unhide agroforestry 2023-25

UNHIDE AGROFORESTRY REPORT

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Looking at Swedish and Latvian  agroforestry systems through the lens of crisis preparedness, food sovereignty and biodiversity 2023-25.

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“Unhide Agroforestry” is a journey through food forests where nut trees serve as both crisis preparedness and a future cash crop, through farms that strengthen their economies by foraging from wild edge zones, and through production forests, orchards, and tree meadows where ecosystems are revitalized, trees grow stronger and faster, and profitability increases with grazing.

This collaboration between Permaculture Latvia, the NGO Meža projekti, the Latvian State Forest Research Institute Silava, and Agroforestry Sweden aimed to explore outstanding systems with primary production from woody plants, highlighting the multiple functions and long-term work of trees in food-producing landscapes. 

The texts in the booklet (in English) summarize conversations, observations, reflections, and photographs from the two road trips across Sweden and Latvia in 2024.

The project was disseminated from the Swedish side through the film “I’m a Tree” (2024), the booklet Unhide Agroforestry (2025), and presentations at the Urban Food & farming Week at Botildenborg in Malmö, to agroecology students at SLU Alnarp, and during the annual Nut Network Day at Holma folkhögskola in 2024.

I'm a Tree

"I’m a Tree, what do I need?" is a film portraying Latvian forest owner and forester Agnis Graudulis, who for several years collected seeds of sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa), walnut (Juglans regia), and many other species across the Nordic and Baltic countries, aiming to preserve as broad a genetic diversity as possible.

Since then, he has established a 50-hectare food forest system (Vadakste Biodiversity Forest), dedicating great effort to plantings, implementing nature-based solutions for water management, and enhancing biodiversity. Running time: 20 min Photography, editing, production: Maja Lindström Kling.

Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or The State Education Development Agency (hereinafter – VIAA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority (VIAA) can be held responsible for them.