permaculture

["E. E. Mitchamore Jr" <emitch@att.net>]

A very interesting idea, and I will pursue it, but I wonder about the 
possibility of plants from other continents becoming invasive here.  Many 
good intentions have gone awry that way.

E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore
www.hillcountrynatives.biz
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Marimike6@cs.com 
  To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org 
  Sent: Friday, March 31, 2006 10:18 AM
  Subject: Re: [permaculture] agroforestry discussion list


  Mitch, you say "There is a lot of discussion around Central Texas about 
  wildlife, and I realize that it's related, but I would very much like to 
see 
  discussions of "people food forests" in hot, dry climates with thin poor 
alkaline 
  soil."

  The arid portions of Texas are a lot like Ethiopia, Sudan and Chad. These 
  regions support millions of peasants on a subsistence basis. So I would 
think one 
  would start with the growing of appropriate grains like sorghum or millet. 
  The stuff is highly nutritious for both people and animals, and is grown in 
a 
  number of nutritious varieties for differing conditions. Tastes good, too, 
when 
  made into injera.

  The same might be said of the dryer parts of India. There are no better 
  stewards of the land on this planet than the Bisnoi, who live in the Thar 
Desert. 
  They have made a successful go of it for the past couple of thousand years, 
  while more modern irrigation schemes have recently salted the place up and 
  damaged the water table in pursuit of rice for the millions. So one is 
invited to 
  reflect that a tribe of primitives who've never taken a single course in 
  agronomy have come up with superior solutions to those of a board of the 
highly 
  educated and published PhD's India invited to design their program to 
"bring the 
  desert to life".

  Not much on the web about them, I suspect. But you could search for a very 
  fine book the Sierra Club published called The Law of the Mother, edited by 
  Elizabeth Kempf (1993). The Bisnoi swear by the virtues of the khejri tree 
  (Prosopis cineraria) for its wood, shade, edible pods and generally 
beneficial effect 
  on the arid environment, its people and its wildlife. This is just a 
  "forinstance", and much work needs to be done on finding out what some 
people have 
  known for thousands of years.

  Before it is lost, of course.
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