Food Forest Garden instead of abandoned village houses is a project with a great positive environmental, economic and social impact on the depressed rural community close to the Ukrainian border with Belarus and Russia. Fruit and nut trees, shrubs and integrated farm animals in a permaculture-designed environment and maintained according to biodynamic farming methods can convert the disappearing villages into food-abundant territories with thriving biodiversity and a perfect balance of positive human interaction and carbon fixation. Most of the village houses were built of wood (mostly pine and oak) in the 50-60s of the last century. Many of them are not suited for anything but composting with effective permaculture technologies.

In 2017 the Good Farm Coop started by purchasing and clearing up abandoned household properties in the village of Sloboda, some of them still keeping old varieties of apples, pears, plums and cherries in their gardens which we prune and maintain as part of the Food Forest Garden project. We further plan to establish the nuts and fruits trees nursery to extend the Food Forest Garden with the new plantings.

Our activities are based in three neighboring villages: Sloboda, Zdryahivka and Krestopovschyna, surrounded by pine forests and divided by a small river of a hydrological national reserve park of 770ha total territory. A beautiful 4ha surface lake is located in the center of the triangle formed by the three villages. The area is ideally located just 5km aside from the main road and the national reserve providing a perfect safe zone for organic and biodynamic food production.

Location on the Good Farm Coop three villages on the Google Map: https://goo.gl/maps/CG3KP4DdECT2