Critical Food Forest Scan & Ideas for a Food Forest in Peterborough : Includes Final Report

This document is a compilation of research reports written by students in the Environmental

Resource Studies/Science (ERTS) 3160H class at Trent University in the winter of 2014. The

research was completed in conjunction with GreenUP, Trent Centre for Community-Based

Education (TCCBE), and Taylor Mackey (a graduate student research assistant in Trent’s

Sustainability Studies program). The students looked critically at urban food forests around the

world and made suggestions for designing a food forest in Peterborough. These reports will help

inform this process alongside a report written by Taylor Mackey as part of his research

assistanceship: An Urban Food Forest for Peterborough: Planting for Our Future.

An urban food forest is an area in a city or town where trees, and often other plants, are

intentionally planted for food production. These urban food forests often attempt to mimic

natural ecosystems. Currently urban forests are generally considered valuable solely for the

ecosystem services they provide, such as stormwater management. In the past these urban

forests were often managed for the products they produced, rather than just the services they

could provide.

There is increasing interest in creating edible landscapes in urban areas. Some are starting to see

urban forests as more than something that can clean the air or reduce the stormwater runoff.

Some are starting to see the potential to create areas that can provide these services as well as

produce food for human consumptions, as well as a host of other benefits. Most of the studied

urban food forests focus on food security. Urban food forests have the potential to provide the

same services as our current urban forests, but also produce food (and perhaps increase

biodiversity in the process).