Food bridges.

So many gaps in this wor..

So when you talk about food, that's something that ever..

So when you bring it to them from that perspective, they open their minds to something that maybe they wouldn't have been open to otherwise.

And I'm sorry, Food Forest sounds pretty awesome.

Hi, my name is Josh, and today we're going to be discussi.. that I'm experimenting with here in Chugach, Alas.. A lot of us are familiar with gardens where a lot of it is monoculture, growing certain crops within.. which makes a lot of sense when you're trying to produce ..

But a Food Forest, it's new to a lot of us where you're, marrying, ecology and agriculture and horticulture all together and growing food in a system.

And people think of it as this new concept, but it's in reality something that's been practiced by indigenous communities and societies across the globe since time immemorial.

20, 30 years ago, this would have been written off as some fringe hippie movement.

But in reality, when you look, break it down when it comes to food.

So I realized, like, I'm passionate about plants, what if I can help share the little bit I know, help more Alaskans grow food so we don't aren't so subjected to these shortages or these challenges where we're growing more food in Alaska..

In reality, here in Alaska, I think we should all be passionate about food because we liv.. of the supply chain a lot of times.

So when it comes to Food Forest something I like to show and, showcase is grafting.

Grafting different varieties on the same tree enables me to get cr.. and a little bit of different varieties of plum, versus having 100 po.. that all ripens at once.

I saw it off and I split it and line up the cambium and insert it like a little wedge, and then tape it up with pear film.

And then from there, if the graph is successful within a week or two, So literally I inserted a piece of gold and then the bud that started swelling became this new branch.

Once you learn that technique, it can be applied in so many capacities.

After that, I'm just saying the world like the sky's the limit.

You have to try everything.

Alaskans are inherently creative.

They currently think outside the box because they have to.

And in reality, when we all start thinking outside the box or start building each other up and working together and sharing knowledge, we're going to be much better off in the l.. Because this grafting.

Yeah, cool.

I can ma.. but in the end, I'd rather people be grafting these trees and go try them in rural Alaska, because at the end, we are all Alaskans and we all need food.

So what we're doing here is with alley cropping.

Basically, a farmer sacrifices 5% of their field plants, rows of hazelnuts or elderberries or some sort of perennial, crop.

And the idea of that is basically it allows them to basically continue to grow conventional crops in between, but allows them to start building this perennial, crop that will, come and d.. production and come into abundance.

And then at that point, there's less inputs from t.. and there's less need for fertilizer and for pesticides and herbicides because, this crop will grow and these hazelnuts are very resilient.

And in turn, it will reduce wind erosion, will increase water ..

It'll actually help build the soil fertility and sequester atmospheric carbon.

And then in the end, it allows farmers to diversify the crops grown within the same space.

You can grow your corn and you can grow, hazelnuts.

And if something fails, you have a backup with hazelnuts.

Oh, maybe.

Oh.

Oh, oh, maybe.

Being a queer person who grew up in rural Alaska, there wasn't really such a thing as happily ever after for people like me.

So the world that I live in, mind you, where there's a lot of.. that we're still fighting for, but being in this moment and sharing the knowledge is beyond the dream.

And it's just I honestly like people talk about t.. and they have everything planned out years ..

I didn't have a plan to make it this far.

So in reality, every day is just an amazing opportunity to share with the people around me and try to make the world a ..

Mind you, there's days where it doesn't feel like we're doing a whole lot, but there's ot.. we see the changes, we see the impacts on our communities, and it just inspires me to be louder and do more so and amazing.

And come to find out, there's a lot of amazing people that share that experience.

And I think we're gonna change the world to..