Fleet Farming is a revolutionary urban farming social enterprise created by IDEAS For Us that is redefining how we produce and distribute local food in our community, from lawn to plate. Our model creates a hyperlocal decentralized agricultural system throughout neighborhoods, transforming underutilized lawns into 100% organic edible landscapes. 3,000 acres of productive farmland are loss to development each day to build low-density suburbs, where lawns are taking over and threatening the global food supply. Today, lawns make up 40.3 million acres of the conventional U.S. land, providing an unprecedented opportunity for local food production. In addition, lawns also present growing environmental concerns, leading to more than 50% of potable water consumption for irrigation to nutrient pollution and runoff devastating local water-ways. Fleet Farming provides all the initial inputs to build the mini farm (aka farmlette), maintain, harvest, and process the food in a community using zero-emission bicycle power for transportation. Each participating landowners receives a portion of the produce as "shared revenue" each week, and the excess is taken to local venues and sold at restaurants and farmers markets to financially sustain the enterprise. Bi-weekly, Fleet Farming hosts educational bike/farm rides called “The Swarm” to engage the public in local food systems through experiential learning. Fleet Farming has a garden installation service known as Edible Landscapes that builds raised bed gardens for homeowners, schools, retirement communities, and apartment complexes. Learn more at www.fleetfarming.org/edible-landscapes
