“We’re transforming it into something useful and beautiful for our community,” says Smith of the site, located at 46 Wilder St. What was once a vacant, roughly 14,700-square-foot lot bordered by homes on South Campus is now blossoming into a vibrant food forest, thanks to the vision of mechanical engineering Ph.D. student Alana Smith ’22. The idea for a food forest, which is composed of edible plants designed to mimic a natural forest system, came to Smith as she witnessed supply chain issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then an undergraduate student at UMass Lowell, Smith looked into sustainable food systems and discovered food forests, which provide high food yields on less land. 🔗 To learn more about the food forest on UMass Lowell’s South Campus check out the link in our bio. #sustainability #foodforest #food #umasslowell #uml #umass #lowell