Profitability of food trees planted in urban public green areas

Abstract

Planting food trees within local parks and other public urban green areas is starting to gain in popularity as a strategy to enhance the sustainable development of cities. However, the financial opportunity that it could represent has barely been studied. This paper investigates the financial potential of the establishment of food trees in urban public green areas of Villa El Salvador, Peru, with the help of local inhabitants. Net present value (NPV), benefit-cost Ratio (BCR), and equivalent annual cash flow (EACF) were calculated to evaluate the financial performance of two designs of productive tree systems drawn to scale for two local public parks. Results provide evidence that the involvement of a small group of local producers in the maintenance and care of public green areas could be translated, for a municipality, into financial benefits. For the producers, the possibility to harvest edible products also led to financial benefits, but only if the time invested in the productive activities was not taken into account. Thus, the use of food trees in green public areas appears to be a financially valuable alternative for both a municipality and its local inhabitants.