UNHIDE Agroforestry booklet 2025.09.22 - Flipbook - Page 19
We would argue that sweet chestnuts are not less
“native” and not more invasive (when harvested for
food) than wheat, and that a diverse system with
sweet chestnuts is as much a “food field” as wheat,
thus in favor of nature’s recovery, something that
an annual crop can never succeed with.
The group discussed invasive/ less desirable species, and whether this debate in the media is out
of proportion, and concluded; today’s monoculture
agriculture and forestry is among the largest drivers of global environmental degradation, and are
extremely vulnerable to climate change. This poses
a more widespread, large-scale and acute threat to ecology, economy and food security, and how
to reform it should be of highest priority.
NEED FOR A “HUGE
GENETIC VARIATION
GRASS ROOT MOVEMENT”
With monocultures and monoculture like orchards,
the risk of infestation of pathogens and pests arises, whether it is nut trees or cereals.
“societal collapse acceptance” and how to translate it into practical, long-term adaptation, taking
our dependency on diesel-powered machines, the
number of crops dependent on irrigation, pesticides and fertilizers, the size of the system and the
number of animals dependent on external inputs
into consideration. “The only way to reach sustainability is for the masses themselves to produce
their own food. A few giants who produce for the
masses leads to people who lack resistance or
ability to withstand adversity. To some extent, we
expect a collapse, at least in some part of the food
system”, Etta and Jona state.
“COMPARED WITH
TRADITIONAL AGRICULTURE THAT
USES A LOT OF INPUT AND ENERGY, THESE NUTS FALL TO THE
GROUND WHEN THEY ARE RIPE.
WITH SIMPLE HAND TOOLS YOU
CAN PICK UP WHAT YOU NEED,
WHERE YOU LIVE. THERE NEEDS
TO BE NUTS EVERYWHERE, SO
WE DON’T DEPEND ON LONG DISTANCE TRANSPORTS.”
- Jona
Etta and Jona stress the need to find resistant varieties to the major fungal diseases that are ravaging
European chestnuts throughout Europe. “While
Asian chestnuts (Chinese and Japanese) are resistant to Ink Disease and Chestnut Blight, it is crucial
to create new disease resistant hybrids of Asian
and European chestnuts, by planting chestnut trees
of different species together and letting them pollinate each other to create new crosses.”
This will be most effective if as many people as
possible plant trees in different locations in the
country, and when fruit bearing, plant the seeds
from these trees, looking for cold-hardiness and
large nuts in the selection - to generate a large
genetic variety of productive, healthy chestnut trees
for northern conditions.
At our visit, we had a group conversation about
•
Suggested reading: “Beyond the war on invasive
species - a permaculture approach to ecosystem
restoration”
•
SLU’s Species Data Bank: Reported finds of sweet
chestnut in Sweden.
•
Trees for fodder: Sweet chestnut leaves and sprouts
have a long history in southern Europe as a nutritious “tree hay”.Allowing unwanted spread of
plants to become food for ruminants is more energy
efficient than other eradicating efforts. For example,
robinia leaves provide crude protein for ruminants.
Slightly poisonous plants like robinia are generally
doing good for ruminants, keeping stomach and
intestinal parasites at bay.
