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Navajo Farmers Fight Climate Change

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on January 7, 2025| 1 Comment »

Photo: Roberto Nutlouis.
Danielle Kaye builds a berm spillway on the farm of Roberto Nutlouis. The berm holds back water, flooding the cornfield behind it. Navajos are using ancient ways to restore parched earth.

In their eagerness to invent, humans seem to be programmed to forget why ancient ways worked. Then they have to reinvent the wheel. Fortunately, indigenous people often are repositories of that wisdom and can produce it as needed.

Lela Nari writes at YaleEnvironment360, “Here in Burnt Corn Valley, smack in the middle of the Navajo reservation’s vast Black Mesa region, the hilly land both craves water and is brutalized by it. The sandy Arizona soil cracks under a punishing August sun as red-striped blister beetles search for moisture across its baked surface. Cottonwood trees and sagebrush rise from deep gullies carved by floodwaters that, during the intensifying summer monsoon, sluice off surrounding mesas and wash away fragile topsoil — reminders that with climate change, even quenching rains harbor powers of destruction.

“This portrait of climatic havoc belies a softer reality, though. Farming once thrived in this parched region and could once again — if the right practices are adopted. Exhibit A: The crops on Roberto Nutlouis’s 12-acre Sliding Rock Farm, in his reservation hometown of Piñon, a five-hour drive north of Phoenix.

“ ‘The corn is actually pretty big and thriving,’ Nutlouis says. He believes — and both Western science and the lived experience of his Native elders affirm — that the traditional rock and stick structures he’s built on his property, which help store water and prevent erosion, have a lot to do with it.

“These structures, similar to those used by Native peoples long before Europeans arrived on the continent, are not only delivering water to crops. … They are also restoring Nutlouis’s watershed and those of his neighbors, helping to sequester carbon, and reviving this high-desert ecosystem. It’s all part of a bigger effort among a range of local and regional grassroots organizations to build back the reservation’s fragile, depleted ecosystems and bring greater sovereignty over food, water, and health to its communities.

“Diné (the Navajo name for themselves) are well aware that climate change is making the weather on their semi-arid plateau weirder, wilder, and more destructive. … The ecological health of the reservation has also been weakened by deforestation from timbering operations and from overgrazing over the years.

“Still, this season, Nutlouis, 44, has been able to skip his usual two-hour roundtrip drive to a reliable well to haul water home for his corn. His crop is healthy and hydrated because his land still holds last winter’s snowmelt. Clearly, his heavy labor over the past 20 years — during which he has built woven brush dams, gabions (wirework cages filled with rocks), earthen berms, concrete spillways and trenches, limestone aprons and walls, and stone-lined ‘Zuni bowls,’ which stabilize eroding streambeds — is paying off.

“Diné and others living in arid zones around the world have long used structures made of naturally occurring materials to capture and control water to grow crops and to mitigate the devastation of floods in ephemeral stream systems. …

“Time and again over the last 15 years, Laura Norman, a research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, has seen evidence that when these structures — which Norman calls Natural Infrastructure in Dryland Streams, or NIDS — are placed in gullies, they slow water to mitigate erosion, collect nutrient-rich sediment and plant debris that nourish both crops and wild plants, help store carbon, improve groundwater recharge, and increase downstream water availability by as much as 28 percent. ‘It’s a snowball effect that counters degradation, and you get all of these ecosystem services,’ she says.

“The structures on Nutlouis’s farm are integral cogs in a larger system. … Nutlouis’s property lies in an alluvial fan, where mineral-rich sediments and plant waste atop mesas and other uplands wash down onto flatter ground with rainwater, snowmelt, and spring water. Across the valley, similar farms rely on this kind of system, many of which feature stone and stick constructions that Nutlouis helped build. The organic materials trapped behind the structures, says Jonathan Sandor, an emeritus agronomy professor at Iowa State University, ‘are a major input into keeping the fertility of the soils up.’ …

“Whether rock walls or ramps, hand-dug depressions in the soil, earthen walls, or branches plaited into dams, NIDS splash water over a wider area and slow its flow so it can better soak into the soil. Many trap sediments behind them, fertilizing whatever grows nearby. The stone structures create a hyperlocal cooling effect, especially when they’re combined with shade-making vegetation.

“Here, too, smallness is a boon. ‘Even tiny little one-rock dams can make big changes on the landscape,’ Norman says. …

“Lately, climate change has thrown extra challenges at the reservation. … But the ecosystem services provided by Nutlouis’s structures on his farm and elsewhere do seem to be meeting those climatic challenges. He’s noticed small juniper trees popping up on hillsides around his property despite the dryness; A cottonwood tree towering over one cornfield is also lush and full. ‘The idea that Earth will restore itself with natural seed dispersal’ after NIDS begin to do their job ‘has been my observation,’ says Norman.

“Or as Nutlouis puts it, ‘We’re allowing nature to do its own thing and restore itself.’ ”

More at Yale e360, here. Fascinating pictures. No firewall.

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Farmers Share with Chimps

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 18, 2024| 3 Comments »

Photo: Kang-Chun Cheng.
A chimpanzee swimming near the Ngamba Island sanctuary in Uganda.

Exercise instructors like to tell you how everything in your body connects to everything else. For example, moving your eyes as if trying to look behind you can help your neck turn a little farther in a neck exercise.

Interconnectedness is also true of nature. Consider Uganda, where work is being done to simultaneously protect chimpanzees, tropical forests, small-farm agriculture, and families.

Kang-Chun Cheng writes at the Christian Science Monitor, “From the shade of a banana tree, Samuel Isingoma explains why he is sacrificing his precious jackfruit to chimpanzees.

“ ‘Since I support and give fruit to the chimps, they don’t disturb anything else,’ says Mr. Isingoma, who has planted 20 jackfruit trees on his 17-acre plot in the western Ugandan village of Kasongoire. The trees’ bounty is solely for the primates. …

“Uganda is East Africa’s largest sugar cane producer and has one of the fastest-growing populations on the continent. The need to make space for homes and farms is reducing the forest cover that helps sustain chimpanzees.

“James Byamukama, an executive director at the Jane Goodall Institute, says it’s critical to have discussions within communities rather than try to impose solutions. Community monitors from the institute’s Uganda chapter have recommended that farmers plant crops that aren’t so palatable to wildlife. So about eight years ago, Mr. Isingoma started planting coffee beans, leaving behind the maize he used to cultivate.

“Now he is taking the institute’s advice one step further by giving his fruit over to hungry chimps.

“As a result, Mr. Isingoma says, ‘I feel there isn’t much of a human-wildlife conflict.’ “

The nonprofit We Stand for Wildlife expands on the connections between farming and forests.

“When over 1000 Ugandan small holder farmers adopted WCS conservation farming practices they increased crop-based income 15 fold and halted clearing on 2700 hectares [6671.845 acres] of riverside forest.

“Following the end of the civil war in 1986 refugee families began to return to their lands in the Murchison-Semliki region of Uganda that contain the last remaining natural forest in the country outside of protected areas. These riverside forests form corridors connecting the national parks and are vital habitat for chimpanzees.

“To feed their growing families farmers began to clear the forest to plant crops. Traditional agricultural practices quickly exhaust the soil and farmers are forced to deforest new areas. Between 2006 and 2010 WCS sound science showed that farmers were clearing nearly 8,000 ha of forest each year. Unless this changed the forest and its resident chimpanzee would soon disappear.

“In an attempt to avert this deforestation trend WCS joined forces with the Jane Goodall Institute and the Chimpanzee Trust. Initially we hoped that we could help farmers to capture the value of their trees by selling their stored carbon in the voluntary REDD+ market place. But the high cost of certifying the carbon for sale and the low price of forest carbon made this idea untenable.

“At WCS we adapted our plans and began offering farmers training in zero tillage farming that conserves nutrients and soil moisture, which is critical as rains become less predictable with climate change.

Farmers who adopted the less capital intensive conservation farming methods saw their maize yields increase 2-fold and their net revenue by 15-fold.

“Today over 1000 farmers are using conservation farming technique that preserve soil fertility and crop productivity dramatically reducing the need to clear more forest. Analysis of forest cover change using the Global Forest Watch interactive mapper shows that deforestation has visibly declined in areas under conservation farming. In lila was forest before the start of the REDD+ project; in green the forest still today and although it is difficult to quantify a 1 to 1 cause and effect relationship it show that deforestation was a lot less where our Private Forest Owners/conservation farmers live.”

More at the Monitor, here, at WCS, and at the Jane Goodall Institute. No firewalls.

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Olive Growers Adapt

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 29, 2024| 4 Comments »

Photo: Dominique Soguel.
Michael Antonopoulos, president of the Agricultural Cooperative of Kalamata, tells the Christian Science Monitor, “We want to adjust as soon as possible to the environment and be pioneers. Our place has to be fully ecological.”

In Greece, where farmers have grown olives for millennia, global warming has imposed a new normal. Nevertheless, writes Dominique Soguel at the Christian Science Monitor, “the result is not resignation. Rather, it’s fresh thinking and approaches.”

Soguel continues, “Olives and olive oil have become synonymous with Greece, and are credited, in part, with fueling the rise of Greek civilization. But despite a history spanning thousands of years, these culinary pillars of Greek identity are under threat. Small farmers expect this year’s harvest season, which got underway in November, to be one of the worst years on record, thanks to climate change and the irregular seasonal shifts it has wrought upon the flowering process and fruit development.

“ ‘We are collecting olives much earlier than ever before. Our producers do not recall any year like this,’ says Michael Antonopoulos, president of the Agricultural Cooperative of Kalamata. …

“He is not alone in expecting southern Europe to look like northern Africa in the span of 50 to 100 years. But Mr. Antonopoulos, a geologist and geotechnical environmentalist by training, is optimistic. He points to a series of steps that the community is taking to adapt to unseasonal temperature variations.

‘You can’t change the climate, but you can adjust.’

“[He] notes that traditional olive groves have an important role to play in combating climate change. They are carbon sinks and could easily be integrated into carbon-offsetting projects, increasingly popular but also controversial methods used to reduce the carbon footprint of a company or country. Kalamata is among six Greek cities participating in the European Union mission for 100 climate-neutral and smart cities by 2030.

“ ‘We want to adjust as soon as possible to the environment and be pioneers,’ he says. ‘Our place has to be fully ecological. We don’t care about higher productivity. We care about sustainability. We know people in the future will appreciate that more than anything.’

“One November day in Kalamata, as the mill that serves a community of roughly 300 olive oil producers operates at full throttle, the rain outside turns to hail. … It’s been that kind of year for Kalamata’s olive crop. In 2023, it endured winter conditions during the spring and, unlike much of Greece, experienced relatively low summer temperatures. That unusual weather, coupled with low rainfall, resulted in fewer and smaller olives. …

“ ‘If you don’t have certain weather conditions at a certain time,’ explains Mr. Antonopoulos, ‘you can’t have olive oil.’

“But the mill is also representative of how Greek olive farmers are adapting to the new environment. It is designed to run as sustainably as possible. Waste compost from the mill enriches the soil of the surrounding groves. It is the first mill in the region to rely on solar panel energy, and it recently secured a deal to sell electricity to the Greek government. Further, its farmers have adjusted their pruning tactics to optimize water use. And geothermal energy heats the olive oil extraction plants. …

“ ‘It’s all about feeding the soil,’ says George Kokkinos, head of the Nileas olive oil producers cooperative in the broader Messenia region, which encompasses Kalamata. ‘Soil health is top priority.’ …

“ ‘The philosophy was to look at how olive tree cultivation adapts to climate change,’ adds Mr. Kokkinos. ‘It was the first time that we heard of the expression “climate change.” … The consequences only start to be seen and felt here in 2016.’

“One of the most visible of these consequences, he says, are warmer, humid winters. This led to the spread of fungal diseases. Another change … summer now starts in July and lasts longer. All that confuses the olive tree, which decides in February whether to flower and delivers olives in April. …

“ ‘The normal, maximum temperature for this place this time of year would have been 16-18 C [60-66 F]. Typically, we would start the harvest wearing heavy clothes. Now we harvest in our T-shirts.’

“The mitigation measures are working, he says, even though recent summer heat waves dried up thesoil. He sees evidence of that in a 30% loss of productivity this year on his grove, compared with much higher losses among those who took no measures. The techniques they tested in the project now form part of the EU sustainable agricultural policy. But he worries that the Greek government is not prioritizing action and the spread of know-how to other farmers.

“ ‘The farmer stands in the middle and does not connect the dots,’ he says. ‘The average farmer in Greece is 60 years old. It’s a hard time. That’s true. But there are opportunities. The key is to adjust.’ ”

More at the Monitor, here. No paywall.

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Ancient Wisdom vs. Drought

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 22, 2024| 5 Comments »

Photo: Jack Thompson.
From the Christian Science Monitor: “Farmers in Ndiob, Senegal, are experimenting with ‘zaï’ planting pits, an ancient practice to conserve moisture even during acute droughts.”

With climate change and drought in Africa affecting crop yields, some farmers are adopting ancient techniques for conserving water.

Jack Thompson writes at the Christian Science Monitor, “Rain is like alchemy for farmer Thialla Badiane in the Sahel region of Senegal. Suddenly, it transforms dusty dunes into rich verdure, barren plains into crop-laden fields. 

“But rain is increasingly scarce here on the edge of the Sahara desert. Temperatures are rising by 50% more than the global average and threatening Mr. Badiane’s most precious resource to feed himself and his seven children. 

“Annual rainfall could drop by 38% in Senegal in the coming decades, a threat to the way of life for the nation’s 8 million farmers. Already the growing climate emergency means rainfall has become more unpredictable, water scarcer, and droughts longer.

“So in Mr. Badiane’s hometown of Ndiob, hundreds of farmers seeking to combat those effects have revived an ancient farming technique – with a 21st-century twist. ,,,

“Mr. Badiane [drills] repeatedly into the thick crust of the earth with a giant motor-powered corkscrew, leaving a pattern of perfectly spaced holes. In one hectare, he will drill 10,000 holes for his millet seeds, a planting technique known as zaï. 

“Originally from neighboring Burkina Faso, zaï is the traditional technique of making small indentations in the ground that capture rainfall and increase the fertility of the soil. It’s painstaking work, but a lot easier than digging the holes by hand with a hoe. …

“Millet has been making waves on the international stage … because the crop can grow on arid land, can survive extreme heat, and is high in protein and micronutrients.

“And with his modern take on an ancient practice, Mr. Badiane has increased his yield of millet by 50% – though research shows zaï can triple production. If it were to become widespread, this Indigenous technique could help farmers become more resilient to a changing climate. …

Zaï combats [water runoff] by creating pockets for the water, making sure it doesn’t run off and take nutrients and minerals with it. 

“This is the ambition of Ndiob’s Mayor Oumar Ba, renowned in Senegal for his commitment to agroecology, a form of sustainable farming based on millennia of Indigenous knowledge and innovation. …

“Across the continent, many officials, scientists, and ordinary citizens are already looking to adapt. Faced with increasingly unpredictable weather in Ndiob, Mr. Ba traveled to Burkina Faso, a landlocked nation that gets even less rain than Senegal, to search for ways to beat intensifying drought. Four years ago, he brought back zaï. 

“ ‘Before, it used to rain consistently for five months; it would start in June and end in November,’ says the mayor’s agricultural advisor, Mame Kor Faye. ‘Now, not one farmer can tell you when the season will start.’ …

“Drought is a vicious circle for farmers: As rainfall decreases, the soil compresses. When it finally does rain, the dehydrated, packed  land cannot absorb the water and the top layer of fertile topsoil washes away. … ‘Zaï is a solution to this scarcity of water and to restore the fertility of our soils,’ Mr. Faye says.

“For Mr. Badiane, the planting plots are a double win.  Under the burning November sun, he bends over each small pit and delicately places a handful of rich, dark fertilizer. It’s a far smaller amount than he used when he composted his entire field. 

“Prices of fertilizer have skyrocketed since Russia, the world’s top exporter, invaded Ukraine and supplies were squeezed. Since then, animal manure, an alternative to chemical fertilizer, has been in short supply.

“ ‘The reason zaï interested me is because I wanted to save on organic manure,’ Mr. Badiane says. ‘Before, you didn’t have to pay for manure – livestock herders would give it to you. Now it’s hard to find, and you have to pay.’ 

“ ‘When the rain falls on the manure, it retains the humidity that the plant needs,’ says Isidore Diouff, an agronomist from the Senegalese nongovernmental organization Enda Pronat and who has been leading the zaï experiments in Ndiob. He kneels down to inspect a newly planted seed in its pit. ‘You can go 20 days without rain, and the pit will still be damp.’ 

” ‘Four months later, Mr. Badiane admires his ready-to-be-harvested, fingerlike plants. Nurtured by the moist soil, their soaring leaves tower over the 6-foot-tall farmer. Assessing the plant’s density and weight, Mr. Badiane predicts a good yield.”

More at the Monitor, here. No firewall. Subscriptions encouraged.

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Food and Justice in Louisiana

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 19, 2024| 3 Comments »

Photo: Melanie Stetson Freeman/CSM.
Konda Mason, founder of the nonprofit Jubilee Justice, poses at her farm in Alexandria, Louisiana, May 7, 2023. She teaches Black farmers a sustainable and environmentally friendly method for growing rice.

There are people who try their hand at many different things over a lifetime until something clicks. Or until all the pieces converge to make a new whole.

Consider Konda Mason, currently of Louisiana. Diane Winston has a long article about her at the Christian Science Monitor.

“It’s past daybreak on a muggy July morning when Konda Mason reaches the farm, a 5-acre plot in rural Louisiana. Mindful of the heat to come, several workers are already weeding, and Ms. Mason – her daily meditation and yoga done – is ready for a busy day.

“She’ll field calls from farmers and suppliers, check the progress of the industrial rice mill she’s building, and meet with a journalist curious about why a Black Buddhist from Oakland, California, is growing rice in a red county of a very red state. …

“A slender, muscled woman with waist-length dreadlocks, Ms. Mason sees the farm as the apex of her efforts as a social entrepreneur and eco-spiritual activist. Today she’s sporting a red bandanna to shade herself from the sun, but in her nearly 70 years, she has worn many hats. She’s been a concert promoter, filmmaker, and supporter of Black innovators and problem-solvers. As with her other endeavors, this new project manifests the values that have guided her life: love, justice, community, and a willingness to leap into the unknown.

“ ‘I was taught by my family that I had a role to play in making this world a better place,’ Ms. Mason told listeners in her keynote address at the 2015 Wisdom 2.0 forum in San Francisco. …

“ ‘The question I ask myself is, how can you go deeper, what do you have to let go of in order to do that, and are you willing to do it?’

“This time, going deeper meant leaving her home, her sister, her partner, and her friends to promote what she hopes is a revolution in rice production. Her goal is to support a more sustainable and less expensive way to grow rice, in hopes of staunching the loss of Black-owned farmland. Working alongside an agronomist from Cornell University, she uses what’s called the System of Rice Intensification, common in developing nations but new to American farmers. Going deeper has also meant mastering the complexities of soil and weed management, crop rotation, fertilization, the milling of rice, and bringing it to market. Equally complex, of course, is working in a region where race relations are historically fraught. …

“Though deeply committed to Buddhism, Ms. Mason is not an evangelist. At the farm, she rarely discusses her practice, and if she does, she talks about mindfulness, not Buddhism.

“ ‘Konda’s had many lives, and I never thought there would be a home for her,’ says Dianne Houston, a longtime friend. ‘But the combination of working on the land with people who share her beliefs about social justice – all the boxes are checked.’

“Ms. Mason’s work on the 3,700-acre former plantation is equal parts passion project, spiritual mission, and response to the loss of 12 million acres of Black farmland over the past century. … Since arriving in Louisiana in 2020, Ms. Mason has grown a network of nearly a dozen Black farmers whom her team visits regularly. Her agronomy colleagues offer technical assistance, and she provides rice seed and access to loans. She secured a centrally located, solar-powered industrial mill for processing the plants, and has a distributor to help with marketing. When she’s not working the land or promoting the project, Ms. Mason sometimes dons another hat, leading intentional conversations across racial and economic divides.

“Both the farming project and the conversations are part of Jubilee Justice, a nonprofit Ms. Mason created to help change a system that she says has profited by discriminating against people of color and despoiling the planet. It’s the natural outcome of her lifework. …

“in 1973, when she arrived for her first year at the University of California, Berkeley, … a new friend introduced her to yoga and broadened her taste in music. Soon Ms. Mason was running the Berkeley Jazz Festival, a well-funded community program sponsored by the university. Ultimately, she left school to team up with the manager for Sweet Honey in the Rock, a Black, female a cappella group whose music blended blues, gospel, and jazz. The two joined forces to promote female musicians. 

“ ‘We would put a Native American group with a Black group or a lesbian group,’ she says. ‘We kept building coalitions. We did it all over the country.’  …

“[Some years later in Louisiana] she helped organize a gathering of progressive women; most of the wealth-holders were white, and the activists people of color. Among the attendees was Elizabeth Keller, a white woman and devout Christian. Her grandfather had purchased a former plantation in Louisiana, hoping to ‘redeem’ the land, but he never did. When he died, he left all 3,700 acres to her.

“At the gathering, Ms. Keller spoke about the farm and her desire for healing there. She had prayed for someone to show her the way, and, to her surprise, Ms. Mason seemed to be the answer to that prayer.  The plantation could be redeemed, Ms. Mason realized, by using the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) to cultivate a pilot crop and develop a network of Black farmers to adopt the technique. 

“Ms. Keller, acknowledging that Ms. Mason ‘saw something I couldn’t,’ agreed to let her use the land.  Now Ms. Mason needed expertise. She cold-called Erika Styger, the Cornell agronomist, who knew from working with farmers around the world how SRI increases crop yields, improves the soil, cuts costs, enhances profits, and reduces the environmental impact of rice production. It took some convincing, but in the end, Ms. Mason’s vision and practicality persuaded her to provide technical assistance.”

Read more at the Monitor, here. No firewall. Subscriptions are encouraged and are reasonably priced.

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Growing Rice in Maryland

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 6, 2023| 6 Comments »

Photo: Sophie Hills/The Christian Science Monitor.
Heinz Thomet stands in a field of sesame on his farm in Newburg, Maryland, Aug. 17. Mr. Thomet tries to grow nearly everything he eats.

I love the first line of today’s story about “one of only two commercial rice farmers in Maryland.” Because who knew there were rice farmers anywhere in the US? Don’t you think of rice farmers as being almost entirely in places like Japan and Vietnam?

Sophie Hills writes at the Christian Science Monitor, “Heinz Thomet is one of only two commercial rice farmers in Maryland. The other is Nazirahk Amen of Purple Mountain Organics. Not one to accept the status quo, Mr. Thomet grows six varieties of rice on his farm in southern Maryland, where most fields are planted with soybeans and corn. Mr. Thomet didn’t start growing rice until sometime during the past decade. His explanation for why he added the crop is simple: ‘I eat rice.’ …

He is the sort of person who has utter faith in natural processes but none in institutions.

“He’s always been a farmer, from growing up on a farm in Switzerland to working on a famed biodynamic farm in the United States as a young man. Since 2000, he’s farmed in Newburg, Maryland. There, in addition to the rice, he grows barley, Sichuan peppers, bananas, grapes, bitter lemons, oats, kiwis, sesame seeds, figs, and more, depending on the season. 

“It’s difficult to make a profit on rice in Maryland. Farm-to-table was a natural concept for Mr. Thomet even before the movement expanded out of California in the early 2000s.

And though small-scale, direct-to-consumer farming is difficult to justify commercially, Mr. Thomet’s main concern remains the quality of the food he grows and stewardship of his land.

“In this case, that means successfully producing rice – a crop grown by few others on the East Coast. ‘Nothing of what I do makes sense for a cheap food system, but if you recognize a decentralized food system as food security, then I start to make sense,’ says Mr. Thomet. ‘If you look at diversified farms as part of the resilience towards a global weather pattern change, then I start to make change.’

“In an era of climate disruptions that are changing where everything from coffee and cacao to mustard and olives can be successfully grown, a decentralized food supply – like the one Mr. Thomet espouses – is getting a second look.

“After decades of factory farming and reliance on a global food chain that sends bananas, grapes, mangoes, and avocados thousands of miles to stores, returning to the idea that food should be grown where it is eaten is no easy task. And rice-growing is a useful case study.

“It’s unusual to find rice farmers anywhere on the East Coast, says Raghupathy Karthikeyan, Newman endowed chair of natural resources engineering at Clemson University in South Carolina. Rice production in the U.S. now takes place mainly on commercial farms in the Midwest and the South. But Mr. Thomet and fellow farmer Mr. Amen are holding on, despite the tight profit margin for small-scale, organic farmers.

“Both Mr. Thomet and Mr. Amen grow upland rice, a method that doesn’t use water for weed control, instead requiring labor-intensive weeding. While both sell their rice, neither grows enough to register on the U.S. Department of Agriculture census. Historically, Maryland farms mainly grew tobacco, and South Carolina was rice country. But the end of slavery and changing weather patterns made rice-farming less profitable. At one time, about 225,000 acres in South Carolina were planted with rice. Today, it’s somewhere between 25 and 50 acres. In Maryland, it’s 2.

“Agriculture in Maryland, as in most of the U.S., doesn’t supply much of the produce purchased in the state. Maryland farms produce more grain than other crops, and most of that is used for livestock feed and seed. 

“Mr. Thomet’s interest is in locally grown crops for food, and he has a loyal base of customers, including restaurants. 

“For Mr. Thomet, it’s not just about protecting the locavore movement. It’s also about stewardship. He quotes the motto of his family’s farm, Next Step Produce: ‘Committed to growing nourishing food in harmony with nature.’ …

“He eats what he grows and tries to grow whatever he wants to eat. In fact, Mr. Thomet has a nearly complete food system growing on the 30 acres he cultivates. The one thing he can’t grow is sugar cane, so he grows sweet sorghum instead, which is made into molasses. 

“Day length, sun exposure, and night temperature in Maryland are all sufficient for rice to thrive, he says. Next Step Produce starts the rice in a greenhouse and then transplants it, allowing for more growing days so the farm can grow higher-yield varieties.

“Whether upland or lowland, rice is no longer profitable to grow in South Carolina – the historical center of U.S. rice-farming – unless it’s grown as a hobby, says Dr. Karthikeyan, who’s leading a study on climate-resilient rice production. The remaining commercial rice farms he’s aware of in the U.S. all grow lowland rice in paddy fields.

“Rice is a labor-intensive crop, even if you flood it, says Dr. Karthikeyan. The yield gap between upland and lowland rice is large, making it hard to turn a profit growing commercial varieties upland. That extra labor limits how many acres of rice Mr. Thomet plants, since they’re weeded by hand. It’s also reflected in the price, he says.

“Still, in his eyes, everything comes down to priorities and societal values. There’s no good reason everyone shouldn’t have access to nutritious, locally grown food, he says. Next Step Produce, which he runs with his wife and daughters, was certified organic for two decades until last year, when a red-tape snarl was the last straw for Mr. Thomet. But his customers don’t care about the label at this point, he says. They know his growing practices. …

“Benjamin Lambert, the executive chef at Modena, a restaurant in Washington, D.C., has bought from Mr. Thomet since 2007, when he met him at a local farmers market. ‘As a chef, you look for good ingredients,’ he says, standing in the restaurant, a James Beard Award hanging just behind him.”

More at the Monitor, here. No firewall. Subscriptions solicited.

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The Land Has Spoken

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 28, 2023| 4 Comments »

Photo: Gabrielle Canon/The Guardian.
Lakeside Farms, near Oregon’s Upper Clamath Lake, now features a wetland drawing harmful pollutants out of the soil. It also serves as a sanctuary for birds.

This may sound strange, but one of the things I most want to be able to do as an old person is to relearn things. I have a lot of preconceptions and outdated information that I’ve relied on, and I don’t want my feet to stay stuck in mud.

In today’s story, an Oregon farmer shows he was capable of relearning.

Gabrielle Canon reports at the Guardian that he once allowed his land to leak “pollution into a nearby lake. Now, 70 acres are home to waterfowl, turtles and endangered fish.”

Canon continues, “Birdsong hums over the rumble of Karl Wenner’s truck as it bounces along the dusty trails that weave through his property. For almost 100 years, this farm in southern Oregon grew barley, but now, amid the sprawling fields, there lies a wetland teeming with life.

“Wenner installed the wetland on 70 of the farm’s 400 acres to help deal with phosphorus pollution that leaked into the adjacent Upper Klamath Lake after his land flooded each winter. With support from a team of scientists and advocates, the project has become a welcome sanctuary for migrating and native birds that are disappearing from the area.

“Today, this corner of Lakeside Farms looks far different from a typical American farm. Waterfowl nest among the vegetation, joining pond turtles and even endangered native fish near rows of sprouting barley.

“Looking out at the swaying cattails and wocus plants peeking through the water on an afternoon in June, Wenner beams:

‘This place wanted to be a wetland.’

“It’s a remarkable transformation and a promising example of a symbiotic solution to one of the world’s most pressing environmental problems.

“The stakes are high. Considered ‘among the most productive ecosystems in the world,’ wetlands are disappearing rapidly. Roughly 80% around the world have already vanished. In the expansive Klamath basin that straddles the California-Oregon border, once described as the ‘Everglades of the west,’ more than 95% of wetlands have been drained, diverted or dried.

“Wenner, a co-owner of the land, hopes the farm won’t be unique for long. With an unprecedented amount of federal funding available through the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act and other government programs, Wenner and his partners are encouraging more farmers and ranchers to follow in their footsteps. …

“The Lakeside Farms wetland broke ground in 2021, flattening the barley fields and carving dikes and channels for water flows that would leave small artificial nesting islands. The water, produced from a natural spring on the property, quickly germinated seeds for marsh plants that had been dropped by birds and long left dormant.

“By the summer of 2022, the vegetation began to do its work, feeding fowl and cleaning the farm’s runoff, pumped within its banks rather than into the lake. … Wenner says his costs have largely been covered with government funds, and there’s a lot more to go around. …

“The benefits, Wenner says, have been almost immediate. Wetlands serve as a natural sponge, soaking up harmful minerals and pollution before they seep into the watershed. …

“ ‘You set the stage and Mother Nature takes over,’ Wenner said. ‘It’s just a magical thing to see.’

“Wenner is convinced the move has been a boon to business. The farm is no longer running afoul of regulations, while a plan to add a rotating wetland on other parts of its land will enable it to go organic, yielding ‘a much higher price for the crop.’ …

“The climate crisis is making the Klamath basin hotter and drier, creating stress for farmers and wildlife alike. Populations of migrating birds have plummeted, falling from roughly 5.8 million observed in 1958 to a peak of just 93,000 counted last year.

“Many are finding hope in plans to demolish four dams along the Klamath River – the largest dam removal project in US history – bringing the ecosystem one step closer to recovery. But more solutions will be needed. …

“The work is not without obstacles. ‘Our biggest challenge is where water is available to manage wetlands,’ said Ed Contreras, a coordinator of the Intermountain West Joint Venture, an organization dedicated to building public-private partnerships to support bird habitats. He added that the Lakeside Farms project was an important case study. …

“Thousands of miles away, Paul Botts is confronting the same challenges. As the executive director of the Wetlands Initiative, a non-profit conservation organization in Chicago, he is determined to expand the use of what he calls ‘smart wetlands’ across productive farm belts. …

“ ‘The ultimate goal here is that one day my children or grandchildren are driving around the midwest and every other farm field has one of these wetlands,’ he said. …

“These natural systems help blunt climate catastrophes, holding water for dry times and slowing the speed of floods. ‘We view smart wetlands as an excellent example of a big-picture climate adaptation solution,’ Botts added.”

More at the Guardian, here. No paywall but donations keep it free.

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Not So Very Extinct

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 18, 2023| 5 Comments »

Photo: JJ Harrison/Wikimedia Commons.
This tiger quoll (or spotted-tailed quoll) at Barren Grounds Nature Reserve, New South Wales, Australia, is similar to one a farmer caught harassing his chickens.

The creature of the day, the spotted-tailed quoll, is not extinct everywhere but was thought to be extinct in southern Australia. That is, until a farmer protecting his chickens caught one. Imagine how your perspective would change if an animal you just wanted to destroy suddenly turned out to be a rare find!

Aspen Pflughoeft reports at the Miami Herald. “A farmer in southern Australia captured an animal considered locally extinct for over a century while trying to protect his chickens. …

“Frank Pao-Ling Tsai, a trout farmer in Beachport, South Australia, heard a ‘panic’ from his chickens and rushed outside early in the morning on Tuesday, Sept. 26, he told McClatchy News in an email.

“Inside the coop, Tsai found a spotted creature and a dead chicken, he said.

“ ‘I had no idea what it was at first,’ Tsai told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. ‘I expected to find a cat, but I found this little animal instead.’ …

“The captured animal [has] a furry brown body, long tail and smattering of white spots. … Tsai captured the creature in a plastic chicken cage, he told McClatchy News. He took photos and shared them in hopes of identifying the animal.

“Wildlife officials identified the animal as a spotted-tailed quoll, the National Parks and Wildlife Service of South Australia told McClatchy News.

“Quolls are ‘about cat-sized’ marsupials with a ‘cat-like shape but a lot stronger jaws and a lot longer canine teeth,’ Limestone Coast district wildlife ranger Ross Anderson told McClatchy News.

“The spotted-tailed quoll, also known as the tiger quoll, is an endangered quoll species and the ‘largest native carnivore left on the (Australia) mainland,’ according to the Australian Conservation Foundation. An estimated 14,000 spotted-tailed quolls are left in the wild, the organization said.

“The last officially documented sighting of a spotted-tailed quoll in South Australia was in the 1880s, Anderson said. The species has been considered locally extinct for over 130 years.

“ ‘It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event, really,’ Anderson told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. …

“ ‘We can’t be sure where it’s come from,’ Anderson told the Guardian.

“The quoll Tsai originally captured managed to escape out a damaged corner of the cage, he said. Wildlife officials set up another trap and again captured a spotted-tailed quoll, Anderson said. …

“ ‘It could have been a relic population,’ Anderson told McClatchy News. ‘(Or) it could have been an animal that’s moved from other areas …. (or) it may have escaped from captivity.’

“ ‘We took some DNA to see if we can work out the likely origins,’ he said. ‘It’s a great opportunity for us to get some information and it would be fabulous if it turned out to be a relic population.’

“After being checked by a vet and DNA-tested, the captured quoll was released, Anderson said.

“Wildlife officials will set up cameras and traps to study the rediscovered quoll species and see if there are more quolls around Beachport, he said.”

See Tsai’s photos of a very angry beast at the Miami Herald, here. No firewall.

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Urban Farming Research

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 24, 2023| 8 Comments »

Photo: World Farmers.

Immigrants to the US, if they were farmers in their home countries or just want to grow food they can’t find here, may end up working in agriculture. And as this University of Rhode Island professor’s research shows, many are joining the new wave of urban growers.

Frank Carini reports at ecoRI News on John Taylor, associate professor of agroecology at URI, who recently received a $973,479 award from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture for his research.

I had to look up that new-to-me field of study. The Soil Association says that “agroecology is sustainable farming that works with nature. Ecology is the study of relationships between plants, animals, people, and their environment – and the balance between these relationships. Agroecology is the application of ecological concepts and principals in farming. [It] promotes farming practices that mitigate climate change … work with wildlife … put farmers and communities in the driving seat.” Read all about it here.

Carini writes, “The $973,479 award from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture was one of 12 to receive funding through the institute’s Urban, Indoor, and Other Emerging Agricultural Production Research, Education and Extension Initiative. The agency’s $9.4 million in grants are part of a broad U.S. Department of Agriculture investment in urban agriculture, funding research that addresses key problems in urban, indoor, and emerging agricultural systems.

“The project will bring together Taylor’s research with immigrant gardeners and farmers in Rhode Island, Julie Keller’s agriculture-focused work with diverse communities, Melva Treviño Peña’s work with immigrant fishers, and Patrick Baur’s work on food safety and urban agriculture. …

“Although always a part of city life, urban agriculture has recently attracted increased attention in the United States, as a strategy for stimulating economic development, increasing food security and access, and combating obesity and diabetes.

“Food justice is about addressing access to healthy and affordable food for low-wealth and marginalized communities. It seeks to ensure the benefits and risks of where, what, and how food is grown, accessed, distributed, and transported are shared equally.

“Many neighborhoods in metropolitan areas, including in Rhode Island’s urban core, have little to no access to fresh food or full-service grocery stores — a situation often referred to as living in a ‘food desert.’ Other marginalized communities are surrounded by ‘food swamps,’ areas in which a large amount of processed foods, such as fast food and convenience-store fare, is available with limited healthy options.

“One solution to this environmental justice problem is to encourage the growing of local food. Developing effective policies and programs demands as a first step the accurate mapping of existing urban agriculture sites, according to Taylor. He hopes to provide that template.

“Taylor and colleagues at URI, the University of Maryland, and the University of the District of Columbia will soon begin mapping the alternative food provisioning networks of immigrant communities and communities of color in three East Coast cities — Providence, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. — to better understand these networks.

“He hopes this transdisciplinary research will reap new information about alternative food provisioning networks in the Northeast, evaluating their impact on food system outcomes, and identifying opportunities for policy support. …

“At URI, Taylor’s ‘home garden’ is a quarter-acre plot at the Gardiner Crops Research Center [at] the bottom of the Kingston Campus. His plot, visible from Plains Road, represents in microcosm the immigrant foodways he will be studying for his research during the next few years.

“At URI’s Agrobiodiversity Learning Garden and Food Forest, he grows crops that are integral to the food traditions of Rhode Island’s diverse communities: South American sweet potatoes, Mexican tomatillos, Haitian tomatoes, Mediterranean herbs, Asian bok choy, and produce from an African diaspora garden. Taylor tends the garden with students in URI’s Plant Sciences and Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems programs and URI master gardeners, demonstrating how sustainable farming reinforces community-building.

“With the learning garden, he follows a lead set by generations of immigrants who moved to Providence and cities like it, bringing their growing practices, and sometimes seeds, with them. …

“A descendant of five generations of Pennsylvania farmers, he grew up on a 100-acre integrated crop-livestock farm near Pittsburgh. Taylor began gardening at the age of 6 and started a market garden while in high school. He left the farm to attend the University of Chicago … then managed federal education studies for 10 years before returning to school to study horticulture and practice landscape architecture.”

More at ecoRI News, here.

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Efficient Coffee

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 22, 2023| 5 Comments »

Sam Knowlton is an interesting guy who specializes in improvements to coffee growing — improvements that help both farmers and the environment.

According to his SoilSymbiotics website, he “offers a practical, principle based suite of consulting and education services to farmers and growers seeking to increase crop quality, yield and soil health.”

On Twitter, @samdknowlton recently posted a photo of a shady coffee farm with the words, “The typical coffee farm applies about 200 kg/ha of synthetic nitrogen (N) each year, an excessive amount. I worked with this farm to phase out synthetic N and cut a total of 195,000 kgs of annual applications. The trees are healthier, higher yielding, and the coffee tastes better.”

I went to Knowlton’s blog to learn more. In a typically intriguing post, he wrote, “To make it rain, plant more coffee trees.

“Coffee-growing regions are quickly becoming hotter and drier while at the same time losing substantial tree cover. Trees and forests create and maintain their ideal conditions by producing rainfall, and coffee excels as a crop of economic significance that thrives as part of a forest-like system. 

“Coffee farms cover 11 million hectares of ecologically sensitive land worldwide. Many of these farms are the last bastion of standing trees in landscapes that would otherwise be deforested and dehydrated. As part of an integrated agroforestry system, coffee trees are the key to preserving and expanding tree cover and maintaining and repairing regional water cycles.  

“Contrary to commodity crops like corn and soy, which are ecologically unfit for the fields where they’re planted, coffee is the ideal crop for most of the ecosystems where it grows. As an understory species, coffee trees prefer a shade story above them. They grow most vibrantly within a web of companion plants among their drooping branches adorned with waxy emerald leaves and bright red cherries. Coffee trees offer the unique possibility of planting a productive crop in a forest-like system of complimentary trees of multifunctional use like hardwoods, nitrogen fixers, fruits, and nuts. 

“Grown within an integrated agroforestry system, coffee farmers can produce abundant high-quality yields while simultaneously regenerating soil, water cycles, and overall ecosystem function. 

“The problem is most coffee farms are far from this ideal. The few successfully implementing integrated systems are relatively unknown compared to the standard coffee industry narratives dominated by pessimism and non-solutions. …

“In several coffee-growing countries, coffee trees represent a large share of the remaining tree cover. Between 1970 and 1990, approximately 50% of the shade trees associated with coffee farms in Latin America were lost. Globally, coffee farms have lost 20% of their shade trees since the mid-1990s, and countries like Costa Rica and Colombia lost between 50% and 60% of shade tree cover. This is a consequence of intensified production, where coffee trees grow in full sun and bare soil. The loss of shade is accompanied by the increased use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, further disturbing the ecology of these areas.  

“The textbook description of the water cycle presents the ocean as the primary source of condensed atmospheric moisture and ultimately falls as rain. Missing is the role of trees as veritable water fountains, pulling water up from the soil with their extensive root systems and releasing that moisture into the atmosphere through the microscopic pores of their leaves. This arboreal version of sweating is the process known as transpiration. A single tree can transpire hundreds of liters of water per day, and a forest, with its extensive, layered leaf surface area, can transpire an amount of moisture equal to or exceeding that of a large body of water. 

“Another step is required to turn the transpired water into rainfall, and trees are once again the benefactors making it all happen. 

“Trees transpire water into the atmosphere to produce precipitation and ice particles that take shape in the clouds. Not long ago, the prevailing belief was that small mineral particles served as the nuclei to catalyze ice particle formation. However, we now know that microbes, originating from the forests below, catalyze ice particle formation and trigger precipitation at higher temperatures than inert material like minerals. In other words, clouds don’t have to be as cold for ice nucleation, and rainfall can occur in a broader range of conditions.  

“Approximately 40% of precipitation over land originates from the evaporation and transpiration of water from plants. 

Simply put, trees create rainfall. In one of the more impressive feats of low-tech terraforming, Willie Smits reforested a 2,000-hectare area of clearcut Borneo forest using agroforestry and six years later documented a 12% increase in cloud cover with a 25% increase in rainfall. 

“Forests don’t simply grow in moist areas; they create and maintain the conditions in which they grow by producing rainfall and shortening the length of the dry season.  When trees are removed from the landscape, the rainy season becomes sporadic, and less water is available for evaporation and transpiration, effectively turning off the source of rainfall. 

“A key theme of the theory described above is the forest structure, not just individual trees. The action of trees seeding the rain through transpiration and microbial ice nucleation is the product of a more complex forest structure and greater leaf surface area — not monocrop tree plantations. 

“While coffee has been planted as a monocrop with increasing furor in the past few decades, it is one of the only crops of economic significance that grows as part of a system that mimics the natural forest structure and dynamics of its tropical environs. The benefits of growing coffee in an agroforestry system are vast.”

More at Sam Knowlton’s blog, here. Hat tip: John.

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Unearthing a Mosaic

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 18, 2022| 7 Comments »

Photo: Ahmed Zakot.
A Palestinian farmer unearthed a Byzantine floor mosaic beneath his olive grove.

We keep learning that beautiful discoveries can still be made, even in mundane settings. Perhaps you have discovered yellowed letters your parents wrote to each other when courting. Perhaps there was an antique bottle inside a wall when you renovated.

Such items can be exciting, but it’s hard to beat the discovery a farmer in today’s stumbled upon.

Elaine Velie reports at Hyperallergic, “Salman al-Nabahin, a farmer from Gaza’s Bureij refugee camp, was trying to plant new olive trees in his orchard but something underneath the soil was standing in his way. He investigated for three months, digging out the soil with his son until they unearthed a stunningly well-preserved Byzantine floor mosaic.

“Al-Nabahin told Reuters that he searched the internet to asses the mosaic’s origins. An archaeologist from the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem, René Elter, later confirmed the work as a Byzantine mosaic, placing the mosaic between the fifth and seventh centuries CE. …

“ ‘Never have mosaic floors of this finesse, this precision in the graphics and richness of the colors been discovered in the Gaza Strip,’ Elter [told the Associated Press], adding that more research is needed to determine the work’s intended function.

“The Palestinian Ministry of Culture stated that investigation into the mosaic was still in its early stages and a team of national experts would partner with experts at the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem to research the work.

“Gaza is situated on a thriving ancient trade route, and dozens of important archaeological discoveries have been uncovered there in the last few years. The recently revealed mosaic, however, sits less than a mile away from the Gaza-Israel barrier, which Elten said puts the discovery in ‘grave danger.’ …

“ ‘I see it as a treasure, dearer than a treasure,’ al-Nabahin told Reuters. ‘It isn’t personal, it belongs to every Palestinian.’ “

Sarah Kuta at the Smithsonian adds, “Now, archaeologists with the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and the French Archaeology School are hard at work studying the flooring to learn more about its ‘secrets and civilization values,’ says the ministry in a press statement.

“The mosaic features 17 iconographies of birds and other animals depicted in bright colors. Archaeologists … don’t know whether the mosaic had religious or secular origins.

“The farmer has been covering the unearthed areas of the mosaic floor with tin sheets to protect them; so far, he’s dug up three separate sections, the widest measuring 6 feet by 9 feet, according to Fares Akram of the Associated Press. In total, the land covering the entire mosaic is about 5,400 square feet, and the mosaic itself measures about 250 square feet. Some parts of the mosaic appear to be damaged, likely from the roots of an old olive tree.

“ ‘These are the most beautiful mosaic floors discovered in Gaza, both in terms of the quality of the graphic representation and the complexity of the geometry,’ [Elter] tells the AP. …

“The Bureij refugee camp [is] located about half a mile from the border with Israel. Archaeologists and other experts are concerned about the mosaic’s future because of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as looting and a lack of funding for historical preservation.

“ ‘It is a spectacular find, especially as our knowledge of archaeology is sadly so spotty given circumstances there,’ Asa Eger, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, tells the Art Newspaper’s Hadani Ditmars. ‘Gaza was very important during the period of this mosaic and known for its burgeoning wine production exported across the Mediterranean.’ “

You’ll love the photos at Hyperallergic, here, and at Smithsonian, here. No firewalls.

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Beavers to the Rescue

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 7, 2022| 8 Comments »

Photo: Svetozar Cenisev/ Unsplash.
When vegetation that beavers flood is dying, neighbors object to the smell. But often they like the lake that comes later.

There was a woman in my town who was up in arms about beavers flooding part of her property to build a dam. That is, she was angry until the odor of dying grasses dissipated and a beautiful lake appeared.

According to Catrin Einhorn at the New York Times, farmers out West are finding other reasons to appreciate the work of beavers.

She reports, “Horace Smith blew up a lot of beaver dams in his life. A rancher here in northeastern Nevada, he waged war against the animals, frequently with dynamite. Not from meanness or cruelty; it was a struggle over water. Mr. Smith blamed beavers for flooding some parts of his property, Cottonwood Ranch, and drying out others.

“But his son Agee, who eventually took over the ranch, is making peace. And he says welcoming beavers to work on the land is one of the best things he’s done.

“ ‘They’re very controversial still,’ said Mr. Smith, whose father died in 2014. ‘But it’s getting better. People are starting to wake up.’

“As global warming intensifies droughts, floods and wildfires, Mr. Smith has become one of a growing number of ranchers, scientists and other ‘beaver believers’ who see the creatures not only as helpers, but as furry weapons of climate resilience.

Last year, when Nevada suffered one of the worst droughts on record, beaver pools kept his cattle with enough water.

“When rains came strangely hard and fast, the vast network of dams slowed a torrent of water raging down the mountain, protecting his hay crop. And with the beavers’ help, creeks have widened into wetlands that run through the sagebrush desert, cleaning water, birthing new meadows and creating a buffer against wildfires.

“True, beavers can be complicated partners. They’re wild, swimming rodents the size of basset hounds with an obsession for building dams. When conflicts arise, and they probably will, you can’t talk it out.

“Beavers flood roads, fields, timber forests and other areas that people want dry. They fell trees without a thought as to whether humans would prefer them standing. In response to complaints, the federal government killed almost 25,000 beavers last year.

“But beavers also store lots of water for free, which is increasingly crucial in the parched West. And they don’t just help with drought. Their engineering subdues torrential floods from heavy rains or snowmelt by slowing water. It reduces erosion and recharges groundwater. And the wetlands beavers create may have the extra benefit of stashing carbon out of the atmosphere.

“In addition to all that, the rodents do environmental double duty, because they also tackle another crisis unleashed by humans: rampant biodiversity loss. Their wetlands are increasingly recognized for creating habitat for myriad species, from salmon to sage grouse.

“Beavers, you might say, are having a moment. In Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming, the Bureau of Land Management is working with partners to build beaver-like dams that they hope real beavers will claim and expand. In California, the new state budget designates about $1.5 million a year to restoring the animals for climate resiliency and biodiversity benefits.

“ ‘We need to get beavers back to work,’ Wade Crowfoot, California’s secretary of natural resources, said in a webinar this year. ‘Full employment for beavers.’ (Beaver believers like to note that the animals work for free.) …

“Instead of killing beavers, the federal government should be embracing them as an important component of federal climate adaptation, according to two scientists who study beavers and hydrology, Chris Jordan of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, and Emily Fairfax of California State University Channel Islands.

“ ‘It may seem trite to say that beavers are a key part of a national climate action plan, but the reality is that they are a force of 15-40 million highly skilled environmental engineers,’ Dr. Jordan and Dr. Fairfax wrote this year in a perspective article in the research journal WIREs Water. …

“When human-beaver conflicts arise, they can be addressed without killing the animals, experts say. Paint and fencing can protect trees from gnawing. Systems like the Beaver Deceiver secretly undo their handiwork with pipes that drain water from beaver settlements even when the animals keep building. Such measures are actually a more effective solution than removing the animals, according to advocates, because new beavers tend to move into empty habitat.

“If coexistence is impossible, a growing number of groups and private businesses are seeking to relocate, rather than kill, nuisance beavers.

“ ‘We put the nuisance in air quotes,’ said Molly Alves, a wildlife biologist with the Tulalip Tribes, a federally recognized tribal organization just north of Seattle that moves unwanted beavers to land managed by the United States Forest Service.

“The group’s impetus was a desire to expand the extraordinary habitat that beavers offer salmon, a culturally and economically important species. When they started in 2014, the Tulalip Tribes had to invoke their sovereign treaty rights to relocate beavers because doing so was illegal in their area under Washington State law. After a lobbying push, beaver relocation is now legal statewide and the tribes are advising state officials on a program to train others in best practices.”

More at the Times, here. Hat tip: John.

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Farmer, Age 12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 29, 2022| 10 Comments »

Photo: Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal.
Brayden Nadeau, seen here at age 10, shows off vegetables he grew on his grandfather’s land in Auburn, Maine.

How great to see a kid who’s into agriculture! Cathy Free at the Washington Post reports on a 12-year-old farmer in Maine who got hooked on farming at age 2. There’s a lot to ponder here about what a close relationship with a grandparent can lead to.

“Brayden Nadeau was 2 when he helped his grandpa steer a John Deere tractor, and he was 3 when he helped feed the hogs and chickens on the family farm in Minot, Maine.

“At age 5, when he was asked by his kindergarten teacher what he hoped to do for a living one day, nobody was surprised when Brayden said he was going to be a farmer, said his mother, Kari Nadeau. …

“Brayden, now 12 and in seventh grade, is already on his way to achieving his career goal. On his own initiative, he does much of the work on his grandfather Dan Herrick’s 25-acre farm, and on the 275 acres that neighbors let Herrick use to grow hay, Kari Nadeau said. Brayden plants, tends and harvests produce, and sells his bounty.

“For the past two years, he has run Brayden’s Vegetable Stand, selling fresh food such as corn, cabbage and tomatoes. He used his savings to buy a new store structure in May 2021 for about $7,000 and install it at the edge of his grandfather’s farm. He posts live updates on Facebook about what’s fresh each day.

“He works on the farm and at his store 10 hours a day in the summer, and four hours a day (mostly after school) when school is in session. He’ll restock his store before school at 7:30 a.m. and leave an honor box for customers to drop in their money.

“Brayden said he puts most of his earnings into savings, but uses some of the money to add improvements to his veggie stand, such as a new floor.

“ ‘I’ve become his employee,’ joked Herrick, 64, adding that he still harvests hay on the farm but has allowed Brayden to take over most other responsibilities. ‘I taught him the basics, and he took it from there. … Brayden pretty much runs the show now. [He] knows how to use the equipment better than I do.’

“Brayden said it’s his favorite way to spend his days. ‘I really enjoy it — even getting up at 5 in the morning,’ he said. ‘I’m not into video games and goofing around on my phone like some of my friends. I’d rather be busy on the farm.’ …

“Maine was among the top five states with declining farmland between 2012 and 2017, according to a survey done by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In rural towns like Minot in southern Maine, many families eventually sell their farms or stop working the land because their children find other ways to make a living, said Herrick, who has farmed for most of his life.

“ ‘It’s a hard job, and you really have to enjoy doing it,’ he said. …

“Brayden’s sense of duty to the farm has also helped to foster a close relationship with his grandparents, said his grandmother, Marie Herrick, 60.

“ ‘Nobody has ever asked Brayden to do this — there’s just nowhere else he’d rather be,’ she said. ‘It’s been a joy all these years to watch him learn everything he can from Dan.’

“At 6:30 every morning, one of Brayden’s parents drives him two miles to the Herricks’ farm, and he goes to work.

“Brayden said he feeds the livestock (100 chickens, 60 pigs, 30 laying hens, 20 turkeys and six cows), cleans stalls, picks ripe produce and gathers eggs. Then he stocks the shelves in his vegetable stand, which he operates until Thanksgiving.

“Every spring, he said, he starts his vegetables from seed, then puts them into the ground. To make the task of caring for the plants easier, he recently bought a drip irrigation system with money he’d saved from his produce sales. …

“His customers said they look forward to seeing what he has to offer each day, from broccoli and tomatoes to eggplant and summer squash. Brayden also sells bacon and sausage made from his grandpa’s hogs and loaves of his grandma Marie’s fresh zucchini bread, as well as jars of her zucchini relish.

“ ‘Zucchini is probably the favorite thing I plant,’ he said. ‘It’s always been amazing to watch something grow from an itty-bitty seed.’

“Some of his customers feel the same way about watching Brayden grow.

“ ‘He’s the hardest-working kid I’ve ever known,’ said customer Wendy Simard, 48, who was also Brayden’s reading teacher at Minot Consolidated School. …

“Simard said that when she taught Brayden in first grade, he was drawn to books about farming, and liked drawing pictures of tractors, pigs and cows.

“ ‘Now he comes in to tell our pre-K students all about vegetables, and he’ll bring in a baby pig at the end of every year to show the kids,’ she said.”

More at the Post, here.

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Women Farmers Light Up Tanzanian TV

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on November 20, 2016| 2 Comments »

In Tanzania, women farmers appearing on a TV show called in English “Female Food Heroes” are bringing attention to the importance of their work and the barriers to expansion.

Oxfam America reporter Coco McCabe writes about contestant Edna Kiogwe, “She grew up in a farming family and knows well the hurdles they face, especially women farmers who, in her country, own only a small fraction of the land. …

“It’s that inequality — and the lost opportunities buried beneath it — to which Kiogwe and 14 other women farmers helped to bring attention this year as contestants in the fifth season of a highly popular reality TV show shot in Tanzania and aired across East Africa. Called Mama ‘Shujaa wa Chakula ,’ or ‘Female Food Heroes,’ the Oxfam-sponsored show celebrates the vital contributions women farmers make in feeding the planet, and highlights the challenges many encounter on a daily basis, including limited access to land, credit, and training opportunities. …

“In the village of Kisanga, where ‘Mama Shujaa wa Chakula’ was filmed [in 2015], the 15 contestants learned a great deal about the struggles local farmers face in feeding their families. Each of the women stayed with a village family for the duration of the three-week shoot, and daily contests included designing tools that could be useful to Kisanga farmers, interviewing them about their agricultural challenges, and putting together skits to help bring attention to those hurdles. …

“Kiogwe [now] spends most of her time in Dar es Salaam, a coastal city about a two-and-a-half hour drive away, where she lives and works as a civil servant. But her city life belies her village roots — and her keen interest in farming. Unlike most women in Tanzania, Kiogwe owns her own land, given to her by her forward-thinking father on her wedding day. She harvests corn, cassava, rice, and sugar cane, carefully aligning her 28 days of annual leave from her city job with peak work times on her small farm in the Morogoro region. …

“ ‘I want to make agriculture like a business,’ says Kiogwe. … With a little effort, greater value can be added to the fruits farmers grow, for instance.

“ ‘Change it from fruit to juice, we can sell it … We can add value to maize — maize flour for porridge — and you can have a good label and good packaging and compete with international businesses. That is my dream.’ ” More here.

According to OXFAMCloseup, the nonprofit’s quarterly magazine, the episodes shot in Kisanga, Tanzania, aired in five countries and had 14 million people tune in. The magazine adds, “Versions of the program are now being produced in Ethiopia and Nigeria, and some finalists have become involved in local, national, and even global farmer advocacy.”

Photo: Coco McCabe / Oxfam America
Edna Kiogwe helps her host family with the morning chores in Kisanga, where the TV show “Female Food Heroes” was filmed in 2015.

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Shredded Money Grows Tomatoes

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 24, 2016| 4 Comments »

When dollar bills of any denomination get too beat up to use, the federal government shreds them. For a long time, the various Federal Reserve banks gave out small bags of shredded money to visitors as a souvenir — always a big hit with kids.

But for the last few years, shredded money has been used as compost in gardens. Here’s a story from Seth Archer at Business Insider about the new approach.

“Have you ever wondered what happened to currency that gets damaged? If you have a paper shredder in your home, you already have a pretty good idea. But that’s just the start….

“The New Orleans branch of the Federal Reserve shreds $6 million in cash each day. They mainly shred bills that are dirty, taped, graffitied or otherwise unfit to be used as cash.

“The bills are shredded to a fine texture to make compost. … The cash is transferred to a compost facility, where it is mixed with other materials to make nutritious plant food.

“After the compost is made, it is sold to local farmers, who use it to grow peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers.

” ‘It is very fulfilling to be growing using a material that would otherwise go to waste.’ — Simond Menasche, founder and director of Grown On.”

More here.

Photo: Great Big Story

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