Redesigning Agriculture in the Image of Nature
_Our premise at Forest Agriculture Systems is simple, natural ecosystems
are the answer to the woes of farming, they have evolved over millions
of years, they are resilient, they have adaptive capacity, we still
depend on them, they work now just as they worked for the last millions
of years! Contrast natural ecosystems, which work with or without our
intervention, with our current approach to farming and food systems and
we see systems that are brittle, dependent on massive chemical and
energy inputs and deplete the most critical substrate (soil) at alarming
rates. Our goal and motto is to redesign agriculture in the image of
nature. Some of the most pressing problems we face in creating
healthy sustainable food systems we would argue nature has already
solved. We simply need to design within her models.
Perhaps you, like many people will think to yourself, thats an interesting idea, but will it work in reality? Will it really produce enough, food, fuel, timber and human necessities to economically viable? We firmly believe the answer is yes, but are working on providing demonstration sites, and economic farming models to answer that question with more certainty. New Forrest Farms is perhaps the most complete of such demonstrations sites. It is a farm in SW wisconsin that was founded in 1994 by Mark and Jen Shepard. The ecological template used by this farm is that of the oak-hazel savannah.
New Forest Farm has in many ways proven the concept successful. It is a living breathing productive 110 acre restored oak hazel savanna that produces a competitive amount of food and dollars on a per acre basis.
Though we fully rely on mimicking mother natures ecosystems, we do not endeavor to support a return to the stone age. Technology, and intelligent use of energy can and we would argue, must be used to enhance the development rate of ecosystem based food systems. This is a challenge though, current farm machinery has evolved to suit the needs of linear grain cropping, and so in conjunction with an ecosystems design approach to our food system, we also need to ask for our machinery to rapidly evolve to serve these systems. Much of it can be adapted and fabricated locally. Given our goal of rapidly developing these systems we intend to support open networked collaboration to enhance both the speed of machinery evolution as well as the speed of resilient productive perennial plant breeding. To that end please check out OSE, one of the most interesting open source hardware projects out there.
Perhaps you, like many people will think to yourself, thats an interesting idea, but will it work in reality? Will it really produce enough, food, fuel, timber and human necessities to economically viable? We firmly believe the answer is yes, but are working on providing demonstration sites, and economic farming models to answer that question with more certainty. New Forrest Farms is perhaps the most complete of such demonstrations sites. It is a farm in SW wisconsin that was founded in 1994 by Mark and Jen Shepard. The ecological template used by this farm is that of the oak-hazel savannah.
New Forest Farm has in many ways proven the concept successful. It is a living breathing productive 110 acre restored oak hazel savanna that produces a competitive amount of food and dollars on a per acre basis.
Though we fully rely on mimicking mother natures ecosystems, we do not endeavor to support a return to the stone age. Technology, and intelligent use of energy can and we would argue, must be used to enhance the development rate of ecosystem based food systems. This is a challenge though, current farm machinery has evolved to suit the needs of linear grain cropping, and so in conjunction with an ecosystems design approach to our food system, we also need to ask for our machinery to rapidly evolve to serve these systems. Much of it can be adapted and fabricated locally. Given our goal of rapidly developing these systems we intend to support open networked collaboration to enhance both the speed of machinery evolution as well as the speed of resilient productive perennial plant breeding. To that end please check out OSE, one of the most interesting open source hardware projects out there.
