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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain

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Speaker 1: Stuff Lauren boglebam here. Eleven point eight percent of American households,

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Speaker 1: that's about forty million people experienced food insecurity, which is

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Speaker 1: the lack of financial resources to buy sufficient food at

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Speaker 1: least some of the time in seventeen according to the

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Speaker 1: United States Department of Agriculture. One way of fighting this

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Speaker 1: could be community food forests. Food forests are a far

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Speaker 1: cry from community gardens, as they're not rows and rows

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Speaker 1: of standard plant beds. Instead, they're designed to mimic natural

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Speaker 1: forests using food bearing trees, roots, greens, vines, and other

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Speaker 1: plants while making the most of the space available. As

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Speaker 1: a result, food forests are picturesque and calming gathering areas

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Speaker 1: for community members looking to enjoy a piece of nature

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Speaker 1: while picking whatever produce they need for free. We spoke

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Speaker 1: with Gezeppe Telarrico, and agronomists specializing in permaculture, food security,

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Speaker 1: and environmental management systems, who is also the founder and

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Speaker 1: manager of the World a Culture Association. He said the

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Speaker 1: concept behind food forests is that natural forests are highly

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Speaker 1: productive in their own right and totally self sustainable over

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Speaker 1: extremely long time frames. So by following the functional patterns

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Speaker 1: that exist in a natural forest and adapting them to

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Speaker 1: the conditions of light and space that each species need

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Speaker 1: in order to be productive, we can create very low

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Speaker 1: maintenance production zones that are essentially harvest systems. By mimicking

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Speaker 1: natural patterns in nature as much as possible, the hope

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Speaker 1: is that every species needs humans, animals, and plants will

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Speaker 1: be met in a sustainable way, although there's some wiggle

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Speaker 1: room for layout based on the local environment. A typical

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Speaker 1: food forest is designed with a canopy of large nut

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Speaker 1: and fruit trees, followed by a lower tree layer of

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Speaker 1: dwarf fruit trees. Next is a shrub layer composed of

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Speaker 1: shrubs that produce berries, followed by a layer of herbs,

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Speaker 1: and then by root crops such as potatoes and carrots.

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Speaker 1: The soil surface is planted with groundcover specific crops, and finally,

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Speaker 1: a layer of vertical climbers and vines like gray Sir

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Speaker 1: Kiwi's is incorporated. Most of these spaces aren't even all

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Speaker 1: that huge. In fact, when it opens, Atlanta's urban food

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Speaker 1: Forest at Brown's Mill will be the city's first and

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Speaker 1: the largest in the US at seven point one acres.

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Speaker 1: That's about two point eight hectors. Even better, food forests

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Speaker 1: are often planned to make use of previously wasted space.

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Speaker 1: The Doctor George Washington Carver Edible Park in Asheville, North

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Speaker 1: Carolina took over an area once occupied by a trash heap,

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Speaker 1: and the Glendale Community Garden in West Akron, Ohio was

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Speaker 1: created on a vacant lot and all two common eyesore.

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Speaker 1: In cities across the country, it's not unusual for community churches, schools,

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Speaker 1: and governments to establish food forests of whatever size they

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Speaker 1: can manage with the help of civic organizations and volunteers.

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Speaker 1: But one food forest in a given city isn't going

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Speaker 1: to totally eradicate the issue of hunger. Of course, the

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Speaker 1: Atlanta Urban Food Forest is one prong of a citywide

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Speaker 1: effort to make healthy food accessible to pent of city

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Speaker 1: residents by the year two. We spoke via email with

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Speaker 1: Mike mccore, a forest ranger with Trees Atlanta. He said

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Speaker 1: the area is a U s D, a classified food desert,

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Speaker 1: so benefiting the immediate neighborhood is the primary goal. A

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Speaker 1: group of neighbors manages the community garden and herb area

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Speaker 1: while Trees Atlanta and other partners manage the orchard and

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Speaker 1: forested sections of the land. Although food forests are free

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Speaker 1: and open to the public, they may ask visitors to

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Speaker 1: only harvest food when forest managers are present, to prevent

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Speaker 1: people from accidentally damaging the plants or taking produce that

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Speaker 1: isn't ready yet. The movement is now gaining steam, but

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Speaker 1: food forests took a while to get off the ground.

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Speaker 1: The Asheville Food Forest was the first of its kind

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Speaker 1: in the modern United States, although Tellarrico notes that human

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Speaker 1: agro ecology systems have been used for ages in many communities,

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Speaker 1: such as those in Java, Bali, New Guinea, and parts

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Speaker 1: of Central and South America. A couple more popped up

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Speaker 1: here and there after Asheville's launch in seven, but it

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Speaker 1: wasn't until after Seattle's Beacon Hill Food Forest garnered much

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Speaker 1: publicity in twelve that these projects really started to gain traction.

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Speaker 1: As of eighteen, it there are more than seventy food

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Speaker 1: forests established across the United States and thousands more around

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Speaker 1: the world. Today's episode was written by Elia Hoyt and

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Speaker 1: produced by Tyler clang Breen Stuff is a production of

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Speaker 1: iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works from one on this and

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Speaker 1: lots of other eco friendly topics, visit our home planet,

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