By Gavin Hardy

In 2022, I was fortunate to travel overseas and visit some of the world’s leading community food forest and orchard projects to understand how they work and what we in Australia can learn from them.

Food forests – assemblies of food producing trees, shrubs, ground-covers & vines that mimic young forests – offer incredible benefits to planet Earth, including humanity, and have been around for a very long time.  Permaculture teacher and designer Geoff Lawton ‘discovered’ what is thought to be the world’s oldest food forest in Morocco during a surfing trip in the 1970’s. The 65 Hectare food forest at Inraren in the Atlas Mountains is thought have been operation for a least 400 years, possibly up to 2,000 years. This incredible site yields dates, citrus, pomegranates, bananas, broad beans, olives, and goat milk to name just a few.

The United Nations estimates that about 75% of the humanity’s food currently comes from just twelve plants and five animal species¹. This narrow range of sources makes our food system extremely vulnerable to pests, disease and climate extremes. Additionally, ecosystems that are beyond the natural range of these species have to be modified in order to grow the food, often resulting in massive biodiversity losses. In 2018, agriculture was the source of 12% of Queensland’s greenhouse gas emissions².

In food forests here in Australia and around the world the diversity of food species eclipses that modern industrial agriculture. At the Beacon Food Forest in Seattle, USA about 1,000 species of edible plants is been grown on a 0.75 Hectare site!  At Northey Street City Farm in Brisbane, over the last year, we have been re-establishing an edible forest garden under established trees and already have 65 edible plant species in place.

During my overseas research I was introduced to potentially important vegetable protein foods – nut and seed crops – for Australian agroforestry systems including acorn flour, once a native American staple food, and its rediscovery as an important food for these times. Acorns, harvested from oak trees, have enormous potential as a food source in the temperate zones of Australia (and New Zealand). In some places, like Canberra, avenues of existing mature red oak already line some streets with each tree dropping several hundred kilograms of food in a good season. Modern food forest pioneers like Martin Crawford in the UK  talked about Chinquapins and other dwarf chestnuts, black walnut and butternut in the temperate zone systems they have developed.

In terms of the energy and resources required, food forests are one of the highest yielding food growing systems around.  Whilst they will never be able compete with the single output monocrops of industrial agriculture, the way most of us get our food requires huge inputs including herbicides and pesticides, oil (for fuel and fertiliser) and a massive transport and distribution system largely based on debt finance. Food forests sequester carbon and build biological capital in a system that largely pays for itself, requiring decreasing inputs over the medium to long term.

The urban food forest can also be envisioned as all the edible plants growing throughout the city. Here and overseas thousands of kilograms of fruit are been harvested in residential yards, public greenspaces and other places. In Seattle, USA and Victoria, Canada not-for-profits are harvesting 15 to 20 tonnes of fruit in an average year from entire city regions. This is fruit that would normally go to waste, and instead is taken to charitable food banks as table fruit, processed into drinks and preserves for sale, gleaned by volunteers and put out on neighbourhood free food tables. Beacon Food Forest reported 1714kg of food harvest in 2021.

Other Benefits

One of the great things about food forestry in public places is that the benefits extend way beyond food sustainability.

Public Amenity

For a start, they’re just awesome places to relax and enjoy. Local residents tell me how much they enjoy these places on their morning walks, gatherings with friends and family or visits with the grandchildren. Community food forests and orchards, through sensitive design, are relaxing and grounding sanctuaries away from the stresses of the city. They offer respite, social space and design inspiration to the greater community, not just the project members. Almost all of the orchard and food forest spaces that I visited felt great to be in.

I feel blessed to be experiencing another delightful place surrounded by abundance everywhere I look – fallen fruit, berry bushes, trees heavy with apples.  The sun is out but under the trees it is cool and restful.  I feel like I could come here and lay out a blanket, lay back and read a book. I don’t feel I have to leave. 

Journal Entry, Welland Community Orchard in Victoria BC

Child Nutrition

I visited the Food Forests for Schools program in Miami USA where primary school children are learning about edible perennial plants and how to prepare food with them. The students are also doing their science and maths classes in these spaces and getting significant overall improvements in test results! The kids are also doing biology lessons, getting involved in gardening sessions run by passionate teachers, and are taking home nutritious local food to their families. Grandparents, who have knowledge of the traditional foods being grown in the school food forests, are teaching their grandchildren as well!

Social Connection

Many people say how activities and events at the food forests and orchards make them feel more connected with the local community. Fruit harvesting from public orchards is particularly satisfying, fun and uniting. Regular volunteering to establish and maintain these systems builds rapport and friendship. I loved the harvesting and gardening events that I attended overseas and here in Brisbane and feel more connected with people from these experiences.

Spent Tuesday morning… harvesting apples in an old orchard… Beautiful old apple trees, gnarled and covered in moss and lichen. The group were friendly, convivial and welcoming. No pressure but I felt like I wanted to harvest, to pick as many apples as possible. Good conversation as we picked.

Journal Entry, Holy Cross Lutheran Church orchard in Seattle USA.

References

1 FAO Fact Sheet (2004) ‘WHAT IS HAPPENING TO AGROBIODIVERSITY?’ https://www.fao.org/3/y5609e/y5609e02.htm#bm2 , accessed 24.01.2023

2 https://www.stateoftheenvironment.des.qld.gov.au/pollution/greenhouse-gas-emissions/agriculture-sector-greenhouse-gas-emissions (accessed 15.3.2024)