How can food waste be reduced in urban areas?

Concrete Jungle

Craig Durkin & Aubrey Daniels

Atlanta, GA

Ongoing Project Founded in 2009

The United States wastes more food than any other country in the world. Yet, according to the USDA, 10% of individuals are going hungry, even though we have more than enough food to feed everyone.

One place in which food goes to waste is on public lands, where it may grow wild, but is not harvested.

The Atlanta-based organization Concrete Jungle is helping to feed families by organizing urban foraging efforts to gather wild, edible plants, fruits, and nuts from public lands, and by salvaging unharvested produce from farmer’s fields.

They also maintain and make accessible a digital map of public fruit trees in Atlanta and Athens, GA which can be used by anyone who wants to forage for food.

WEBSITE
Concrete Jungle: www.concrete-jungle.org
VIDEOS
Alexis Nikoe Nelson, “A Flavorful Field Guide to Foraging,” TED, 2022.
Whether it's dandelions blooming in your backyard or purslane sprouting from the sidewalk, vegan forager Alexis Nikole Nelson is on a mission to show how freely growing flora could make its way to your plate.
BOOKS
Lisa Rose, The Urban Forager, Timber Press, 2022.
Discover a new way to feast on fresh food. Urban Foraging is a stylish, scrumptious guide to wildcrafting in the city. You'll learn how to find, identify, harvest, and cook with 50 common wild plants, such as chickweed, dandelion, echinacea, honeysuckle, red clover, and pine.
Ava Chin, Eating Wildly: Foraging for Life, Love, and the Perfect Material, Simon & Schuster, 2016.
Ava Chin, aka the "Urban Forager," is an experienced master of the quest. Raised in Queens, New York, by a single mother and loving grandparents, Chin takes off on an emotional journey to make sense of her family ties and romantic failures when her beloved grandmother dies. She retreats into the urban wilds, where parks and backyards provide not only rare and delicious edible plants, but a wellspring of wisdom.
FORAGING MAPS
Forage ATL: www.concrete-jungle.org/food-map
Concrete Jungle’s ongoing effort to document food sources in the Atlanta metro area.
Falling Fruit: www.fallingfruit.org/
A massive collaborative map showing where food can be foraged across the globe.