What is a food forest?
Homegardens, food forests, and agroforestry are all terms referring to multi-story food growing systems using trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants mixed together, mimicking some semblance of the natural ecosystems that exist around them. They make use of smaller spaces, can be better for the environment, and hold cultural significance, all while providing large amounts of a person’s or family’s nutritional needs from a day to day basis. Some people are even able to make a living off of products they produce from the system.
These systems are quite popular in tropical areas, as well as temperate, and play a large role in the cultures and livelihoods of thousands of people. Polynesians coming to the Hawaiian islands were able to survive due to these multi-story food production systems they developed to match the climates and soils of the volcanic islands they were exploring throughout the Pacific. Since World War II, industrial agriculture and global food production systems have increasingly replaced small family farms, food forests, and other forms of subsistence living with monocultural systems requiring heavy machinery, chemicals, and other large inputs. There has been some fight back, as well as some mingling of the two. With desertification, hunger, and climate change becoming more and more prevalent on the ground, some have been led to the realization that industrial agriculture does not hold a beneficial future for humans, let alone nature as a whole.
It has been said over and over how much of the food here comes from off island. Given any blip in the supply chain, the people here will be in big trouble. Hawaiians once lived off the land with no external inputs. Sugar cane, pineapple, and cattle pushed that away in favor of profit and export. Those industries have left their mark on the land and the people, the latter not being all for the worse. All being said, times are changing. There has been some response to this change with groups trying to increase the production of local food, not local exports, with some organizations making it easier through co-ops, farmers markets, and governmental assistance. Others have tried to combat the use of agro-chemicals with more “clean”, natural alternatives. After all, being an island, what we do on land is directly related to what happens in the ocean. Among these responses has even been the reimplementing of previous Hawaiian agroforestry systems with the addition of new useful species that historically were not present.
Where do we come into play with this? We wish to do just that. Growing as much food for both the monkeys and the people that work for the monkeys is our goal. A food forest meets all of our needs and wants. By using traditional knowledge and plant/animal relationships with some experimentation searching for new techniques and planting pairs, we will create a natural-like forest that is good for the soil, good for the people, good for the animals and insects, and good for the earth. We will need the help of volunteers and friends, but that’s part of the joy of creating these systems. The communities that can build around them. The trading of seeds and other propagation parts, of fruits, nuts, and vegetables is what builds strong, resilient, and friendlier communities. We aim to not only grow for ourselves and the monkeys, but to be able to spread the plants, the knowledge, and the good food with those around us. This is exactly what held agricultural communities together the past several thousands of years and is what we need to get back to today.