We should plant food forests instead of gardens
Although food forests seem to be a new trend, they have been around since ancient times. Asia had them for millennia. In Morocco, there is even a 2,000-year-old food forest. Unlike gardens, they don’t require too much upkeep, as MNN reports.
In Tel Aviv, Israel, community organizer Nimrod Hochberg is helping to turn part of a city park into a place to grow food, according to MNN. “Parks need a lot of maintenance,” Hochberg said. “Food forests are sustainable.”
Food forests are not too pretentious when it comes to upkeeping. They use permaculture principles to grow vegetables and fruits that don’t need replanting every season. The idea behind all these is to turn a few edible plants into a self-regulating forest.
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Such forests seem to be springing up around the world, from the US to New Zealand. They can provide healthy fresh food for the community, while also eradicating the many problems that come with industrial agriculture. “We are demolishing ecological systems around the world mainly to create food,” Hochberg told me. “We’re replacing them with systems that only support humans beings, and only for one purpose: food.”
This practice annihilates plant and animal communities. Not only that, but it affects humans too. “We need natural systems to support life on Earth,” Hochberg noted. He wanted to prive “it’s possible to create food and be ecological.”
Although food forest on rooftops are great, their potential reaches full level outside the cities. “The countryside is where you can really do it on a large scale,” Hochberg said. He pointed out that he will keep working on food forest for people.
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