Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture Forbes Lipschitz was selected by the Landscape Architecture Foundation to the 2024–25 cohort of the LAF Fellowship for Innovation and Leadership for her project “Feral Farms: Midwestern Recipes for Rewilding Agriculture.”

In response to the urgent need for sustainable, biodiverse, and community-centric food sources, the Feral Farms project will examine this central question: How can we effectively modify our diets and de-domesticate our landscapes while preserving cultural diversity and mitigating climate change? Feral Farms will document the experiences of food system rebels, including indigenous farmers, regenerative farmers, Black farmers, foragers, and hunters of wild game. Through a rich tapestry of regional case studies, this project demonstrates that rewilding agriculture is not just a theoretical aspiration but a potential reality. This research will culminate in a cartographic cookbook, providing recipes inspired by the culinary traditions of the Midwest while speculating on alternative agricultural futures for the region.

The purpose of the fellowship is to allow fellows to “nurture emerging ideas and to think deeply” during a dedicated period of 3 months. LAF fellows receive a $25,000 financial award and participate in LAF residencies during the year. Selected projects “demonstrate the potential to bring about impactful change to the environment and humanity and have the capacity to grow the leadership potential of landscape architects.”

Read more at The Landscape Architecture Foundation