The dominant global agriculture is the largest threat to the world’s forests. What would it look like for agriculture to treat our forests differently? What would it mean to be a forest farmer? Chris and Kat Parker have been answering this question for decades. They run [The Forest Farmacy](https://www.theforestfarmacy.com/) in western North Carolina, where they grow food while protecting their forest and teach others how to do the same. Chris will join us for our upcoming otherGardens gathering to share about his experience in mycology, botany, agriculture, permaculture, and ecology, and his 30 years of mushroom cultivation, wild harvesting, and herbal medicine making. We’re excited to explore the ways we can get food from our forests, forage and farm within woody ecosystems, and grow and heal with mushrooms! Read more

Adam Alexander has spent many years searching out communities that have still conserved their rare, endangered garden crops. His travels have taken him all over the world, from Albanian villages to Ethiopian farmer collectives, and he’s written two books on his research and the importance of locally-adapted, community-sovereign seeds; The Seed Detective and The Accidental Seed Heroes. In his own garden he experiments with his own landrace varieties, and he’s currently growing heritage Syrian vegetable seed to be returned to the Middle East as part of a programme to revive traditional horticulture. Whether with newly developed strains or old, long-stewarded, “undiscovered” varieties, we should do everything we can to bring diverse and locally adapted fruits, vegetables, and grains to our diets and our landscapes. Join us for this otherGardens gathering as Adam shares his experience with some of these seeds! Read more