UNHIDE Agroforestry - A Knowledge Exchange Latvia- Sweden 2023-25 - Report - Page 8
Väversunda berry orchard with Food forest, Sweden
Walnut tree (Juglans regia)
TOR NYBERG, A TREE LOVING
PIONEER WHO BROUGHT
AGROFORESTRY TO SWEDEN
Tor Nyberg, Anders Lindén.
VÄVERSUNDA BERRY ORCHARD is located
south of Vadstena, between Omberg and Lake
Tåkern. It began as an “after-retirement project”
by Inger Bjugård and Tor Nyberg, now in their
eighties, and has since blossomed into a business
employing up to 40 people during the summer
season.
Previously, Inger had a career as a food journalist and cookbook author. Tor worked as a forest
inspector at Södra and had a remarkable 20 year
experience from agroforestry planting projects in
East Africa with the Swedish aid agency “We-agroforestry” (Vi-skogen), operating since 1993.
For a long time, Inger and Tor nurtured a dream
of one day buying Charlottenberg Farm, having
noticed its favourable growing conditions when
passing by. The farm is situated on a slope, which
reduces the risk of frost, and lies partly within
Swedish cultivation zone 1. The site is dominated
by sandy soils. In 1996, their dream came true.
Today, the farm comprises seven hectares each of
strawberries and rhubarb, and eleven hectares of
cherry orchards. Harvesting is done entirely by
hand by seasonal labour from abroad, as is common in commercial berry production in Sweden.
THE FOOD FOREST
The purpose of our visit to Väversunda was the
lesser-known eight-hectare “emergency forest garden”, planted in parallel with the berry orchards
from the outset in 1996 and located within walking distance. During our visit, Stefan Fogelqvist of
Freja Food Forest, who has managed the Väversunda food forest since 2021, acted as our guide.
Through Tor’s long experience with crisis prevention via tree planting in Kenya, he realised that
agroforestry was just as relevant in Sweden. This
insight motivated him to bring agroforestry ideas
home and adapt them to Swedish conditions.
