Organization launches campaign to make Milwaukee ‘edible’

The Victory Garden Initiative, an organization dedicated to supporting sustainable food sources, recently launched its second annual Fruity Nutty Campaign, a project to create an edible forest in Milwaukee by encouraging people to plant fruit and nut trees throughout the city.
“Our goal is to create Milwaukee as an urban edible food forest,” said Gretchen Mead, director of the organization. “In order to do that, we are promoting the planting of fruit and nut trees throughout the city.”
According to Mead, fruit and nut trees require very little energy and they fit very well into an urban environment.
“It’s important for us to educate the community on how very important perennial food crops are to the ecosystem,” Mead said. “Imagine what it looks like to have our food ecology and our human ecology together in one system. Our current agriculture system happens away from where people live; our goal is to reintegrate those systems.”
The Victory Garden Initiative began three years ago.
According to Mead, there are much more serious implications to consider when discussing our food system.
“Most people don’t really realize how insecure our food system is,” Mead said. “An alarming statistic says that the typical city has about three days of food and water at it’s finger tips at any given time. If a natural disaster or national security issue occurs, urban environments would be extremely vulnerable.”
Other issues include the degradation of the nutritional value of our food and our dependence on oil to transport food to other parts of the country.
“Our current system is just not sustainable,” Mead said. “Some say we have decades left, but others say it could be sooner. We just don’t know. Our goal is to educate people on how they can help themselves and help our community.”
The Victory Garden Initiative will host the Fruity Nutty Affair on Nov. 11, 2011 at Best Place Pabst Brewery from 6 to 10 p.m. Sample tapas from local caterers who support the local food movement will be provided along with ‘fruity nutty’ drinks, a silent and live auction. Tickets will be available for $75.