Temperate Agroforestry: How Forest Garden Systems Combined with People-Based Ethics Can Transform Culture

Paul Wartman, Rene Van Acker and Ralph C. Martin
Additional contact information
Paul Wartman: Department of Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada
Rene Van Acker: Department of Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada
Ralph C. Martin: Department of Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 7, 1-14

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.

Keywords: forest garden; temperate agroforestry; woody perennial polyculture; perennial agriculture; Indigenous; community; permaculture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/7/2246/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/7/2246/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:7:p:2246-:d:155284

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().