The Guerrilla Grafting Movement – Secretly Grafting Fruit-Bearing Branches Onto Ornamental City Trees
10th November 2015
Without consulting anyone, of course, least of all whoever owns the trees, in this case the City of San Francisco.
There is a group of fruit lovers in San Francisco that practice something known as “guerrilla grafting” – they graft fruit bearing branches onto fruitless, ornamental trees across the Bay Area city. Having access to free fruit sounds like a wonderful idea, considering the number of homeless people who can rarely afford a decent meal, but guerrilla grafting is actually illegal.
In many metropolitan areas, urban foresters make sure that flowering fruit trees don’t bear any fruit, in order to keep fallen fruit from making a mess on sidewalks and attracting vermin. Most public trees are fruitless, a fact that the Guerilla Grafters obviously don’t like. While authorities see urban fruit-bearing trees as a nuisance, these agricultural rebels see them as an opportunity to provide fresh, healthy produce for free to anyone who walks by.
And, of course, the world must bend to their will.