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Wild Food in the City

© Bob Ewing

It has been a very wet June. This is good news . Water levels are up. The forest is not burning out of control and lettuces, spinach and other crops are doing well. Tomatoes and green peppers are not doing so good. But mine survived and we shall see what they manage to produce. More rain today but warm temperatures.

I now have the logs in place for my mushrooms. The logs were cut from private property two weeks ago. The trees were being cut anyway by the property owner. This way I am able to put them to use rather than just having them discarded. They will be ready next weekend for sowing.

Our herbal venture is shaping up. We have at least one client for the chamomile. The flowers will be used for soap making. The buyer previously bought in bulk from China. We are able to offer a competitive price and the product comes from within a half a mile of the buyer's place of business. A good beginning and we are encouraged to develop this opportunity more. I will keep you posted on our progress while looking at what others are doing globally.

The following information from the "Working Paper: Exploring the Value of Urban non-Timber Forest products" is a great place to begin our exploration of what is possible.

KEY FINDINGS:

Over 103 products from 78 species are currently collected by individuals and organizations in Baltimore City. These 103 include edible products (43%), medicinal products (8%), horticultural or nursery products (31%), and craft and decorative products (18%). Products are collected by a wide diversity of ethnic and socio-economic groups including African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Native Americans, Eastern European-Americans, and Anglo-Americans. Products are collected from street trees, park trees, yards, vacant lots, roadsides, and forested areas. We calculated the direct net economic value of 60 products.

Direct net economic value of products ranges from about $0.30 per pound for Pokeweed to over $10 per pound for some seeds and mushrooms.

This seems promising and the workers cooperative that I am helping to develop will be giving some consideration to researching a similar project here in Thunder Bay. We may need to do an inventory, that is create a map that identifies where certain food plants and trees are located. There are numerous educational possibilities as well associated with this project. Much to explore over the next few months.

Resources:

Source

A place to begin.

Urban Agriculture