Abstract
How can transforming monocultures to diverse polycultures address and solve the intersecting issues of our food system? This literature review offers community resources, practical examples, and academic research to support the shift away from monocultures, and the broader social contexts that encourage them, and towards food systems as part of cultures that prioritize people, water, and the land. Forest garden systems are presented as a temperate agroforestry-based food system design which make use of multiple perennial plants to meet human needs for food, medicine, fuel, and more while regenerating the environment in which they grow. There is a lack of peer-reviewed research in temperate forest garden systems, but it is gaining momentum alongside an increasing application in non-academic contexts. Combined with cultural principles that prioritize people, the land, and water over profits, forest garden systems are proposed as a pathway for meeting local community’s needs and environmental regeneration.
Highlights
In temperate regions of Turtle Island, some areas such as Southern Ontario have largely been transformed from forest, wetland, and grassland to urban development and monoculture agriculture [1]
Settler and Indigenous science systems can support the growth of skills to work with perennial plants and to share the principles necessary to create food systems centered upon a culture that cares about people and recognizes its inextricable connection to the land and the water
Garden sizes ranged from a few square meters to 30 hectares, and forest garden uses varied from private gardens (59%), to community gardens (24%), to commercial farms (15%)
Summary
In temperate regions of Turtle Island (known to many as the continent of North America), some areas such as Southern Ontario have largely been transformed from forest, wetland, and grassland to urban development and monoculture agriculture [1]. Consequences of such a large-scale change in landscape include the interconnected losses of decreased biodiversity, soil erosion, increased contributions to climate change, water contamination, hydrological imbalances, and dependence on fossil fuelled mechanization for management [2,3]. Ontario) and how communities are re-growing transformative food systems, along with academic support
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
