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Yesterday, together with Maastricht University, HAS Green Academy and Yuverta, we opened the food gardens at Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo. This step gives the previously announced 'food forest light' a visible and tangible form: a place where education, research and practice come together around sustainable food production and biodiversity.
The food gardens are a joint initiative of Maastricht University, HAS Green Academy and Yuverta. This makes the project a powerful collaboration between academic education (WO), higher vocational education (hbo) and intermediate vocational education (mbo). Students from different levels and disciplines work together on one shared challenge: how do we produce food in a way that is good for people, nature and the climate?
From food forest light to living lab
The foundation for the food gardens was laid a year ago, inspired by the vision of Pim Martens, Professor of Planetary Health, affiliated to System Earth Science, Maastricht University. He introduced the concept of a 'food forest light': a compact, accessible variant of a food forest in which the same principles apply: multilayeredness, biodiversity and natural balance, but on a smaller scale.
The gardens function as a living laboratory in which students and researchers experiment with sustainable cultivation methods, soil health and the interaction between plants, animals and the environment. Here, the focus is not only on yield, but rather on ecological value and long-term effects.