The Underground Fruit Economy: Fresh Fruit, via Your Neighbors

Have you ever seen a neighbor’s fruit left unharvested, all those fruit wasted? Think there’s a better way? Though neighbors trading apples for plums isn’t exactly new phenomenon, the Internet is changing the way and fueling growth in the "underground economy" of trading fruit.

Kim Severson of The New York Times has an interesting article about this trend:

All over the country, the underground fruit economy is growing. At new Web sites like neighborhoodfruit.com and veggietrader.com, fruit seekers can find public mulberry patches in Pennsylvania and neighbors willing to trade blackberries in Oklahoma.

In Royal Oak, Mich., a woman investigated how to start a fruit exchange modeled after Fallen Fruit (fallenfruit.org), an arts group that designs maps of accessible fruit growing in Los Angeles neighborhoods.

In Alaska, cooks used Facebook to find willing donors of backyard rhubarb, the first dessert crop that grows after the long winter. In Columbia, S.C., university students pulled spare peaches from orchards and donated them to a local food bank.

Supporters of this movement hold two basic principles. One, it’s a shame to let fruit go to waste. And two, neighborhood fruit tastes best when it’s free.

Link – via squealingrat

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by squealingrat.