RYDEHOLM FARM in Anderslöv, southern Sweden is an extensive food forest and 14 hectares demonstration site for Agroforestry, with a focus on nut trees and with the sale of forest products for restaurants.
The farm has been passed down for six generations. In 2010 Anders Lindén took over, and now lives here with his fiancee Fanny, their son Herman and one more child on its way. Anders' mother Anna Lena also lives at the farm.
Seen from the perspective of one of the numerous birds who also found habitat here, an old farm park constitutes the “core” of the food forest, holding the oldest and most well established agroforestry planting on the farm. Beech, linden, ash and maple have grown old and tall here, supporting interplanted sweet chestnut trees, as well as other unusual crops benefitting from the very favorable growing conditions and the advanced mycorrhiza collaborations, such as ginkgo, pecan and kiwi. In more open spots, hazel and walnut trees have been planted, while Korean and cembra pines have been placed predominantly in the outer edges. Windbreaks, riparian buffers and alley cropping are also represented at the farm.
The Söderslätt is a flat, open landscape, characterized by monocultures of rapeseed, sugarbeets, barley and wheat with no or few permanent habitats or green corridors for animals and plants to spread naturally. A few old, pollarded and now hollow willow trees along the country roads make the rare exceptions.
Since the beginning of the 19th century, 90 percent of the wetlands that existed in Southern Sweden have been drained, (which made the stork disappear) and the agricultural land has been deprived of trees, clearing the way for large scale farming. With support from subsidies, less profitable arable land and pastures have been planted with spruce monocultures since the 1960s, profoundly changing the landscapes and reducing biodiversity.
Examples of endangered species that have historically been part of this landscape, but have been disadvantaged by the lack of wetlands, meadows and woody and perennial vegetation are bats, hedgehogs, weasels, partridge, small birds, butterflies, wild bees, and salamanders.
In 1952, artificial fertilizers were introduced to farming here. The need for animal dung ceased and most of the typical Southern Sweden farm buildings with enclosed cowsheds have since remained empty. “Agriculture and food production at odds with sustainable and rich ecosystems has been a constantly discussed issue on the farm since the time of my grandmother’s father, when industrial agriculture made its entry”, Anders explains.
With Sweden's new agricultural policy in 1990/1991 and Sweden joining the EU in 1995, Swedish food security policy was discontinued. Today the number of Swedish farms has reduced by 40 times, as they haven’t been able to adapt to central and south European wages and pricing, along with a shorter growing season. Those who have survived have been transformed into hundreds of hectares of specialised units, largely subsidised by the EU.
In this context, and as the farm land was split up between Anders and his sisters, too few hectares remained to run competitive, conventional agriculture.
Before his homecoming, Anders had spent 5 years studying philosophy in England, and during this time he came in contact with agroforestry and rewilding. This, combined with his passion for the natural values he was taught as a child when hunting and providing wildlife habitat with his father, led him to visualize the new identity for the farm; biodiversity and ecosystem services equivalent to wild, forest-like environments set as an equal goal with the primary crop production located in the canopy layer. “Now, three generations later, the trees in this otherwise open landscape will have their chance at a truly sustainable agriculture”.
“Arable land is the rightful place of trees. Trees have created the fertile topsoils, but this preparatory work is taken for granted in today’s agriculture.”- Anders Lindén
On 3 sides of the described core, 7.5 hectares of the land is, since before the takeover and until now, leased out and farmed with monoculture crops. Getting it back to grow nut trees was not a possibility until recently, as no industrial agriculture crop code for nut trees existed in Sweden. Without such code, there was no legal right to break up a leasing contract according to the Swedish regulations. Meanwhile Anders studied agroecology at SLU in Alnarp.
Eventually in 2020, the Crop Code (73 Nut farming) which applies to hazels and walnuts passed. At the time Anders was given notice he worked as a teacher at a primary school and the lease had just been renewed for 5 more years.
Anders is the first person in Sweden to request “self-entry” (2025) with the nut crop code. In order to succeed, he has hired a lawyer to represent him at the Tenancy Board (arrendenämnden). The case is still ongoing.
The main crop when expanding the tree cover out into the open fields will be seed sown walnuts, interplanted with a diversity of fast-growing nurse trees, such as alder and poplar, that eventually will be thinned out. A mission that will continue for the rest of his life, Anders notes.
While waiting for the nut systems to produce a significant harvest (the present harvest is mainly used for seeding and eating), hunting opportunities offered by the system, hens, fruits and berries contribute to self-sufficiency to a smaller extent.
“There is always a beautiful poem to contemplate or something thought-provoking to ponder about with Anders. Departing from Frans Vera’s Forest and Pasture Hypothesis (the Vera Hypothesis and the Megaherbivore Theory), postulating that open and semi-open pastures and forest pastures were the dominant type of landscape in post-glacial temperate Europe, - Anders and I one day of the road-trip landed in the conclusion that Western society, to feed a population required to wage wars, favored grass and bacteria before mycorrhiza, leading up to monocrop grains. But eventually gluten outsmarted our civilization; now we’re addicted and in the hands of the industrial economy. We concluded that sweet chestnuts are gluten-free, and a perfect crop for emancipation!" - Maja Lindström Kling
Anders invites beech saplings to grow tall, to eventually shade the ground around his sweet chestnut trees to make harvest easier. The beech crowns will be kept under the sweet chestnut canopy.
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The
sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa) is an energy-dense food, due to its
high carbohydrate content - in Italy it has traditionally been prepared
as bread, pasta, in stews etc and was recommended before hard physical
work. It also contains important vitamins and minerals.
The Swedish regulations for subsidies (Gårdsstöd) were adjusted in 2015, from being applicable for a minimum of 20 hectares of land to a minimum of 4 hectares. This plays a crucial role for Anders and others with similar plans.