VÄVERSUNDA BERRY ORCHARD is located south of Vadstena between Omberg and lake Tåkern. It started as an “after retirement project” by Inger Bjugård and Tor Nyberg, now in their eighties, and has since blossomed into a company with up to 40 employees during the summer season. Before then, Inger had a career as a food expert journalist and author of cookbooks. Tor worked as a forest inspector and had a remarkable 20 year experience from agroforestry planting projects in EastAfrica with the Swedish aid agency “We-agroforestry” (Vi-skogen), operating since 1993.
For a long time Inger and Tor nurtured a dream to one day buy the Charlottenberg farm, having noticed the favorable growing conditions when passing by. The farm is located on a slope, a factor that reduces the risk of frost and partly in (the Swedish) cultivar zone 1. The site is dominated by sandy soils. In 1996 their dream came true.
Today the farm consists of seven hectares each of strawberry and rhubarb cultivation and eleven hectares of cherry orchards, of eight different types, to get as long a harvest season as possible, all irrigated with a drip system. Harvesting is done entirely by hand by seasonal labor from countries with lower wages, such as the Baltics, as with most commercial berry picking in Sweden. Buyers are Mellansvenska odlare, stores, restaurants and wholesalers.
THE FOOD FOREST
The purpose of our visit at Väversunda was the less commonly known 8 hectare “emergency forest garden” with grown up nut trees, at walking distance from the berry orchards and planted in parallel from the start in 1996. At our visit, Stefan Fogelqvist at “Freja FoodForest”, who has been managing the Väversunda food forest since 2021, was our guide.
During Tor’s long experience with crisis prevention by planting trees in Kenya, he realised that agroforestry was as relevant in Sweden, and this motivated him to bring the ideas of agroforestry home and to learn how to apply it here by doing.
Initially, the intention with the emergency garden was resilience through the combination of high quality timber production and biodiversity, by offering habitat and creating connectivity in the open agricultural landscape. The composition is 60% native tree species and 40% assisted species. The emphasis on timber with time changed to food security.
Trees planted relatively sparsely to provide plenty of room to grow were the wild service tree (Sorbus torminalis) - an ancient-woodland indicator, providing pollen and nectar for insects, as well as berries for birds and leaves for the caterpillars of moths, walnut (Juglans nigra), sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa) and sweet cherry trees (Prunus avium).
At the time of establishment, the land, which had previously been used as pasture, was overgrown with gray alder (Alnus incana). Tor started by cutting it down to introduce new alder stands for nitrogen fixation.
At this time, nut seeds were not easy to find in Sweden. Some he got from friends, others he collected on his morning and evening walks in central Stockholm, he recalls. He also bought grafted walnuts from Denmark. 4-5 hectares were planted with hazelnut, chestnut and cherry trees in groups and groups with walnut and hazel. Hazelnut plants were bought from Stångby nursery. Over the years, he was warned that these “exotic nut trees” would possibly pose a threat to native trees. He pauses and then thoughtfully adds: “trees don’t choose their country, they choose their climate.”
“Agroforestry is an effective and long-term investment in food security, but the interest among politicians and authorities for using it in Sweden as well was lukewarm.” - Tor Nyberg.
The forest garden is fenced, but still, occasionally, wildlife finds its way in. Measures undertaken to reduce the impact of deer and voles are plantings of the pollinator flower Crown imperial (Rubra Maxima), with a smell that keeps away, and keeping the grass down to help hawks spot voles. Placed out food residues also help attract animals that prey on voles. Occasionally wild boars have entered, but without harming the trees. One year a badger took all the seeded nuts, Tor recalls.
The land also includes some forested sites at short distance from the farm, at the visit with thinned out young, native vegetation with sweet chestnut trees (Castanea sativa) interplanted.
WE-AGROFORESTRY
Vi-skogen’s work began in a commitment to prevent deforestation and desertification in EastAfrica. The idea was to help farmers around Lake Victoria increase productivity by combining their crops with trees to prevent erosion of the fertile soil. This would also help save forests from being cut down, to be used as fuel for cooking as the tree systems on the farms would supply firewood. Trees planted in crop systems at the farms were mentioned as “female trees”, one of them being sesbania; a fast-growing, nitrogen-fixing and water-retaining pea plant, planted close to the household, providing fuel for cooking. An example of “Male trees” were eucalyptus, requested by the market and sold for timber, often resulting in desertification.
When Tor Nyberg took office as We-agroforestry manager the curb poverty donation campaign “Plant a forest in Kenya instead of giving flowers as a gift” had been a huge success in Sweden. Nurseries had been started in Kenya and tree seedlings distributed to local farmers. But due to the lack of experience many seedlings died and the local farmers showed moderate interest. At this point Tor was given the task of better anchoring the tree planting benefits among the farmers.
With Tor’s efforts, the larger nurseries established were replaced by the training of local farmers to start “home nurseries” to grow suitable seedlings themselves, and to educate them how to effectively use trees as a tool; one tree being good at providing shade, a second to provide fertilizer, a third to provide pest control, a fourth to provide firewood, a fifth serving as a fence. What could not be used as building material could be useful as compost and turned into soil.
Tor was a successful manager. During his assignment We-agroforestry became an independent foundation and employed 150 field workers. The mother nursery in Kitale, Kenya grew and expanded into the “Olof Palme Agroforestry Centre”. (link) The business spread around Lake Victoria to Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. A collaboration with SIDA developed, but became the cause of a long controversy in which We-agroforestry fought for its autonomy. There were other controversies as well.
Under state pressure, eucalyptus and cypress were planted as monocultures in the systems intended for agroforestry, while Tor advocated silvopastoral systems with a diversity of local species.
As
a former forest inspector, Tor saw a parallel to the monocultures of
spruce planted in Sweden: “spruce suits the forest industry, increased
yield is the only thing that matters, and that view dominates both
research and education.” He proudly adds: “the last time spruce was
planted here was in 1997.”
In the Väversunda farm shop hazelnuts, walnuts, strawberries, rhubarb, wild garlic, blackberries, cherry dogwoods, pears, peaches, apricots, chokeberry, quinces, gooseberries, currants of various varieties etc are sold seasonally.
Goat’s-rue (Galega officinalis) has been sawn as a ground cover under the hazels. A perennial, nitrogen-fixing plant, extensively cultivated as forage, ornamental, bee plant, and as green manure to add organic matter to the soil for its benefits.
Tor and Inger are looking for their successors.