well. Urban food forests help us create more sustainable communities that are healthy and enjoyable to live in. We need to rediscover our past, when we cultivated urban forests, not just for the services they provided, but also for the products as well. It is not just rural forests that can provide useable products. In fact it might even be argued that urban forests can be more productive, per unit of area, because of the intentional planning and design that goes into them. An urban food forest is a community within a community, the plants help and support one another, just as we help support one another in our communities.