ABOUT FIG
Food Integrated Gardens (FIG) is a permaculture startup that creates regenerative agriculture and resilient landscapes in Jerusalem and Israel.
What do we do?
Our work transforms individuals, spaces, and communities through 4 primary vehicles:
1. Consulting: Holistic permaculture design ensures a resilient landscape and community are created. Through systematic thinking, local resources are harnessed and not gone to waste. From Urban Rooftops, and vertical edible walls, to fringe garden dwellings to creating eco-farms, FIG caters and adapts to a diverse range of spaces and budgets, no size too small.
2. Educational programs: Shmita Permaculture Design Course, apprenticeships, youth-at-risk programming, and workshops.
3. Jewish Festival gatherings and retreats: We convene six annual festival gatherings (Elul, Tu B’Shvat, Yom Kippur Chanukah, Pesach and Shavuot). These events are set in nature and connect participants to the Earth, to deep, joyful, embodied Jewish practice, and to one another. Each event culminates in a community work day and a tangible, lasting permaculture project.
4. Har Hayot Urban Permaculture Farm: Har Hayot, our home base, on 60 dunams (15 acres) of land in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem, is a living model of how to create a resilient landscape nourished by agricultural Jewish roots. We practice regenerative agriculture and have established a drought-tolerant food forest as an outdoor classroom. Our free-ranging goats and donkeys prevent forest fires and our honeybee hives ensure robust pollination. Through our programs, Har Hayot is becoming a green gathering point for urban-dwellers, a community resource, and a source of inspiration, spiritual renewal, health, and creativity in Jerusalem.
Since 2015, we have facilitated 12 retreats, and run over 80 permaculture educational workshops, and convened 18 community gatherings, engaging over 2,500 participants.
Our work addresses three significant challenges:
Environmental - Local and regional problems include lack of locally-grown food, poor soil fertility, vulnerability to fire, and water scarcity. All operate within the global crisis of climate change.
Spiritual - Overwhelming prevalence of a dry, spiritually-bereft Judaism disconnected from its sacred agricultural origins. Near-erasure of Torah’s emphasis on ecological stewardship and sustainability, especially among yeshivot in Israel.
Social/Health - High rates of depression, anxiety, and loneliness. Factionalized Israeli society. Minimal access to green spaces. Sedentary and screen-dominated lifestyle.
We are the only NGO operating at the nexus of these problems in Israel and offering a tangible, on-the-ground solution.
What is our vision?
1. To create an urban permaculture farm that hosts Jewish festivals, retreats, educational programs, and models of regenerative agriculture in Jerusalem.
2. To transform lives through Jewish education that is vibrant, embodied, and rooted in our wise agricultural heritage. We seek to cultivate a movement of permaculture practitioners who are committed to sustainability, community, and equity.
3. To cultivate local food security and community resilience by establishing a network of food forests throughout Jerusalem.
Looking to the future - FIG in 2023:
After a year of rest mandated by Shmita, FIG will be deepening our work in the local community by growing our youth-at-risk programming. We will also be expanding our food forest, building a greenhouse, and investing in our beehives.
Contact us to join our next workshop, set up a private event on our farm, or take a group farm tour, or sponsor a native tree to be planted in our food forest.
Contact Information:
Web: www.foodingardens.com
FB: FIG Food Integrated Gardens
Email: Pazfigfarmers@gmail.com
Whatsapp: +972544434298