Odei Etxeberri Bimboire and Gorka Roca Torre have been living in Behorlegi for 14 years with their sons Oihan and Miru. The growth of the sheep is the income of the house and outside the market is produced the forest of orchard. We've visited four people from the ARGIA working group, getting to know the forest of the orchard, and they've invited us to eat. Corn, different kinds of tubers, carrots, chicory tooth, beet, apples -- we've left ourselves beautiful raw, cooked and brasa, without oil or stimulants. We have liked the homemade baked and dead sheep prepared in the oven, the cheese made at home and gradually we have been understanding how the diet and the practical decisions of each day are leading to self-sufficiency to gradually liberate the everyday life of capitalism. First, they have a social goal, trample nobody but to meet their basic needs, and secondly, they have an ecological goal, to develop their lives without hindering the cycles of nature. Coming out of a forest of orchards, here...

What is an "edible forest," a "forest orchard," a "vegetable garden forest"?

Among the horticulturists is the "edible forest" (in Hego Euskal Herria) or the "forest garden" (in Ipar Euskal Herria). Torre explains what it is: "The forest orchard is a food production system that is inspired by the most balanced natural ecosystem: the forest. The objective is to make a type of orchard, taking as a model the ecosystem of the jungle and for that it gives the fruits and vegetables together." The forest is a balanced ecosystem in nature, that is, in which the cycle of organic and non-organic matter is closed, it is balanced by itself. Torre explained that the most productive ecosystem is also the jungle: "The most productive use of solar energy is made by the jungle, and food production is basically that, using the energy of the sun to create organic matter. So when we have a land to produce food, the most productive system will be the one that harnesses the most solar energy." In this sense, monoculture is not efficient; Tor sets as an example a field full of melchotoners: "This area of Mertxikondo will use sunlight to produce fruit at a short time of the year, from when it blooms to when the fruit is produced, and after it bears fruit, it will use solar energy on the leaves to develop branches. But then, the leaves fall and it will go from four to five months to produce food without using the energy of the sun." He explains that this does not happen in the jungle: "In a forest we have plants all year round, which will come one after the other and which will alternatively use the energy of the sun. The idea of the forest orchard is that we'll have plants in the same space all year round, that will use the energy of the sun. Therefore, it is the most productive system for an area."

[In the video below you can see Gorka Torre in the Egonarria program over her vegetable forest]

Torre has taught us his orchards and in practice has explained how the forest garden is organized: they have introduced fruit trees in line, oriented to the sun. Its initial error was to plant too many trees, which seems very common among those starting the forest orchard. Trees need their space, and in order for sunlight to penetrate as much as possible into the ground, it is important to monitor the space between the trees. The trees include shrubs, climbers, cereals, vegetables and tubers of different heights and, taking into account the height and space each one will occupy, take care to make the most of the sunlight in the soil of the forest orchard.

Tor calls his "garden jungle": "If you need a "forest orchard" is something that others do, that is, leave a forest or forest and transform it, including an orchard. We, on the other hand, have created the two together: vegetables and fruit trees, and prioritizing vegetables, in other words, seeking in particular to be fruitful from the horticultural point of view. Since we have left the orchard, I think it is more correct to say 'orchard forest'. In other words, one is to put trees in the orchard and the other is to put the vegetables in the forest that's out there. The second is more complex, as a forest is already made, there are many shadows and it is difficult to put the vegetables in between. You'd have to cut several trees to get the light in." Near the orchards forest, it shows us a small forest full of young trees. Torre explains that they will not make a specific forest orchard, but something similar: "Inside this forest we will try to produce some plants, as well as some fungi, shiitake and others." Torre relates the word "edible forest" used in the south to something else: "It may be close to something that we haven't developed much yet, but we're slowly trying to develop: vegetable brains, harvesting and eating wild plants. It's an idea that you can easily relate to this "edible forest." Actually, the forest is edible on its own! The orchard, on the other hand, is something we work on, there is a human intervention. So I think the concept of "orchard forest" is clearer than that of "edible forest."

Torre collects in the pearl the strands of the donkey that he trotted through the field and puts them at the feet of some plants in the vegetable garden forest. Others are given a green fertilizer, because they want to show the difference between them. During these works he explained to us the five pillars that have flourished around the orchard forest since its beginning:

The five bases of the garden forest of Behorlegi

These are the words of Gorka Torre:

"1.-Horticulture is a matter of love. When I was fifteen years old, I began to sow a seed and see how the plant that comes out of it develops, gathering and eating the fruit that grows and leaves... so I was fascinated by the magic of the life cycle and since then it has been one of my passions.

When I first started at the age of fifteen, I still didn't have a highly developed political and social conscience. Years later, I began to develop my critical conscience and a second very important reason was added to this work:

2. When I make my garden, I can only exploit myself. This world is organized in the capitalist system and we cover most of our needs as a result of the exploitation of the work of others. Especially we, who are the imperialist centre, meet our needs with an immense system of exploitation that is, in most cases, far from us and which we do not see. When I make my vegetable garden, I can exploit myself, I'm not exploiting another. I want to meet my needs personally, in the family and in the nearby human team.

We want to produce the food we need and the tools we need to make it. And that is what we want to develop as a political and economic project. This adds the following idea to the horticultural jungle:

3.-Self-sufficiency. We are ecologically debunking the world, but the whole system is also in decline. We are moving towards collapse and the collective development of self-sufficiency or self-sufficiency is the best means to deal with collapse. In fact, self-sufficiency makes sense when it comes to self-sufficiency. I mean, we're not individually self-sufficient, only a community can be self-sufficient. That is why, for us, the objective is self-sufficiency.

We want to produce the food we need and the tools we need to make it.

4.-Healthy food for all. The objective, the function, the purpose of the work we do in the garden. For us, it is a very important axis of struggle that every citizen of the world has access to healthy food. From assistentialism they give food to many, yes, but garbage: the one that the department stores throw away, the garbage. Those who do not have the economic capacity must be given the means to get the best food, without falling into assistentialism.

5.-Situationist garden. In the French State there existed in the 1960s an ultra left movement that emerged from the artistic movement. One of its concepts is not to make distinctions, that is to say to observe that all things are united. They said that art has to be attached to all the gestures of our life, that art should not be a time of life, for example, making a painting on the weekend, when we leave work.

Following this philosophy, the orchard forest is not just a vegetable garden, it's not just a place to produce food, the ground work we do here is rich in senses and it's an important sense, for example, to create beauty. I'm not only going to the vegetable garden to produce food, but I'm also going every time I go, to sunbathe, to transmit knowledge, to be in an area that I love aesthetically, to have a conversation with a friend ... That is why I call my gardens a situationist garden, to underline that we must not make distinctions and that we must give total meaning to all the things we do.

And lo and behold, this fifth idea is intimately linked to the first one, we have again appreciated the beauty of the life cycle."

And while we were hanging on the thread of the story, without realizing it, we had come to his last situationist orchard behind Tor. In it there are flowers planted for their beauty among vegetables. And there are onions planted next to the Kurds, the "seeds of revolution" that they have spread in the Basque Country. In this garden, Tor explains the main condition of his project: "Everything we do has no interest in us doing it just for our family. This interests him because he builds an alternative to the logic of capitalism: this alternative that we have to develop must be completely out of the logic of the market and it is very important to make a very clear distinction between the two. Of course, the path we walk will be valid if it is a solution for all; otherwise it does not serve." These latest ideas have been explained more deeply in a house with a closet full of seeds and working tools that work with human strength:

Gaining spaces for capitalism

Ttor approaches the time when capitalism was founded to seek explanations for current oppression: What did they do in England? The lands were validated by the Enclosure system and deprived the people of the possibility of using communal lands, that is, they were deprived of the possibility of responding directly collectively to their needs by taking the land away. The industry developed in parallel: they needed workers and how to force people to go to work in the industry? Out of the possibility of living on their own. Since then, the capitalist system has done the same thing: create dependency. It takes away our ability to meet our needs and therefore forces us to sell our workforce. The current catastrophe comes from this expropriation and we must enter into the logic of reappropriation".

Today, people have no land to develop their self-sufficiency. For Torres, this is the first battle, for everyone to have the land at their fingertips, "and, therefore, for a reflection to be made against property, and for us to think about how we do it so that all the citizens of the world have the means to collectively meet their needs."

In the search for alternatives to capitalism, Tor considers it essential to use another type of logic, "otherwise we reproduce the system basically". For Tor, the bush of orchards makes sense outside the market logic of capitalism: "The orchard forest is not easy to work with market logic, because the logic of the market is looking for competitiveness, and if you have some trees among the types of vegetables you have to collect at a given moment and you have a wide variety in the small space, you will need a lot of time to pick up your sprouts or pastenagrees, you won't be able to mechanize them or introduce tractors... in the logic of the market, what you extract will be from the competitive jungle. The orchard forest is more the technique developed by people who want to go beyond the logic of the market and towards self-sufficiency". Torre is clear that today we all need a minimum amount of money to live and that is why those who make the garden forest develop part of their economy in the market and another part of the economy outside the market, for example, making the garden forest: "It is important to gradually increase the outer space of our lives and reduce the market space. This calls for reflection: How can we collectively do to reduce our economic needs and to free up the time to build alternatives outside the logic of the market? It's not possible individually, but it's possible collectively."

These questions are put into practice every day at home: "When we develop self-sufficiency, the fundamental teaching we receive is the true value of things: when you take and eat the fruit of the sown, you delight, and at that moment you learn what it means to produce what you consume. Since we began working on self-sufficiency in food, meat consumption in our home has decreased. Why? Because meat is very good, but here we have to raise and feed the animals, we have to produce the food of the animals. And then you realize that it's better for us to eat corn than give it to the chickens: with ten kilos of corn we will eat for several days, while with the chickens those ten kilos of corn will give us one kilo of meat and we will eat one kilo of meat a day and a half. As you increasingly develop self-sufficiency in all areas of life, then you see what capitalism concealed from you. And that leads to involuntary simplification, a reduction in consumption."

Self-sufficiency in tools

All the groundwork they have done in Behorlegi during these fourteen years has done so with manual tools that use human energy. No motorized tools: "For us, in order to develop self-sufficiency, it is essential that self-sufficiency also be in the production tools. If not, when problems arise in the market for oil, you're paralyzed," says Tor. If the capitalist system is based on people's oppression, instruments are no exception: "There's an impressive exploitation going on. Oil is magical, you use the chainsaw and what magic it is! But let's look at what exploitation is behind that globally." He has denounced that there are no factories in Euskal Herria that make tools to work the land and move from one side to the other in search of the last craftsmen who produce axes or logs.

He points out that this issue is fundamental to reducing the pollution of the planet: "Pollution is generated much more in the production of work tools than in the use of these work tools. The least pollutants are manuals."

We've come back from Behorlegi very grateful for what they've taught us and what they've shared with us. At the foot of the "North Txindoki", as it is called by the mountaineers of the south of Mount Behorlegi, this family has the doors open to collectives who work in a world without oppression.

[This article has been published in the special journal of page 2024 108 of the ARGIA Keys. People will receive LIGHT on paper or in PDF, depending on their choice. If you haven’t taken the step yet, do ARGIA and we’ll send it to you with great pleasure! The rest you can buy at the Azoka]