Feeding the world’s growing population and protecting the surroundings do not go well together. The natural landscape demands freedom, which is robbed by heavy machines. We all know that deforestation is linked to crop expansion.
Forests are the most self-sufficient, bio-diverse, and productive ecosystems on earth. However, these rich centers are destroyed at 10m hectares/year due to monoculture crops like palm oil, which is used in cosmetics and food processing, and soya, which is for livestock feed.
This form of destruction needs to stop now to secure the future forest population for generations to come. According to a report by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, forests can help eliminate hunger and offer more food security.
Food forests are a foolproof way to feed the world because they are protected from pests and enrich the soil. Since they are already vital to climate change, we don’t need to dig too deep to know how forests can be used as the ultimate tool for defense.
More than a billion people are currently exposed to chronic hunger. This problem calls for an initiative to protect our environments so that people living in remote areas, who experience food insecurity, don’t have to worry about going hungry.
In 1975, Geoff Lawton accidentally discovered one of the first recorded food forests. When the North Atlantic swells went flat, his trip to Morocco took a turn. To make the most of his vacation, he went to Paradise Valley, which people had talked about, and he arrived at a village called Inraren. While his friends were asking for directions, Geoff wandered into the forest and found a new world there.
Geoff didn’t know he discovered an ancient food forest that had been lost deep in the jungles and fed by underground springs. Some experts believe that the forest has been continually harvested before the time of Christ, making it the world’s oldest agriculture system.
In 1980, Robert Hart, a British naturalist, came up with the term forest gardening, which made people aware of food forests. He became a pioneer in permaculture, a scientific field that promotes more diverse and healthy land use.
Geoff was fascinated with this field, and after finding out about the harvesting ways of the Inraren people, he opened Permaculture Research Institute. He then spent his days running permaculture courses and advising governments on food policies. He taught students how to grow a forest in their backyard that was rich in food.
Food forests hold a major appeal. They give back double the amount and take less. According to the Inraren people, their harvest method was simple and low maintenance. However, they did not reveal their ways and only those who tended to the crop knew how everything worked.
One of the best things about food forests is that they enrich the soil. They need little tending, are protected from pests, and create more food than any cutting-edge agritech.