What's on the program?
A day organized by and for members also means you can choose what piques your curiosity. Choose from guided tours, lectures, and workshops, or use the breaks to catch up with others.
At 10:00 a.m., we’ll kick things off together with Sjef van Dongen and Evert Prins. They’ll talk about the Agroforestry Blueprint and take us on a tour of the pilot sites on the grounds.
From 12:00 to 1:30 p.m., we'll all sit down together for a group lunch. Everyone brings something tasty to share. After that, the program continues with new sessions.
Below you'll find the full program and more information about the speakers.
Sjef van Dongen will give a tour of the nursery and show the test setups both in the morning and in the afternoon.
Read more about Sjef and Fruitzforlife at the bottom of this page.
Come take a look, share your ideas, and discover what you can do with your harvest!
At Association Day, Breaking Berries will demonstrate how produce from food forests can be processed on the go.
They show the entire process:
- Food Trailer: Cleaning and Preparing the Harvest
- MobiBlast: Blast Freezing and Demonstrating What This Means for Further Processing and Storage
- Bulk storage: temporary storage of harvested products before they are further processed
- Freeze-drying: The Freeze-Drying Process and Its Results
- Packaging: From Bulk Product to Consumer or Foodservice Packaging
- Labeling: printing a label on-site in the food forest entrepreneur’s corporate style
After that, there will be time to examine and taste products, ask questions, and discuss the possibilities and challenges related to harvest processing.
And we’re especially curious about your experience. Take our short survey and tell us: how much of this year’s harvest was left behind in the forest? And more importantly: how can we make sure you’ll be able to earn money from it next year?
From 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., Marieke Vanthoor of Boslekker will discuss processing, HACCP, labeling, and quality.
From 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., John Heesakkers will discuss the transition from a conventional farmer to an agroforestry farmer.
Read more about John's story here: boerennatuurlijk.nl/onze-boeren/john-heesakkers
Pim Martens is a professor at Maastricht University and also owns his own food forest, Vuurpad, which features a small forest vineyard.
Martijn explains everything about soil development during planting, management, and harvest.
Martijn has been an expert in this field for years and is an instructor at "Food from the Forest" (
).
Or read more here on his own website, "De Voedselboss."
2:00–3:00 p.m. Marieke Karssen will address the question, “How do we actually get the exponentially growing food forest harvests onto our plates?”
Where did we come from, where are we now, how exponentially will complex food forest harvests grow, and how will we, as an association, work toward feeding those people? And, how can you get involved and help out?
From 3:15 to 4:15 p.m., Caroline van Kordelaar will take you on a journey of discovery.
Don’t just take advantage of the culinary riches of your food forest! Many plants in food forests are also of interest to the cosmetics and/or pharmaceutical industries. During this presentation, you’ll learn which food forest plants are of interest, what they’re used for, and which parts you can harvest.
This presentation will be given by Caroline van Kordelaar, coordinator of the South Holland provincial group of “ Food from the Forest ” and founder of the Oostduin Garden on the Oostduin-Arendsdop estate in The Hague. It is a neighborhood vegetable, herb, and flower garden with a food forest edge. She is passionate about plants and their uses and leads tours, workshops, and courses on the applications of plants. She has also created over 450 plant signs, which indicate the uses of each plant and can be found in an increasing number of food forests and neighborhood gardens. By increasing knowledge about plants, she hopes that people will come to appreciate and protect them more.
Kay Krijen and Nicolaas Geijer can tell you all about "The Chestnut Supply Chain—An Example of a Supply Chain from Harvest to Market."
Cornelia van der Weijden from Kwekerij Amstelland is giving a workshop on growing shiitake mushrooms.
Manon Ossevoort Interactive Theater: Which plant in the food forest are you?
2:00–3:00 p.m.: Simon Verboom talks about the potential of harvesting and food forest cuisine.
How do you use dwarf quince juice, chestnut flour, or fermented plums? Join Simon in discovering the versatility of perennial produce and join the conversation about the future of the still largely undiscovered food forest cuisine.
Simon is one of the four Young Food Forest Farmers, a co-author of *The Food Forest Kitchen*, and organizes pop-up food forest dinners.
After registering using the registration form below, you’ll receive an email with a link to pre-register for the sessions. In addition to the presentations, there will be plenty of time to visit market stalls offering information and products, meet other food forest enthusiasts, and catch up with them, or simply stroll around the nursery.
