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Welcome to Salt Lake City's Community Food Mapping Project

Have you ever wondered how much food you could grow in your yard if you took the time to garden? By following the simple steps below you can not only click on your property to find an estimation of its food production potential, you will also be linked to resources that will educate and empower you to grow more food.

 

 

	Take the survey! Help the City learn more about the ways you get food. The survey will help generate data for Community Food Assessment to determine the social, economic and environmental health of the food system, and identify key challenges, barriers and unmet needs. The assessment will be evaluating the entire life cycle of our food system from production to plate to food waste, to provide guidance towards crafting effective policies to strengthen it.      Click here for the survey.
	Find your house! After taking the survey you will be prompted to re-enter your address or nearest cross streets so that you can see how much food you can grow in your yard. The mapping tool takes into consideration the tree canopy(2006 data), amount of sunlight, average pavement area, and building footprint to identify the most productive areas of your property to grow food. ‡
	Learn more! After you take the survey and view your property, you will be linked to resources regarding health, nutrition, food production, and food assistance programs to help guide you in accessing and growing more local food.
	The mapping element of this project was created by Kevin Bell, Salt Lake City GIS Coordinator in partnership with the University of Utah's Department of City and Metropolitan Planning students Tammy Hunsaker, Ali Oliver, and Xi Wang with instructor Martin Buchert. More information on the methodology and acknowledgments can be found in the resource section. John Jeavons bio-intensive gardening method was used to quantify yield potentials, more information at www.growbiointensive.org. ‡Please note that this an evolving project that generates an estimate based on calculations and assumptions to simulate how much food could be grown if best management practices were applied. As a result, some errors and inconsistencies may occur on certain properties. Please email slcgreen@slcgov.com if you are experiencing difficulties with this software and we will walk you through how to conduct your own assessment

Why Garden?

The average grocery food item travels 1500 miles before arriving to your table. Local agriculture eliminates the costs of, and demand for, the energy resources needed for transportation and preservation, along with the related pollution. When we reduce the distance from farm to plate, the opportunities for food to be contaminated or vulnerable to disruptions in the supply chain are greatly reduced or eliminated. Growing your own food not only allows you to eat fresher, more nutritious produce, it also give you the peace of mind of knowing exactly where your food is coming from.