Why every community needs a Foodscape Plan

What if the landscapes around us didn’t just absorb rainwater, provide a bit of shade, beautify neighborhoods, or provide a patch of lawn—but fed us?

Across the country, communities are grappling with overlapping challenges: food insecurity, climate stress, fragile supply chains, and underutilized land. At the same time, we’re surrounded by opportunities: public parks and plazas, streetscapes, rooftops, schoolyards, parking lot edges, unoccupied buildings, institutional campuses, and residential yards (front and back)—all of which could be designed to grow food, regenerate ecosystems, and strengthen our local economies.

That’s where foodscape planning comes in.

What Is a Foodscape?

A foodscape is a living system of spaces and relationships that support how food is grown, processed, distributed, prepared, shared, and even composted. It includes home gardens, community gardens, food forests, outdoor and indoor farms, food hubs, farmers’ markets, restaurants, compost stations, and corner stores with local produce. A foodscape is cultural - reflecting the traditions, values, and ecological conditions of a place and shaped by the people who steward it.

Why Plan for Foodscapes?

Most communities have stormwater management plans, transportation plans, and housing plans. But few have anything resembling a foodscape plan—a strategy that weaves food into the fabric of everyday land use, infrastructure, and public life.

Here’s why that matters:

1. Food Security Starts with Land Use

Many food-insecure neighborhoods are also rich in potential growing space. Planning for foodscapes ensures those opportunities are identified, protected, and activated.

2. Climate Resilience Is Rooted in the Soil

Edible landscapes can reduce urban heat, retain water, restore soil health, and sequester carbon—especially when paired with native plants and composting systems.

3. Economic Development Can Be Local

From urban farms to neighborhood-scale food hubs and micro-enterprise kitchens, foodscapes create place-based jobs and keep resources circulating locally.

4. It Builds Community Power

When residents co-create spaces that nourish them—literally and figuratively—they grow deeper ties to their neighborhoods, histories, and futures.

What Does a Foodscape Plan Include?

A good foodscape plan is rooted in both vision and pragmatism. It should include:

• Input from all residents, growers, eaters, and landowners

• A map of growing, processing, and distribution assets (and gaps)

• Strategies for integrating food production into public and private landscapes

• Guidance on zoning, composting, and infrastructure

• Policy and funding tools to sustain and scale efforts

It meets people where they are—and grows from there.

The future of food isn’t somewhere far off. It’s growing in your neighborhood, if we make space for it.

What would it take to create a foodscape plan for your community?