The Four Cases – Food Forests

Most stories from this handbook evolve around the implementation processes of four food forests that aim to work sustainably, integrating economic, social, and ecological goals. All four projects share similarities, but they are different in size, situated in different contexts, pursue somewhat different development paths, and will yield different overall results. This shows, there are many ways to a food forest. Reaching sustainability, especially in economics, is still an ongoing process for all of them and pursued by each site in different intensity (2023).

Table 1: Overview of the four food forests (2023)

Food Forest	Arcosanti Food Forest	Food Forest Coop Phoenix (FFC Phx)	Waldgarten Hof an den Teichen	Waldgarten Rehfelde
Site context	Ecological architecture	Urban farming	Permaculture farming	New start-up permaculture farm
Location	Arcosanti, AZ, USA	Phoenix, AZ, USA	Lüneburg, NI, Germany	Rehfelde, BB, Germany
Climate zone	Mild semi-arid	Hot semi-arid	Oceanic	Continental
Staff	3 full-time agriculture volunteers	5 coop entrepreneurs	2 part-time gardners	Honorary 1 full-time and 3 part-time entrepreneurs, ~30 experimental garden volunteers
Partners	Acro Agrotecture (educational NGO), Arcosanti Foundation, Northern Arizona University	Spaces of Opportunity consortium, Arizona State University	Foundation & agricultural business, Leuphana University	Association Sarsarale e.V.
Site size	0,3 ha	0,5 ha	1 ha	3 ha
Ownership	Private (Foundation)	Public-Private Partnership	Private (Foundation)	Private (Association)
Planning started in	2019	2019	2021	2020

While the Food Forest Co-op in Phoenix and the food forest at Hof an den Teichen have reached many milestones already, the sites at Arcosanti and Rehfelde are at an earlier stage of development mostly due to lack of funding and other resources. As I have closely accompanied and co-initiated the first two cases (FFC Phoenix and Hof an den Teichen), there is more in-depth data available on them. However, the material of this guide is reviewed by and co-produced with the managers of all four food forests.

Table 2: Milestones reached by the Food Forests (2021)

Food Forest	Arcosanti Food Forest	Food Forest Coop Phoenix (FFC Phx)	Waldgarten Hof an den Teichen	Waldgarten Rehfelde
Results so far	Land secured
		Comprehensive vision & action plan		Vision & permaculture plan
	Professional site plan			Concept
		Business plan
	Partial funding	Full funding for implementation		Partial funding
	Major infrastructure: Irrigation & main paths
	Mostly trees planted	~50% of land fully planted, all strata		Some trees planted, vegetable production