This weekend was conducted Agroforestryträffen in Stjärnsund with 70 participants from all over Sweden, Denmark and Finland. The purpose of the weekend was to forge closer ties between all those interested in agroforestry, exchange experiences and inspire each other. Agroforestry is a collective name for various farming techniques where woody plants, Thus, trees and shrubs, become part of our food systems. It can be about planting trees for timber production in a pasture or to grow annual crops between rows of trees, which may have or not edible parts. Although forest gardens are included under the term agroforestry. My colleague Annevi Sjöberg has written a great compilation of various agroforestry techniques which can be found here and also Joel Holmdahls presentation during the meeting describes the concept very well. An interview with me and one of the participants at the meeting you can listen to here.
The meeting was largely based on the participants' own experiences and interests, and therefore, there was plenty of time for constructive discussions scheme. Preferred on Saturday afternoon showed that there is great potential to make our food production more sustainable, both by using the unused space in towns and using agroforestry techniques on a larger scale, which ekobonden Kjell Sjelin from the Uppsala region told about. Unlike most matproduktionsteknikerna has the techniques that fall under the concept of agroforestry an ability to capture and store carbon dioxide in the soil in the form of organic material. Agroforestry is therefore a measure of climate and soil at the same time.
Sunday's talks with scientist and award-winning author Håkan Wallander and markvetaren Mats Olsson showed again that a living soil is a prerequisite if we are to succeed in creating sustainable cultivation. A lesson for Putt Myra forest garden was that we need to look closely at the rock, to find out which minerals can be bound in the rock. Through weathering can these be made available to the plants and again plays the mushrooms a very important role in this process. They may be using different methods accelerate the weathering process and thus help to provide our plantations of the minerals that the plants need to produce high-value crops. More on this topic coming soon on this blog!
The gist of both preferred if it was alive we have to disturb the soil as little as possible and provide as much organic material as we can to create the conditions for a rich fungal flora. What we see above the ground in the form of various crops is just a result of what is happening below the surface.
I have never met so many people with experience in forestry horticulture at the same time and during one of the discussion sessions, we talked about the biggest mistakes we've made in the construction of our forest gardens. A summary of the discussion will be posted on permaculture Stjärnsunds website soon and I will go into the subject in more detail in a future post.
If all goes well, the next agroforestry reunion take place in Gothenburg and I'm already looking forward to inspirational talks and meetings!