A second life for Limburg’s apple trees
Cultivating Communities Haspengouw is working on a better use for discarded fruit trees in southern Limburg
Harvesting local knowledge
The Haspengouw landscape is dominated by low-stemmed fruit trees. Such a tree does not have a long life span. After 10 or 15 years, the production decreases, and the trees are cut and replaced, with almost all that wood being burned.
Each year approximately 800,000 apple trees are uprooted in Haspengouw. Wood is scarce, so something more valuable than burning could be done with it, thought Bart Dooms. Along with Erik Meyelmans, he founded Haspenwood, a co-operative to develop new applications for all that apple wood.
“The idea has slowly grown,” explains Dooms. “My father-in-law is a fruit farmer, and I do woodwork as a hobby. Eventually I started experimenting with apple wood – how to dry it, how to saw it. Later, in a workshop given by Flanders DC, a think tank on creative economy in Flanders, we reflected for the first time on what use discarded apple trees could have.”
The concept of giving apple wood from Haspengouw a second life has been considered in a number of workshops, including Resource Lab, a collaboration of designers. “That worked out very well,” says Dooms, “though it requires a different approach to design. Instead of starting from a design and seeing what materials you need, we thought in the reverse direction. There is a material, what can you do with it? We started to look further than only the wood. For example, something could be done with the fruit that isn’t harvested instead of leaving it to rot.”
During the session in Resource Lab, Dooms met Ben Hagenaars. In the context of the course Social Spaces at the MAD media and design academy in Hasselt, he had worked on design gaming, a way to think about design in a participative and playful way.
The result of this workshop was labelled the Table of Haspengouw. The Table brings together ideas of possible products that can be made from apple wood and other debris from apple cultivation: wine, for example, but also filters or packaging.
Social economy
As a result of the collaboration, Cultivating Communities Haspengouw was founded. This research process brings together people from different backgrounds and focuses on the sustainable use of apple trees. But there is more than just potential products. Cultivating Communities does research on both sustainable production methods and links to the social economy.
We talked with apple farmers, winemakers and people from the social economy about their ideas
Dooms: “With Cultivating Communities Haspengouw, we are looking for local knowledge. That’s also a valuable resource in the region. We talked with apple farmers, winemakers, nature organisations and people from the social economy about their ideas.”
And the fruit farmers? What do they think about the wild ideas coming out of Cultivating Communities Haspengouw? “Small farmers usually sell their timber in their neighbourhood,” says Dooms. “Larger farms are often happy to get rid of it; it’s not their core business. It is mostly young farmers who think about what to do with that wood.”
This year, he says, is an important one for the project. “The intention is to put ideas into practice and to look at what works and what doesn’t.”
The project is participating in the exhibition Conflict & Design at C-Mine in Genk and, Dooms says, as soon as that’s over, “we’ll go on the road with it, so the people of Haspengouw can see what is possible. Also, we will bring barbecue chips on to the market. Apple wood is very fragrant; it gives a special flavour to food.”
The wood to be used in new ideas and projects has already been cut. “Last November, we uprooted a half-acre of apple trees and laid them to dry. I like the analogy with the initial idea itself. I find it interesting to see how it developed and how more and more people are picking it up. It’s just like wood. That also needs to rest for a while before it’s ready to use.”
Photos: Some of Cultivating Communities Haspengouw’s ideas at the Conflict & Design exhibition at C-Mine in Genk. Photos by Kristof Vrancken
