Foodforest Ketelbroek
Dear colleagues,
All over Europa farmers are suffering this summer… Crops are performing very poor due to extreme drought and unexperienced heat. Many colleagues start to complain and are begging for - even more - public funding to continue their agricultural business. But folks, there is no such thing as ‘business as usual’ in agriculture anymore. Farming is finding itself in the midst of the climate crisis.
Please, stop complaining and take a look in the mirror.
What about your farming method? Might it be a possible your way of farming is contributing to the very same climate crisis you are suffering from right now?
Are you ploughing to grow annual crops? So you are turning costly soil organic matter in to greenhouse gasses.
Are you using fossil fuels for spraying, running machinery, irrigating, …? So you are emitting greenhouse gasses.
Are you applying artificial fertilizers? So you are causing a considerable increase in greenhouse gasses.
Are you keeping livestock and feeding the animals with fodder produced elsewhere (possible even soy from the America’s)? So you are turning forests and good food in to greenhouse gasses.
Is none of these happening at your farmland? Do you grow perennial crops, such as nut trees? Congrats! Your farming method is part of the much needed solution for the current climate crisis. Growing trees indeed means sequestering carbon and contributing in cooling down our heated planet.
We would like to inform you a bit about the farming method we did choose. It is based upon growing shrubs and trees, most of them producing food (for instance fruits, nut, edible leaves). This rather unknown system is called a food forest, being a woody polyculture. In this system the increase of biomass under and above soil level also will improve biodiversity and water management quite a lot. Creating a healthy, undisturbed soil with a high amount of organic matter makes a farm for sure much more resilient. Therefore the increase of extreme weather events as heavy rains and severe droughts did not damage our productivity.
Our small farm in the Netherlands still is a young food forest, we started this project in 2009. But in 2016 already we enjoyed quite good harvests, whereas the crops failed at the surrounding conventional fields – those days due to heavy waterlogging (!). Now in 2018 we have even better harvests (since the food forest did grow well), while the neighbouring fields again do have failing crops – this time due to the current severe drought. These facts you can notice yourself looking at the accompanying pictures (some with a copy of a recent Dutch national newspaper with headline saying ‘we are facing global warming’).
What can be done? We hope many colleagues will start growing food forests on their farmlands. Because our vulnerable planet certainly needs more farmers to make a transition from conventional farming towards food forests. And please keep in mind: the future of your farming business might need a food forest as well!
Best wishes,
Wouter van Eck
Food Forest Ketelbroek
kenniscentrumvoedselbossen@gmail.com
