Progress report for EDS24-061
Project Information
The purpose of the Sustainable Agriculture for Food, the Environment, and Economic opportunities (SAFE) program is to improve access to quality education related to sustainable agriculture and soil regeneration for economically disadvantaged communities and to increase food security by providing the hands-on skills, materials and support necessary for program participants to design and plant their own community food forest. Three online modules, four recorded in-person day-long workshops, and two site visits to sustainable farms (recorded, with farmers’ permission) will allow participants to obtain considerable knowledge and skill in this topic. The existing KSU Food Forest (KSUFoodForestImages) will provide a training space and allow for the propagation of most of the plant material to aid in the creation of a new community food forest in Southwest Atlanta and other future food forests in USDA food desert designated communities. Lessons learned from this project will be presented at an annual conference hosted by leading farmer organizations. Specifically, we will provide a stipend to 20 community participants to engage in instruction and hands-on training in which they learn about soil regeneration, food forest design, and propagation. On farm visits with Georgia farmers who practice regenerative agriculture, using cutting edge techniques, will provide participants with inspiration and knowledge for their own designs and plantings. Additionally, the participants will receive hands-on training in food forest design and planting from Co-PIs and our project farmer cooperators, including two sustainable Georgia farmers (Walter Davis of Davis & Daughter Farms; and EliYahu Ben Asa of Atlanta Harvest) and other farmer collaborators (Michael Blackwell, Operations Manager of the KSU Field Station, and Mike McCord, owner of Community Foodscapes). By linking the learning and results of the participants to other rural and urban food production projects, we will put participants on the cutting edge of efforts to demonstrate the potential of this form of sustainable agriculture to promote food and water security and mitigate climate change. The learning will culminate in participants and Co-PIs planting a food forest during the second year of the project in an approved space in a food insecure community in Atlanta. Deliverables in this project include: (1) freely accessible online modules and recorded workshop content on sustainable agriculture, soil building, and propagation that will extend beyond the timeframe of the project to educate the program participants, farmers and communities. Educational content availability on the KSU website will ensure ongoing public access to these resources, (2) the creation of four in-person recorded workshops that feature hands-on learning on soil health and propagation, (3) the propagation of fruit and nut plant material from the KSU Food Forest within the project time frame to allow for one community food forest to be planted by participants in a USDA designated food desert community and additional (post project) food forests in economically disadvantaged communities, and (4) dissemination of learning from the project to the greater farming community via presentations at a farmers’ conference/training as a place to share the model, impact, successes, and challenges to a wider audience.
- Provide public education on sustainable farming techniques by creating three open-access, free online education modules with a long shelf life that teach sustainable agriculture principles.
- Create, deliver and record four in-person day-long workshops and provide two field trips to give participants and the extended farming community hands-on training and engagement with local farmers who are doing sustainable agriculture as a demonstration of cutting-edge practices.
- Strengthen Atlanta’s food system by establishing a food forest, using material propagated at the KSU Food Forest, within a food insecure neighborhood that will provide food and plant material for other food forests in the future.
- Present the project model and lessons learned to the wider agricultural community at an annual conference or training hosted by a leading farmer organization.
Education
The development of the online modules, workshops, and fieldtrips for the Sustainable Agriculture for Food, the Environment, and Economic opportunities (SAFE) USDA SARE grant is predicated on the integration of constructivist learning which posits that learners actively build knowledge and understanding through experiences, interactions, and reflection. We use a variety of teaching strategies to stimulate interest and learning in the SAFE grant, and in recognition of the multiple ways in which people learn, including the use of interactive multimedia elements in the online modules, fieldtrips to farms, and hands-on workshops. The constructivist learning theory draws on the idea that knowledge, learning, and meaning is created by the learner through activity (Demssie et al., 2020), resulting in deeper understanding. The active learning in the modules, fieldtrips, and workshops associated with the SAFE grant is intended to engage participants and immerse them in realistic contexts so that participants become inherently motivated to explore and control their own learning process. The reflection writing sections within the modules and in the workshop surveys are used as a tool for learning, thinking, and communication. Writing stimulates participants to become active and engaged participants. The goal for the farm fieldtrips is to enable participants to see how they can become change makers in sustainable agriculture issues by experiencing and assessing the practice of sustainable agriculture in a few real-world contexts (Klein, 2014). To merge curriculum and practice, participants should come away from training with the ability to apply concepts and knowledge learned to their own situation and to the current problems related to agriculture, resource use, and food production.
References
Demssie, Y.N., Biemans, H.J.A., Wesselink, R., Mulder M., 2020, Combining Indigenous Knowledge and Modern Education to Foster Sustainability Competencies: Towards a Set of Learning Design Combining Indigenous Knowledge Principles. Sustainability 2020, 12(17), 6823; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12176823
Klein, S.K. 2014, The Role of University Food Gardens in Higher Education Sustainability. A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in the field of Geography and Environmental Resources, Graduate School Southern Illinois University Carbondale.Myers, E. M. (2020
Mayer, R.E., (2002). “Cognitive theory and the design of multimedia instruction: An example of the two-way street between cognition and instruction,” New Directions for Teaching and Learning 89 (March 2002): 55-71.
Martens, R., Bastiaens, T., & Kirschner, P.A., 2007. “New learning design in distance education: The impact on student perception and motivation,” Distance Education 2, no.1, (May 2007): 81-93.
Educational & Outreach Activities
Participation Summary:
The goal of SAFE is to make hands-on, cutting edge sustainable agriculture education available in Atlanta’s food desert communities and to current rural farmers, and to provide those engaging with SAFE’s educational materials access to the seeds and cuttings necessary to plant food forests in their own communities, using the KSU Food Forest and the food forest to be planted over the course of this proposed project as source material. Thus, it is our goal to have at least 70% of the participants in the proposed SAFE educational program be residents of USDA-designated food desert communities, and for these participants to become ambassadors of sustainable agriculture in these communities, informing their friends and neighbors about the availability of not only the free online educational materials that they completed through their participation in SAFE, but of the availability of seeds and cuttings that can be used to transform their own neighborhoods.
In addition, a crucial outreach goal of our program is to secure the participation of Georgia farmers engaged in soil-building, regenerative practices who will either welcome SAFE participants to their farms, for tours and education, or lead workshops at the KSU Food Forest in which they provide hands-on instruction in sustainable agriculture. We see the establishment of this rural-urban link as vital to the success of the program, and will seek to maintain this connection beyond the life of the program not only by making instructional videos of these sessions with farmers freely available online, but by including the farmers’ contact information, along with opportunities to connect via farm visits, volunteering, internship, or employment opportunities, with each instructional video.
Designing the program so that outreach, instruction, and the maintenance of this rural-urban connection continues beyond the life of the program is vital to its success. Word-of-mouth outreach by project participants is perhaps most crucial, but the fact that the KSU Food Forest, and Good Food, Green City will both continue to promote the online programming established by SAFE, and the access to seeds and cuttings made available by it, in their existing and continuing programming that connects the KSU community, Southwest Atlanta, and sustainable Georgia farmers, ensures that outreach connecting our targeted community to the SAFE educational materials, and seeds and cuttings “bank,” will continue long after the conclusion of the grant period.
We see our outreach program as proceeding in several clearly defined stages that move steadily outward in terms of their targeted audiences and intended impact. Initial outreach will use well established networks of the KSU Food Forest social media and that of partners like Good Food, Green City (GFGC), which is directed by Dr. Jason Rhodes, to publicize the online modules and workshops. Additionally, the KSU Food Forest social media platforms (@KSUfoodforest Instagram, KSU Food Forest Facebook, KSU Food Forest webpage, and KSU Food Forest YouTube) will be used to promote the online module content, advertise for participation in the workshops, and disseminate recorded content from skills taught at the workshops. Through the combined Instagram and YouTube channel following of over 2,600, the KSU Food Forest initiative is well connected to several influential farmer groups and non profit organizations through our social media accounts, including Global Growers, Community Foodscapes, Concrete Jungle, Trees Atlanta, the Okra Lady, Southeast Pollinators, Georgia Organics, the National Black Farmers Association, the Southeastern African American Farmers' Organic Network (SAAFON), and Roots Down GA to name a few. We will use these networks to spread the word about the project and attract participants for the online modules and workshops.
While the open access, free educational resources developed in this project will be beneficial to a wide range of farmers, we hope to engage potential urban farmers, particularly from economically disadvantaged communities in SW Atlanta. We already have very strong, existing ties in the Southwest Atlanta neighborhood of Pittsburgh, where, through Good Food, Green City, Dr. Jason Rhodes has planted 5 food forests in backyards and other community spaces with 12 highschool students since Spring, 2021. We have the support of two local pastors (Rev. Arundel Hope of Ariel Bowen United Methodist Church and Dr. Keith Slaughter of Beloved Community Church) to advertise our program to families in need. Linked letters (Michelle Mills support for USDA SARE and Dr Slaughter support for USDA SARE) from community members and community leaders show the level of existing collaboration and support. Meetings with other community leaders serving economically disadvantaged residents (e.g., “Chef Kev” of Urban Oak Initiative, who teaches plant-based cooking classes to young people in low-income Atlanta neighborhoods for the purpose of encouraging healthy eating) has provided a connection to the property managers of subsidized housing projects in the area, who have agreed to share our program directly with their residents, providing us direct access to the communities whose young people have most to gain from participation. For our program, successful outreach rests on a foundation of relationships with individuals and organizations already serving the communities we wish to serve in our targeted neighborhoods.
Despite our program’s urban focus, it is important for our participants to make connections between the principles of sustainable, small-scale urban agriculture and sustainable agriculture practiced in a rural setting and on a large scale. For that reason, we will use existing connections of the KSU Field Station to Georgia Organics, the National Black Farmers Association, and the Southeastern African American Farmers' Organic Network (SAAFON) to find sustainable Georgia farmers willing to give our participants paid tours of their rural farms and talk with us about what it means to build and maintain healthy soil on a profitable farm. Walter Davis of Davis and Daughter Farm, and EliYahu Ben Asa of Atlanta Harvest, both sustainable black farmers, are likely candidates for this role, given their current partnership with Good Food, Green City (Atlanta Harvest provides the ingredients for Good Food, Green City’s lunch program, and Walter Davis, who has already agreed to host a farm tour and lead a workshop for the proposed SAFE Program, has simply been an indispensable source of advice and guidance to Good Food, Green City - e.g., he connected us to Atlanta Harvest when told him that we wanted to use our food dollars in support of a sustainable, local farm).
Additional outreach will occur through the dissemination of the learning from the workshops and farm visits recordings taken during these sessions. We will use microphones and cameras already purchased by the Engineering Department at KSU to make several recordings of hands-on skills-building sessions that will take place during the workshops at KSU and also visits to farms. This will allow participants who are not able to make a workshop or farm visit to still benefit from the teaching provided. It will also significantly extend the audience for this educational material since the recordings will be made freely available on the KSU Food Forest website, in perpetuity. This is what makes the creation of high-quality freely accessible online content so crucial, as it turns what could be one-off outreach events with limited long-term impact into invitations to join our project of transforming food insecure Atlanta neighborhoods through sustainable urban agriculture by engaging with the hands-on learning materials offered through our online program. All SAFE project Co-PIs have significant experience with creating high-quality, ADA accessible, online educational content, including on the topic of sustainable agriculture.
Feedback from program participants will also be used to assess and improve online education modules, after which, module material will be updated on the website. We plan to share and promote learnings from the project with the wider agricultural community through collaborating with the project participants to present at least one annual conference or training hosted by a leading farmer organization. We are particularly excited about the urban-rural connections that will be forged by our visit to two sustainable Georgia farms, and the conversations we will have with neighboring farmers about building and maintaining soil health on a large scale. We see our outreach program as having a ripple effect, beginning with relationships with a few trusted local partners, and using this initial network as the basis for reaching the broader community, including the City of Atlanta, farmers in rural Georgia, and, via our online programming and social media, individuals and organizations far beyond the food insecure Atlanta communities that our project aims to serve.
Update on Outreach:
Online Modules are in the process of being created. The content for the modules is completed. We have hired a student assistant to transfer the educational content into an online open access platform (SoftChalk). These are the links for the SoftChalk modules which will be housed on the KSU Food Forest website once completed:
Links to the online module content for the SAFE Grant:
Module 1 - https://kennesaw.softchalkcloud.com/lesson/serve/1qI62STwmzXZgY/html
Module 2 - https://kennesaw.softchalkcloud.com/lesson/serve/NI8cSG1jRe7qip/html
Module 3 - https://kennesaw.softchalkcloud.com/lesson/serve/su21XfPRyAHLZ0/html
We are in the process of accepting applications for participants to do the workshops. Our first workshop will be at the end of April.
Presentation - The project PI presented at the Fourteenth International Conference on Food Studies. The presentation title was, "Using a model Food Forest for applied learning about sustainable agriculture, climate resilience, soil regeneration, and food justice."
Abstract: In urban and metro Atlanta thousands are faced with food insecurity and malnutrition each year. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, one in every seven children in metro Atlanta faced food insecurity, and these numbers have grown over 20% since then. The Kennesaw State University (KSU) Food Forest was established in 2020 on a one-third-acre site that was formerly a Georgia Department of transportation (GDOT) cement-mixing facility. This initiative was designed as a model of sustainable agriculture (with special relevance for urban food desert communities), to provide education, and promote food security. A food forest is an agroforestry system that is planted to mimic natural ecosystems and provide crops in a sustainable and long-term manner while also cycling nutrients and providing a wildlife habitat. The KSU Food Forest exemplifies a model of sustainable urban cultivation, demonstrating the ability of food forest systems to alleviate climate change pressures on ecosystems and communities while also promoting food security and health. This presentation details how the KSU Food Forest, as an official Living Learning Lab at KSU, uses applied and hands-on experiential learning through classes, workshops, tours, volunteership, research opportunities, internships and employment to engage and educate internal and external audiences on sustainable agriculture, climate resilience, soil regeneration, and food justice. Key words: Food Forest Model, Food Security, Urban Regenerative and Sustainable Agriculture, Climate Resilience, Environmental Education
Project Outcomes
(1) Open access online sustainable agricultural modules: in development
- Freely accessible online modules and recorded workshop content on sustainable agriculture, soil building, and propagation. Educational content to be put on the KSU Food Forest website where it will be accessible indefinitely for the general public and farmers:
Links to the online module content for the SAFE Grant:
Module 1 - https://kennesaw.softchalkcloud.com/lesson/serve/1qI62STwmzXZgY/html
Module 2 - https://kennesaw.softchalkcloud.com/lesson/serve/NI8cSG1jRe7qip/html
Module 3 - https://kennesaw.softchalkcloud.com/lesson/serve/su21XfPRyAHLZ0/html
(2) Propagation to supply future food forests, sustainable food production systems:
In Spring 2025, under the support of the USDA SARE grant, the SAFE project has propagated the following list of plants from plants on the existing KSU Food Forest for use in the workshops, for the development of future food forests, and the building of one (and possibly two) food forests over the period of the SARE grant. These new food forests will provide fresh and nutritious food to local communities who are food insecure:
|
Plants |
Amount |
|
Figs |
80 |
|
Mulberry |
80 |
|
Concord grapes |
80 |
|
Raspberries |
5 |
|
Currents |
40 |
|
Strawberries |
5 |
|
Mullen |
32 |
|
Onions |
25 |
|
Turmeric |
30 |
|
Muscadine Grapes |
Will root more through the season – 5 so far |
- These totals do not account for potential mortality of plants. So far, rooting has been strong in these plants.
(3) Upcoming Workshop and Food Forest Planting: this workshop and food forest planting is a collaboration between the participants of this SARE grant and My Green Earth, a local NGO:
The Miniature Food Forest Project is a collaborative effort between My Green Earth, Inc., Habitat for Humanity, and the Sustainable Agriculture for Food, the Environment, and Economic opportunities (SAFE) USDA SARE to transform an undeveloped Habitat for Humanity home site in Cobb County into a sustainable, community-centered food forest. Originally deemed unsuitable for residential construction, this site is now being repurposed into a productive, ecologically beneficial landscape that will provide fresh food access and environmental education opportunities for an underserved community.
With an established relationship between SAFE SARE project and My Green Earth, SAFE (SARE grant) is now positioned as a key partner in this project. Through USDA grant funding, the SAFE project is supporting the initiative by supplying the remaining plant materials needed to complete the food forest. Additionally, SAFE (SARE grant) will host and co-lead a workshop, in partnership with Good Food Green City, to provide:
- Hands-on education for community members and local educators.
- Service-learning opportunities for participants and volunteers.
- Practical training in urban agroforestry and sustainable land management.
Alignment with USDA Grant: This project meets USDA grant funding criteria by directly addressing:
Urban Agroforestry Development – Establishing a permanent food source within a previously underutilized space.
Community Resilience & Food Security – Expanding fresh food access in an underserved area of Cobb County.
Education & Outreach – Providing workshops and environmental education that align with USDA goals.
(4) Workshops on growing food forest and preserving the harvests from food forests:
Food Preservation workshop: In collaboration with The Center Helping Obesity In Children End Successfully, Inc. (C.H.O.I.C.E.S.), the SAFE SARE Team will be providing a workshop on food preservation (with a focus on fruits and vegetables) for the grant participants. We will also be recording and providing the learning material on the grant website (link will be hosted on the KSU Food Forest website for longevity). C.H.O.I.C.E.S. is eager to support and participate in food preparation efforts using our Community Teaching Kitchen in Midtown Atlanta (125 Ellis Street NE Atlanta GA 30303). According to their website, "The CTK [Community Teaching Kitchen] is a unique project because it has an innovative approach towards children’s education, adult health and food sustainability." The Director of Development, Kenya Heard, has offered this kitchen for the preservation workshop associated with our SAFE SARE.
Education about food preservation is important to address food insecurity. Food preservation is not just about storing food—it’s about reducing waste and ensuring a sustainable, year-round food supply. It can also create pathways to economic benefits through providing participants with skills that allows them to pursue a career in the food industry.