SALEM — The Mack Park Farm and Food Forest received a $45,000 grant from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council’s Accelerating Climate Resiliency (ACR) grant program last week.
The grant will be used to build a solar-powered storage building as well as a water catchment system. These additions to the farm will help accommodate an increase in planned food production and associated irrigation needs.
The storage building will also reduce transportation costs and increase efficiency, due to the food and supplies now being stored on site.
The farm, located at 31 Grove St., is currently rehabilitating an underused and overgrown area of a city park to create what they called a “vibrant recreational space where all residents will have the opportunity to enjoy the food forest, weekly farmers’ markets, and volunteer.”
According to Kerry Murphy who works with the farm, a food forest is an edible landscape planted in layers to mimic an actual forest.
“Fruit and nut trees are planted with berry bushes and lower-lying perennial vegetables and herbs,” Murphy said. “Planting in this way requires little to no maintenance or pesticides, and is meant to be self-sustaining.”
The farm will partner with the Salem Pantry to distribute fresh produce directly to low-income neighborhoods, public housing sites — including senior housing — and public schools.
Mayor Kimberley Driscoll said Mack Park is a success story as well as an example of how the city comes together to support one another, “mak(ing) sure Salem works for everyone.”
“I’m so grateful to the Metropolitan Area Planning Council for this grant to construct a solar-powered storage building and water catchment system for this municipal agriculture project,” Driscoll said. “This green energy project will help us grow more green produce and save money while doing so.”
Driscoll’s office said in a press release that increasing food production at the farm will help reduce dependence on long supply chains, thereby reducing the community’s carbon footprint and strengthening local and sustainable food production.
The goal of Mack Park Farm and Food Forest is to enhance resiliency, especially in regards to physical stresses on the food system created by extreme temperatures and increasing intensity and frequency of flooding and drought.
Volunteers at the farm planted apple, peach, plum and cherry trees at the beginning of May and are scheduled to plant more soon. The food forest at Mack Park Farm, like many other food forests, will be open to the public for picking.
Driscoll thanked both the volunteers and the farm staff, whom she said worked “in tandem to grow and distribute fresh produce” to people in Salem.
