The Orchard Amid Concrete

There’s a farm in Los Angeles, tucked between a faded American Legion Post and a Baptist church in Panorama City. Behind the concrete columns and wooden fence lie Cottonwood Urban Farm, a composting site and small orchard of mulberry, fig, pomegranate and stone fruit trees — peach, plum, apricot, pluot and nectarines. The May gray of Los Angeles’ spring is just starting to burn off as I find Elliott Kuhn, standing on a folding chair, picking Pakistani mulberries and carefully packing them into small cardboard containers for sale later. 

He invites me to pick the sweet, long berries as I ask him about his farm’s designation as an Urban Agriculture Incentive Zone. Kuhn was a recipient of a 2013 property tax incentive intended to support urban farmers and address food insecurity by creating farms in neighborhoods close to residents who need wholesome food most.

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