fyi ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Ryan Fortune <[email protected]> Date: Wed, Jul 4, 2018 at 1:37 PM Subject: ARTICLE: Farming with Nature (reThink, 28 June 2018) To: James Gien Wong <[email protected]> Cc: Brenda Skelenge <[email protected]>, Paul Wildman <[email protected]>, Michael Thompson <[email protected]>, Lerato Mohapi-Thahane < [email protected]>, steven johnstone <[email protected]>, Tom Harper <[email protected]>, Andy Thomson <[email protected]>, Jerome Osentowski <[email protected]>, senai <[email protected]>, Michael H Shuman <[email protected]>, jose ramos <[email protected]>, michel bauwens <[email protected]>, Themba Tana <[email protected]>, homeJudith Lee <[email protected]>, Rebekka Harvey <[email protected]>, Roberto Valenti <[email protected]>, Bryan Curtin < [email protected]>, bernie <[email protected]>, conway lotter < [email protected]>, Markus Verena's friend <[email protected]>, "Marco [reNature]" <[email protected]>, Felipe Villela < [email protected]> Twelve years ago, in 2006, Haregu Gobezay was unemployed and her family with six children relied on her husband’s salary to cover all their expenses. Today, Gobezay and her husband manage a 12-hectare farm with mango, orange, mandarin, and avocado plantations in Mereb Leke District of the Tigray Region in northern Ethiopia. They also keep a few dairy cows, and chickens for egg production. They no longer rely on a single crop. The finger millet they used to grow often suffered from weed invasions and termites, and the yield was low due to thin and nutrient-poor soils. Now they grow a wide range of different crops. This has helped them tackle many challenges, and made it possible for them to employ almost a hundred people and make a good profit from selling mango and other fruits. *Agroecology has the explicit goal of strengthening the sustainability of all parts of the food system, from the seed and the soil, to the table, including ecological knowledge, economic viability, and social justice.* Gobezay started with planting vegetables; she then added fruit trees, and peanut plants as cover crops that fertilise the soil by fixing nitrogen from the air, with the help of bacteria living in their root systems. Eventually, she brought in dairy cows and started cultivating pasture plants such as alfalfa, Rhodes grass, and elephant grass under the trees. To improve soil fertility further and to increase soil organic matter, the family now prepares compost in 20 big pits. In addition, a biogas plant on the dairy farm produces bio-slurry compost and energy for cooking. The family also uses “push-pull” technology as an additional source of income. The technology was developed in Africa to control Striga weeds and insect pests, particularly stemborer moths, without using chemical pesticides. It involves growing maize, sorghum or mango trees together with flowering plants such as Desmodium that repel, or “push”, the pests, and planting other plants such as elephant grass around the crops to attract, or “pull”, the pests. Desmodium eliminates Striga weeds and repels the stemborers, which are instead attracted to the elephant grass. By growing Desmodium, the family’s farm has become a source of seeds for scaling up the push-pull technology in the whole region. More and more farmers around the world are turning away from chemical-intensive single-crop farming in favour of production methods based on diversity, local inputs of for example compost, and ecosystem services. This kind of “agroecological” farming has seen a revival in recent years as a response to the many challenges facing agriculture globally. There is growing evidence that agroecological farming systems keep carbon in the ground, support biodiversity, rebuild soils, and sustain yields, providing a basis for secure livelihoods. Today’s agriculture produces enough food for the global population, but it has not given everyone everywhere access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food. Agriculture has also contributed to soil degradation <https://rethink.earth/turning-desert-to-fertile-farmland-on-the-loess-plateau/>, a misuse of natural resources, and the crossing of crucial planetary boundaries that have kept Earth in a relatively stable state for the past 11,000 years, since before agriculture was invented. * CONTINUE READING:* https://rethink.earth/farming-with-nature/ -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/