Organic Gardening in a Hotter, Drier World

 
Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence by
Christian Parenti (Jun 28, 2011)

(Amazon.com product link shortened)
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(Available at a library near you.)

172 TROPIC OF CHAOS


Welcome to the hot scrublands of the Nordeste and the tiny village of
Boqueirao in Brazil's Ceara Province.

The Nordeste is semiarid, receiving very little rain. Severe floods
punctuate its frequent droughts.

The majority of climate models find that northeast Brazil
"is expected to experience more rapid warming than the global average
during the 21st century." In more concrete terms, most forecasts predict
northeastern Brazil will be a region of very severe water stress by 2050.

Rio's favelas (slums) are largely populated by people from these dry
lands. Despite its harsh climate, the Northeast is densely populated.43
As climate change grinds down subsistence farmers, more Nordestinos
leave to search for work either in the depressed cities of their nearby
coastal areas, like Fortaleza and Recife, or down south in the
megacities of Sao Palo and Rio. Thus, the social dimensions of the
ecological crisis in the Nordeste (a front-line region for climate
change) are expressed in cities as unemployment, makeshift housing, the
narcotrade and violence.

This community has twenty-seven families, most of them related to
each other. In face of drought and flooding, they have begun to adapt
both technologically and politically. First, they switched from
mono-cropping cotton and beans, which require burning the fallow fields
and using  expensive chemical inputs, to a form of mixed-crop
agroecological farming, agroforestry, and integrated pest management
that uses few or no chemical pesticides or fertilizers. They are also
using inventive forms of low-impact water-capturing and rain-harvesting
technologies.

Osmar and some of his compatriots take me across the road to show me
"the system" and some of their alternative water-harvesting techniques.

RIO'S AGONY 175

One method involves building "underground dams." It goes like this: First
the farmers find a dry streambed or natural area of drainage. At the
bottom of this feature, below and away from the slope of the hill, they
dig a long ditch across the natural path of drainage. The ditch maybe
one hundred or three hundred feet long and deep enough to hit solid
rock‹here, about five to ten feet down. Then, within the ditch, they
build a cement and rock wall‹or dam‹lined with heavy plastic. Then the
ditch is filled in, and the wall is buried. This underground dam greatly
slows the natural drainage and creates a moist and fertile field
"upstream."

The agroforestry crops are a mix of fruit trees, corn, cover crops, and
climbing-vine crops. The fields seem abandoned due to the tangled mix of
plant species. This lush mesh captures moisture and creates a balance of
competing insects, limiting or eliminating the need for chemical
pesticides. During the first three to five years, yields decrease, but
then they increase  as soil health improves. And the produce, as
organic, commands higher prices.

For individual plants that need irrigation, they attach punctured empty
plastic soda bottles to stakes above the thirsty plant. With this form of
low-tech drip irrigation, a farmer can feed an individual plant little
bits of water, allowing the precious liquid to drip out slowly and only
onto the plant that needs it. The farmers' list of ingenious methods is
long and evolving, thanks in part to groups like the Catholic NGO
Caritas, which works to spread knowledge of best practices among the
communities.

Altogether, these agroforestry or agroecological methods, which revive
and enhance old ways, are in use all over the world. The IPCC mentions
them in the Fourth Assessment Report: "Agroforestry using agroecologi-
cal methods offers strong possibilities for maintaining biological
diversity in Latin America, given the overlap between protected areas
and agricultural zones."44

"The system," as the farmers call it, preserves and enhances the land's
fertility and moisture, and because the fields are never left as bare
ground, it helps prevent erosion.

In the village of Bueno, I met Antonio Braga Mota. "The system is a
balanced system. I was really surprised that we actually did not need
fertilizer and pesticides to do this," said Antonio as we tour his vine-
and tree-covered crops. "The traditional method was destructive. Burning
depletes the land. Unfortunately, I did a lot of that. "He said even
tapirs and rare birds are returning. He could be passionate about the
system because he owned his land. He was not rich but had enough land to
make the transition from main-stream methods to green farming.
--
- Billy
Both the House and Senate budget plan would have cut Social Security and
Medicare, while cutting taxes on the wealthy.

Kucinich noted that none of the government programs targeted for
elimination or severe cutback in House Republican spending plans
"appeared on the GAO's list of government programs at high risk of
waste, fraud and abuse."
<http://www.politifact.com/ohio/statements/2011/mar/28/dennis-kucinich/re
p-dennis-kucinich-says-gop-budget-cuts-dont-targ/>

[W]e have the situation with the deficit and the debt and spending and jobs. And
it¹s not that difficult to get out of it. The first thing you do is you get rid
of corporate welfare. That¹s hundreds of billions of dollars a year. The second
is you tax corporations so that they don¹t get away with no taxation.
 - Ralph Nader
<http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/19/ralph_naders_solution_to_debt_crisis>

 
What a poorly written piece you present as evidence of organic best
practices.  Do you really know about the hydrology or even the geology
of the area in this cherry picked book writers sociologist article?
Seems to me you know even less about the anthropology of the region.
So plastic coke bottles with holes in them are organic best
practices?  Sure glad the Catholic relief groups helped in the
translation of this organic wonderment so as to better help us
understand what your trying to say, It sounds so, I don't know...like
so much gringo speak, further translated into something resembling
your organic rants.

How about telling us about the many droughts in that area, should man
keep trying to build in  that environment just because " He was not
rich but had enough land to make the transition from main-stream
methods to green farming".   What was his main stream methods prior ?
Slash and burn?  I feel you need a better understand of the
sciences.

You really think green farming  and some dam idea is going to keep him
from starving in the next drought?  Perhaps you really think that the
dam idea is somehow unique to your book writer's organo POV on that
area and that give them some special advantage?  Do you even know some
of the many other areas in the world  that technique is used?  The
author neglects to mention that it is the surface dams that allow the
many tribes to live in the region today. Bet ya didn't even know that
there is a vast river under the Amazon a little further south,   just
as large at a depth of ~4000 ft?   Also not a lot of nutrients going
into that poor soil, which is worse than the soils in the Colorado and
American River basins.  The fate of these folks reads very similar to
the Anasazi and the Maya.  Do you know how many died in the last big
drought there and when was it?

Like your BS rants about  C. Mann and his discovery of  biochar that
never was.  You know nothing about the area, the people, or the land,
much less the hydrology. Sure seem like your buying into this writer's
book marketing  scheme in the same way. Cherry picked doom and gloom ,
being oppressed by the " Man", escaping a world of violence and
depression  through the enlightenment of the world of Organic
Superiority.   ( cue the harps! down the lights, main spot center
stage on coke bottles dripping water!).

This one is a pathetic leap to organo is best, even for you billy boy.
 .

 

Tribal Aboriginals did a similar form of water storing in arid zones of
Australia before the white man arrived here.  IIRC, there are photos of such
stores at the base of huge rock formation in the big Permaculture 'bible'.

 
'Billy[_10_ Wrote:

Yes the many of the measure which you have selected are very good and
helps the farmers grow crops and get much yields. You have missed some
points too for example


Strip Farming - where many strips of the different crops are grown so
that nutrients and soil can be conserved. This way we can also beat the
global warming.


Drip Irrigation - Through this way each plant of the crop is watered
directly to its root through the drips coming out of the holes of the
pipe which are laid down across the field and the plants are grown near
the each hole. This way crop can be grown even in the areas where where
water is in acute shortage.


Mulching - Here we reduce the rate of the evaporation from the field,
the field is covered with the stems of the wheat or rice so that they
can act as the barrier between the sun and moist soil so that soil can
contain moisture for the long time.




--
robinsonstellar

 

Thank you for your post.
--
- Billy
Both the House and Senate budget plan would have cut Social Security and
Medicare, while cutting taxes on the wealthy.

Kucinich noted that none of the government programs targeted for
elimination or severe cutback in House Republican spending plans
"appeared on the GAO's list of government programs at high risk of
waste, fraud and abuse."
<http://www.politifact.com/ohio/statements/2011/mar/28/dennis-kucinich/re
p-dennis-kucinich-says-gop-budget-cuts-dont-targ/>

[W]e have the situation with the deficit and the debt and spending and jobs. And
it¹s not that difficult to get out of it. The first thing you do is you get rid
of corporate welfare. That¹s hundreds of billions of dollars a year. The second
is you tax corporations so that they don¹t get away with no taxation.
 - Ralph Nader
<http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/19/ralph_naders_solution_to_debt_crisis>