Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

Drought drives Middle Eastern pepper farmers out of business, threatens 
prized heirloom chiles
15 Jan 2010 10:19 AM by Gary Nabhan
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-01-15-drought-drives-middle-eastern-peppers/

(Editor’s note: This marks the launch of Climate Change and Food Culture, a 
series of posts by Gary Nabhan about how climate change threatens to stamp 
out some of the globe’s most celebrated foodstuffs, and along with them the 
farming and cooking cultures that created them.)

Most Turks live on the water’s edge in the far western reaches of their vast 
country. But many of the spices that perfume the air in Turkey’s famous urban 
bazaars come from the nation’s southeastern farming areas of Sanliurfa and 
Kahramanmaras. In fact, spices from this region rank among the most highly 
prized condiments and herbs you can find in any spice emporium anywhere.

As I wandered through the Misir Carsisi Spice Bazaar in Istanbul, and the 
Kemeralti Bazaar at the western terminus of the Silk Road in Izmir, I could 
see the chile powders, pastes and dried fruits from Sanliurfa and 
Kahramanmaras proudly and prominently displayed.

Urfa and Maras peppers from Turkey have the same international fame that 
Aleppo (Halaby) peppers do from Syria, Tabascos do from Louisiana, or 
Habaneros do from the Yucatan. But their prices are soaring and supplies are 
becoming scarce—not merely because of international demand, but because of 
drought and agricultural water scarcity triggered by global climate change.

The same climate-driven pressures are affecting the survival of the Halaby 
pepper and its traditional farmers near Aleppo, Syria. In the past three 
years, 160 Syrian farming villages have been abandoned near Aleppo as crop 
failures have forced over 200,000 rural Syrians to leave for the cities. This 
news is distressing enough, but when put into a long-term perspective, its 
implications are staggering: many of these villages have been continuously 
farmed for 8000 years. As one expert puts it, this may be the worst long-term 
drought and most severe set of crop failures since agricultural civilizations 
began in the Fertile Crescent many millennia ago.

The thousands of tourists and residents who purchase Urfa and Maras chiles in 
Istanbul’s Spice Bazaar may not yet realize it, but their access to these 
world class spices is being disrupted by climate change. Since 2007, rains in 
some forty Turkish provinces, northern Syria and eastern Iraq have been 30 
percent to 40 percent of their normal levels. The drought in southeastern 
Anatolia has reduced harvests by 80 percent. In Syria, 60 percent of the 
agricultural lands have been affected by these droughts.

In Iraq, 2 million rural residents have been left without water. Many 
irrigation canals remain dry, as the only water reaching rivers like the 
Euphrates is being usurped by cities upstream. Downstream on the 
Tigris-Euphrates delta, saltwater intrusion is making domestic water 
unpotable. Between the three countries, perhaps five million people have been 
directly affected.

Peppers are perhaps the most widely-used spice, condiment and vegetable in 
the world, but the devil is in the details. Many folks cannot tolerate the 
heat of a Bhut Jolokia or Habanero, but prefer the milder, smokier aroma of a 
Urfa or Chilpotle. And yet, we can no longer take unrestricted globalized 
access to such culinary treasures for granted. Our own patterns of 
consumption and proliferation of greenhouse gases are endangering the very 
things that give us pleasure.

Think about it. The loss of farmers from Saliurfa, Kahramanmaras and 
Aleppo—far away places you may have never heard of before—is our own plight. 
Our food security and access to treasures of world food culture are linked to 
their water and land security. One heirloom chile pepper blinking out may not 
be all that great of a loss, but the cumulative loss of food biodiversity 
driven by climate change will touch us all.
---------
Gary Paul Nabhan, PhD., is an Arab-American writer, lecturer, food and 
farming advocate, rural lifeways folklorist, and conservationist whose work 
has long been rooted in the U.S./Mexico borderlands region he affectionately 
calls "the stinkin' hot desert." He recently accepted a tenured professorship 
as a Research Social Scientist based at the Southwest Center of the 
University of Arizona--- his alma mater.

He teaches in Geography, as well as interact with faculty and graduate 
students engaged in creative writing and reconcilation ecology research. He 
continues advising or consulting with many non-profits--including the 
Renewing America's Food Traditions collaborative - although he will no longer 
serve as administrator or principal investigator on any grant-funded research 
or community development projects in order to devote more time to creative 
writing and field work.

For his literary non-fiction, grassroots conservation and community-based 
ethnobiology projects, Nabhan has been honored with the John Burroughs Medal 
for Nature Writing, a MacArthur "genius" award, a Lannan Literary Award, a 
Pew Fellowship in Conservation and Environment, a Lifetime Acheivement Award 
from the Society for Conservation Biology, and a Quivira Coalition award for 
excellence in science that contributes to "the radical center."

Nabhan's books have been translated in five languages, and he has lectured at
universities in Mexico, Lebanon, Peru, Oman, Guatemala, and Italy, including 
Slow Food's University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo.

When not gardening, caring for heitage breeds of sheep and turkeys, or hiking 
with his digs, he is active in the Order of Ecumenical Franciscans, the Orion 
Society
and the local foods movement.