Swale is public food in NYC.

Swale is a floating food forest built atop a barge that aims to make access to fresh food more equitable. It travels to public piers in New York City welcoming visitors to harvest herbs, fruits and vegetables for free. 

Swale enhances the quality and responsible use of public waterways and land; sequesters carbon in the soil onboard through agroforestry farming practices; works to encourage New Yorkers to reconsider our relationships with environmental ecosystems; and works to change perceptions and policies to increase the presence of edible perennial landscapes.

Swale has been organized with the help of individuals, community groups, as well as city organizations in order to reinforce food and water part of a cooperatively stewarded commons. 

Since 2016, Swale has been working towards Public Food in and around New York City. Swale has catalyzed (and continues to help steward) the first 24-hour public foodway in a park in New York City.

From 2016 - 2020 the first version of Swale circumnavigated New York’s harbor. The floating food forest closed during the pandemic and we moved to land-based food forest initiatives in the city. A new floating food forest is being designed as a more permanent structure called Shoal.

Shoal is a public platform that combines a saltwater cycle with a floating food forest that grows salt-tolerant fruits and vegetables. It not only addresses issues of food and water access in New York City, but also resilience against future storm surges, and community engagement, instigating more access to public food through agroforestry opportunities in New York City. We aim to launch in the summer of 2024.

Alternate models of community-based food production are critical in building regenerative ecosystems. We want to continue to co-present long-term opportunities for New Yorkers to get involved in building for ecological regeneration, and strengthening food as a public right.