Foodforest Podcast (in Dutch)

Season Five of the Food Forest Podcast

In the fifth season of the Food Forest Podcast, we’ve moved past the pioneering phase and are looking ahead. The first harvests are getting underway, and short supply chains are beginning to take shape. Can we already call this an agricultural revolution? Or is there still a long way to go? In this season, we draw inspiration from the food forest’s ultimate strategist: the fungus. If we are the underground mycelium, what is needed now to make a leap in scale? 

Starting this season, we’ll also be appearing on video—both on YouTube and Spotify.

Season five starts on Monday, April 13. Don’t want to miss an episode? Subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

The Food Forest Cast is an initiative of the Food from the Forest association. We believe it is important to communicate a positive perspective on action. Not against, but for. Not angry, but positive. And the format of a podcast conversation lends itself to exploring this perspective in depth.

But, we can't keep this going without your support. Become a member, and/or donate what you can spare to literally keep the Foodforest Podcast (in Dutch) on the air.

Season 5

Paul and Sarai Venner

Paul and Sarai Venner

Most people don't dream big enough and aren't bold enough. Sarai and Paul Venner are the exception to this rule. Not afraid, but good...
Li An Phoa

Li An Phoa

Through her studies in ecology, philosophy, and business administration—as well as through years of helping out in food forests and on farms—Li An Phoa has gained an incredible amount of...
Rob Baan

Rob Baan

This is a conversation you can easily listen to twice. Rob has so much experience and knowledge, and he has so much to say about it...
Gijs Tolmeijer

Gijs Tolmeijer

Gijs is 26 years old, has just earned a dual master’s degree in entrepreneurship and the environment (and food forests), and is now a business developer for the Oncra platform at...
Paul de Graaf

Paul de Graaf

Paul is "Mr. Mycelium" of Rotterdam, a city that loves food forests and green spaces. Originally a landscape architect, he has been involved since the early 2000s in...
Rik van der Linden

Rik van der Linden

Rik is a filmmaker and storyteller. He says he is dedicated to nature, and also to his own independent curiosity. About...
Natascha Kooiman

Natascha Kooiman

Natascha has turned the protein/food transition into an impressive life's work. From changing the offerings in cafeterias and supermarkets (flavor enhancers) to building...
This Goverde

Thijs Goverde

Thijs is a philosopher and writer who has already published two books on food forests. Not about how to create a food forest, but mainly...
Chantal Vollenbroek

Chantal Vollenbroek

Food forests and ornamental gardening? Is that a good combination? If you’ve listened to this podcast with floral designer and passionate food forester Chantal Vollenbroek, you’ll be totally inspired...
Martin Crawford

Martin Crawford (EN)

We are honored that Martin Crawford, one of our greatest food forest heroes, is kicking off our fifth season with a very civil and open conversation...
Frank Gorter and Marieke Karssen in a recording of the Food Forest podcast

Frank Gorter and Marieke Karssen kick off season five

In the fifth season of the Food Forest Podcast, we’ve moved beyond the pioneering phase. Just like the food forest movement. We’ll be exploring scale-ups, agricultural revolutions, but also...

Season 4

Irene of Lippe-Biesterfeld

Irene of Lippe-Biesterfeld

One day, Princess Irene discovered that everything is the same problem: putting yourself above others. Thinking in terms of power and thinking that it...
Joost van Strien

Joost van Strien

Joost has been farming the fertile soil of the Noordoostpolder for 33 years. First conventionally, then using the biodynamic method, and now...
Waldemar Torenstra

Waldemar Torenstra

Waldemar is well known as a successful actor, but he was also raised by hippie parents, including at the then-starting Warmonderhof and, via the...
Carlyn and Kyara-Smit

Carlyn and Kyara Smit

Food forest 't Mortelke has been in existence for just under five years and is already a fully entrepreneurial entity based on sustainability and inclusiveness. On three acres...
Marieke Vanthoor and Manon Botha

Marieke Vanthoor and Manon Botha

The harvests are coming! High time to get serious about marketing. Manon and Marieke are each on...
Marcel Vijn

Marcel Vijn

Marcel works and researches at the interface of farmer, society and sustainability. And has been doing so since the 1980s! That work has led to...
jaap korteweg, dick ringelberg and leo ceelen

Leo Ceelen, Dick Ringelberg and Jaap Korteweg

In this double podcast, we speak first with two enthusiastic volunteers from food forest 's Heeren Vruchten, which is part of the 30-acre beautiful...
cees veerman

Cees Veerman

From moment one, we go into historical depth in this conversation with former Minister of Agriculture, professor and farmer Cees Veerman. How his...
Diderik Clarebout, Wouter van Eck and Louis de Jaeger

Diderik Clarebout, Louis de Jaeger and Wouter van Eck

Can food forests feed the world? This is a question and a frame. And, all the answers are also about time, convenience and rubbing shoulders with...
Machteld Huber

Machteld Huber

Machteld Huber is a physician, researcher, also a bit of an activist, founder of the Institute for Positive Health and ultimately comparable to no one. Just like...
Sander Roeleveld

Sander Roeleveld

Ever since Sander attended the annual food forest training, he has been fascinated by the tremendous challenges and opportunities of the peatlands. Five years...
Merlin Heugen and Erik Rietjens

Erik Rietjens and Merlijn Heugen

Just as you used to have to really know a thing or two about cars to get them running, now, as a food farmer, you still have to know quite a bit about...
Willem Ferwerda

Willem Ferwerda

William is an inspired ecologist who has learned to successfully build bridges to economists, farmers and politicians like no other. And.
Louise Vet

Louise Vet

Louise Vet is much more than a highly regarded ecologist. She conducted important basic research and in her career discovered how complex and layered...

Anne van Leeuwen, Louis de Jaeger and Martijn Ballemans

In this additional episode, recorded during the Green Dream festival with a live audience, we zoom in on the reality of the green dream of...
Jan Remijnse, Guido van de Weem and Karin de Vries

Jan Remijnse, Guido van de Weem and Karin de Vries

How does that work? If forse real estate consultant ICS is going to start a food forest? And, was it a good decision? At least it brings them much more...
Michiel van den Hoven and Arne Driessen

Michiel van den Hoven and Arne Driessen

These impact investors decided two years ago to do it themselves. Not just investing, but actually doing business in a world where ecological...
Jan Degemaar and Maarten Schrama

Jan Degenaar and Maarten Schrama

Maarten and Jan have been building the six acres of public food forest Haarzuilens, right next to Utrecht, with their foundation Lekker Landgoed for 10 years. The...
Jeroen van Steen, Tom Waller and Thomas Steiner

Jeroen van Steen, Tom Waller and Thomas Steiner

This time we talk about the value of farmland. And how complex is the trap in which land is becoming more and more "valuable" and thus at the same time...
Sonne Copijn

Sonne Copijn

Sonne speaks -as she says herself- on behalf of the 20,000 species of bees on this planet. She talks about how they live, as well as how...
Marjan Minnesma

Marjan Minnesma

A lifetime of incredibly tireless and creative activity to keep our planet livable. That's how you could describe the career of Marjan Minnesma of Urgenda...
Marieke Karssen and Frank Gorter start season four

Marieke Karssen and Frank Gorter start season four

Also this year, Frank and Marieke kick off the -already- fourth season themselves. They talk about what they themselves are working on and go...

Season 3

Johan Kruijthoff, Paul Venner and Birgitta van Drie

Johan Kruijthoff, Paul Venner and Birgitta van Drie

We promised to end the 2024 season with your shared reality. We received quite a few submissions and there the three best...
Maud Aarts, Dagobert Bergmans and Jessica van Bossum

Maud Aarts, Dagobert Bergmans and Jessica van Bossum

Many people dream of it, but good friends Dagobert, Maud and Jessica just did it: traded their entire Amsterdam possessions for a...
Bram Wendel

Bram Wendel

Bram studied industrial ecology, so he knows all about lifecycle management calculations. But he came to the conclusion that you can calculate up to...
Jan Huijgen

Jan Huijgen

Jan is both a farmer and a philosopher and can see years ahead what he thinks needs to change in agriculture. And that...
Sjef van Dongen, Sijas Akkerman and Joost Stroomer

Sjef van Dongen, Sijas Akkerman and Joost Stroomer

Often it's still a yard here or a corner there, but farmers are starting to experiment with food forests and agroforestry! In Utrecht, North and...
Arjan Mekelenkamp

Arjan Mekelenkamp

After being told by the UWV in 2018 that he should just become a postal worker, Arjan Mekelenkamp, along with his wife, decided to chase his dream,...
Jos Willemsen

Jos Willemsen

This conversation requires your full attention. To really understand exactly what is being said. It's about fields, patterns, cycles, spirals, but of course...
Bear and Melissa den Beer Poortugael

Bear and Melissa den Beer Poortugael

When you talk about food forests, you're also talking about nuts. But do we know how to grow them optimally, harvest them,...
Ilse Geijzendorffer

Ilse Geijzendorffer

Ilse Geijzendorffer is director of Louis Bolk, an independent research institute with now more than 70 researchers where bold questions are being investigated in the field of...
Maarten Schrama, Martijn Aalbrecht and Wouter van Eck

Maarten Schrama, Martijn Aalbrecht and Wouter van Eck

Today's experts on food forests in the talk on young food forests. If you have or want to start a food forest you'll want to...
Sacha Bronze

Sacha Bronze

When young people decide to truly choose a future as a food forest farmer, it means much more than when a fifty-something does....
Taco Blom

Taco Blom

Actually surprising that we don't speak to this pioneer of pioneers until episode 50 of this podcast! Taco is not so much pioneering in the food forest world as...
Roeland Lelieveld

Roeland Lelieveld

Say you go on an internship from Wellantcollege to Kenya when you're 20, and see what needs to be done there to restore water to solid...
Louise van der Stok and Jordy van Eijk

Louise van der Stok and Jordy van Eijk

Jordy and Louise take you into their new reality. That of complex agroforestry systems in their foundation Regeneration. New terms that yet...
Kees van Veluw

Kees van Veluw

Kees has had quite a life in organic and ecological farming. And you can hear that in this podcast full of enthusiastic,...
Pip Gilmore

Pip Gilmore

In this episode, we finally examine the time of the mycelium. Slower, but also very flexible. It does not reveal itself so easily,...
Martin Slort

Martin Slort

Martin's life slowly but surely changed completely when he discovered how big a role food played in solving his health problems. Subsequently...
Emile van der Staak

Emile van der Staak

Emile van der Staak grew up with Ketelbroek -the food forest of Wouter van Eck- as a cook, so to speak. Every week, these...
Frank Gorter and Marieke Karssen start season three

Frank Gorter and Marieke Karssen start season three

Each season has a new theme, and in this first episode of season 3, Frank and Marieke explain why they chose this theme for...

Season 2

Femmeke Huigens

Femmeke Huigens

In the final podcast of the 2023 season, we speak with Femmeke Huigens, founder of the Drenthe Food Forests Association. A conversation that goes...
Sietske Metz and Micha Wieland

Sietske Metz and Micha Wieland

In this episode we speak (finally!) with a grower. Micha and Sietske are the heroes behind Holland's purveyor of food forests: nursery Arborealis. They tell...
Kien van Hövell tot Westerflier

Kien van Hövell tot Westerflier

Kien is, as she says herself, third-generation (in-law) estate owner. Of an estate that at the same time is incredibly related to the city. And where...
Maurice Ramaker

Maurice Ramaker

Den Food Bosch is just a small piece of land. But the speed at which everything has grown there in 4 years makes more and more...
Maarten van Dam and Jeroen Plesman

Maarten van Dam and Jeroen Plesman

Schevichoven is a farm raised off the ground with a lot of debt capital by impact investor Maarten van Dam and his family. But...
Klarien Klingen

Klarien Klingen

This conversation was about money. And about food. And about the capitalist system that sees food as a good and not a right....
Mark Venner

Mark Venner

Mark Venner is taking over his father's dairy farm, and with the help of his family, he is converting the traditional mixed farm to a...
Victor Stukker

Victor Stukker

Victor Stukker of petit restaurant Héron in Utrecht grew up in the woods AND in the hospitality industry. Two big spoons that led to...
Nicholas Geijer

Nicholas Geijer

What happens when young people just step into the new reality with all the legs and arms they have. Of extinct biodiversity,...
Kaat Biesemans-Hoogewijs

Kaat Biesemans-Hoogewijs

There you are, course certificate in hand and looking for new work and land. Kaat can talk about this search like no other....
Chantal van Genderen

Chantal van Genderen

Chantal comes from the art world but was increasingly drawn to greenery, permaculture and herbal medicine. When in 2017, from her balcony in Amsterdam, she...
Frank Heckman

Frank Heckman

Many food forests are not established and managed by one owner, but by a group of people. And so then there is a group process....
John Vermeer

John Vermeer

Why is it that there are so many food forests in North Brabant? And that there is so much to do around food forests there, too?....
Diderik Clarebout

Diderik Clarebout

Diderik is a modern, ecological food forest farmer. On his farm the Woudezel of about 6 acres, he grows a polyculture of live-through trees and...
Martijn Ballemans, Wouter Veer and Geert van der Veer

Martijn Ballemans, Wouter Veer and Geert van der Veer

During the busy Green Dream festival on June 24 and 25, 2023, Frank Gorter had a good conversation with three people at the same time. Naturally, there were...
Bert Dhondt

Bert Dhondt

Bert would become a teacher but first took a life-changing trip to Australia in the 1990s. Then he decided to stay home....
Marly Bonten

Marly Bonten

We have now had quite a few conversations about creating and managing food forests. What their place in the landscape and agriculture is....
Joke Feenstra and Frank de Gram

Joke Feenstra and Frank de Gram

Joke and Frank and their funder found each other during course year 2019 of Food from the Forest. And then they created a completely new revenue model,...
Louis de Jaeger

Louis de Jaeger

Listener ... fasten your seatbelt! Because this episode takes you into the future at lightning speed. Sketched by someone who, at age 29, already has several...
Stijn Heijs

Stijn Heijs

Business doctor Stijn Heijs started looking for ways to live sustainably and self-sufficiently. He came across food forests and was immediately sold. His place to live ...
Fransjan de Waard

Fransjan de Waard

One of the leading thinkers and pioneers of recent years celebrates the 30th anniversary of his one-man company in 2023. A company in which...
Marieke Karssen and Frank Gorter start season 2

Marieke Karssen and Frank Gorter start season 2

This year, after a few months of winter hibernation, we will once again search for answers. And, like last year, we start with ourselves. Where ...

Season 1

Jelle Fekkes

Jelle Fekkes

In the final episode of season 2022, we talk with Jelle Fekkes. As a landscape architect, he has developed into a food forest designer, although he calls...
Madelon Oostwoud

Madelon Oostwoud

Looking for food forest literature in the Netherlands, you can't avoid it, the books of Madelon Oostwoud. In her publications, she knows practical and...
Marc Buiter

Marc Buiter

Marc Buiter calls himself a sustainability generalist. That sounds very innocuous, but in his case it means a lifetime of fighting to make agriculture more sustainable....
Max de Corte

Max de Corte

Max de Corte never actually "became" anything, but through many jobs, ever new startups, urban agriculture, transitiontowns and very early introduction to permaculture...
Jeroen Kruit

Jeroen Kruit

Scientific research on the many yields of food forests is difficult. Not only because virtually all food forests are young and all different, but also because...
Weruschca Kirkegaard

Weruschca Kirkegaard

In this conversation, we quickly move beyond the topic of food forests and also internationally. Weruschca comes from Denmark, has been a lifelong...
Malika Cieremans

Malika Cieremans

In the category of food forest pioneers, it is safe to call Malika a Pioneer. She has been a pioneer since her studies in forestry in the 1990s,...
Bastiaan Rooduijn

Bastiaan Rooduijn

Bastiaan can't be pigeonholed into any one box. He is plant nut, food forest builder, ecologist, designer and researcher, but above all, a highly driven ideologue full of thoughtful...
Piet Moerman and Hilde Eylenbosch

Piet Moerman and Hilde Eylenbosch

This extraordinary Belgian couple who have been living and working together for a lifetime have changed course a few years ago dramatically ánd exceptionally solidly...
Martijn Ballemans

Martijn Ballemans

Raised in a Vinex neighborhood, and changed course by an insane trip around the world, Martijn Ballemans is now a sought-after permaculture and food forest teacher. He doesn't know...
Sjef van Dongen

Sjef van Dongen

Sjef has a unique, energetic and positive outlook on the food transition. As such, this tenth podcast is bursting with great ideas and delightful one-liners....
Arne Driessen

Arne Driessen

How do we want to make the world of the future financially possible? How do we keep agriculture and food forests in particular profitable AND within...
Vincent Bogaart

Vincent Bogaart

Vincent is capable of building unique bridges. He grew up in nature, but also has extensive experience in the world of...
Heleen Eshuis

Heleen Eshuis

You start a food forest for the next 400 years and therefore for all generations of the future. Starting with the children of today....
Liesbeth van Bemmel

Liesbeth van Bemmel

Liesbeth has a unique story to tell within the food forest world for two reasons. First, she has a legal background and can...
Sabine Philips

Sabine Philips

Sabine Philips Connects. Centuries of estate history with modern food forests; spiritual joga with practical farming; distant travel with simple living. And she thus takes everyone very...
Wouter van Eck

Wouter van Eck

Almost every speaker in this podcast names him as a great inspiration. But, by what and by whom was Wouter van Eck himself inspired? How did...
Martijn Aalbrecht

Martijn Aalbrecht

Martijn has been searching for sustainable ways to organize his life for more than 15 years and discovered the food forest while doing it. How ...
Evelyn Derksen

Evelyn Derksen

Evelyn Derksen is a designer, landscape architect, late bloomer, plant nut and through her active participation, from the very beginning, in the Netherlands Food Forestry Foundation now designer of...
frank gorter and marieke karssen

Frank Gorter and Marieke Karssen - 1st podcast

Before talking to other food forest pioneers, Marieke and Frank have a good talk. Why did they start this? And by that, they mean...