Fulton County Fights Food Deserts With Libraries, Rocks

FULTON COUNTY, GA — On May 1, the Fulton County Board of Commissioners voted to extend the geological agriculture (GeoAg) food desert program with a $100,000 budget to continue the GeoAg program in Fulton County in 2019. The 2019 GeoAg program takes the best practices of the 2018 GeoAg pilot and expands the program to tour 10-libraries from June until October on Saturdays and to teach advanced GeoAg topics at Oak Hill Child, Adolescent and Family Center on Mondays. Fulton County residents can also expect to see GeoAg pop up displays and information tables at various events throughout the county through the end of 2019.

"We are excited that the Board of Commissioners voted to continue the program in 2019 and bring more valuable programming to the patrons of the Library System," said Library System Executive Director, Gabriel Morley. "We are happy that in 2019, we are able to take GeoAg across 10-libraries, enabling a larger community to experience and learn geological agriculture techniques and share new sustainability practices.”

The Library System piloted the GeoAg Sustainability Workshops in 2018 at Wolf Creek and Metropolitan libraries.

“The results of the GeoAg 2018 pilot program are positive and encouraging,” said Commissioner Marvin Arrington, Jr. who helped spearhead the pilot for his District in 2018. “We have trained about 400 Fulton County residents so far with another 600 residents and institutions signing up, requesting that GeoAg workshops come to where they live. With this type of community response, this year we're asking for area institutions to match or co-match what the County is allocating to help the County in addressing issues related to food deserts and food insecurity.”

The needs of the people are great and the County can only do so much, Arrington said.

"A match or co-match of what the County has stepped up to try can help us host GeoAg workshop all over the metropolitan area, teaching our communities new ways to sustain themselves.”

For those less familiar with the geological agriculture program, Fulton County Board of Commissioners voted in 2018 to pilot GeoAg workshops in Fulton County to look at alternative ways to address food desert issues in the County.

Fulton County residents may find our Saturday workshop events on Eventbrite at the links below.

For more information about geological agriculture visit www.tosoilless.com and social media links @ToSoilLess on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. See interview reel of GeoAg with founder Richard Campbell on a variety of Atlanta networks https://youtu.be/rUX1UznWQCY