Sitopia: How Food Can Save the World

by Carolyn Steel

Could forest gardens really be the farms of the future? In our world of shrinking resources and increasingly extreme weather, they’ve certainly got a lot going for them: minimal input, maximum nutrient and water retention and natural resilience due to their great diversity, which allows for constant adaptation as climatic conditions shift. Like no-till farming and wild farms such as Knepp, forest gardens maintain what Albert Howard called the Law of Return: the natural balance between growth and decay essential to all fertility. With the addition of poultry and pigs, which naturally forage in forests, the garden’s productivity could be further increased to provide a naturally rounded, semi-wild diet. With forest gardens and wild farms on our doorsteps – perhaps in rewilded parks and gardens as well as in the countryside – we could all live closer to nature. With minimal upkeep and something new to be harvested each day, such farms and gardens could become our new commons. We could visit them as often as we chose, to forest bathe, do some planting or pruning, gather something for dinner or just hang out. We would be physically fitter, soothed, entertained and engaged in a productive, meaningful common activity.