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  • From: christopher nesbitt <christopher.nesbitt@mmrfbz.org>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Overly optimistic permaculture attitude towardsland
  • Date: Thu, 3 Dec 2009 11:40:49 -0600

I think I should mention that my point had more to do with land that is not suitable for agriculture at all being purchased for agriculture than damaged agricultural land. Certainly, as designers, it is in our interest to repair damaged land, and as potential land owners, damaged land can usually be found for a lot cheaper than prime land.

There is plenty of damaged agricultural in the world, especially here in the lowland humid tropics where we have so many acres of "emerald wastelands", or green revolution deserts left behind when the productive life span of that land/plant assembly has run its inevitable course. When they come to the end of their life span, which is extended by regular inputs of fertilizers and soil amendments, they are left behind. Pioneering into those lands makes much more sense than moving into rainforest. Places like this abound here in Belize, and those acres that have lived lives as banana groves, citrus orchards, sugar cane patches and cattle pastures can, in most cases, be coaxed into being productive.

All of the land I farm here is on either ex-cattle pasture, abandoned citrus grove or ex milpa, and most of the reparative work that has been done has been very rewarding. The few slices of seriously damaged land, land damaged by cattle, that we have tried to repair have not been rewarding. You can see pictures of where it is working here: http://mmrfbz.org on the agroforesty link, here http://www.mmrfbz.org/Agroforestry_at_MMRF.html . That, though, has been the result of over 20 years of observation and work. That area was Valencia and Washington navel oranges in 1988.

There is a cut off point on damaged land whereby the effort to recover fertility and coax food out of that land will not give a reward equal to the effort in a time frame that works in the scale of a human life, and that is a consideration that needs to be made by anyone looking for a piece of land, but there is also land that simply should not be used for agriculture, too, and that should be left alone. My example in Orange Walk is one such place.





On Dec 3, 2009, at 8:14 AM, Margaret & Steven Eisenhauer wrote:

Hello,

I have just got to jump on this issue of degraded land. I have a back
ground in design/build/historic restoration but have also recently (6 years)
been working to bring an old orchard around. This year we have spent a lot
of money buying imported nutrition - hydrolyzed fish/seaweed/humic
acids/chicken pooh/elemental minerals with the benefit that we were able to
bring along crops to harvest such as apples, potatoes and tomatoes along
with the usual garden fare even though in the northeast we received 14
inches above average rain fall & it was quiet cool. I mention the potatoes
and tomatoes because most were destroyed by blight elsewhere in the region
this year.

I suspect all these fertility imports are unsustainable in a post oil world.
So how do I garner fertility without employing a tremendous amount of
overhead, and the work to apply these materials?

I am looking at the farm organism model whereby there are many players -
plants/animals/microbes/people - all of which will do work for food with the
potential result of balance and resource availability/fertility. This is
systems modeling but with the added WAG that goes along with learning from
experience and often failing.

It is not easy or cheap - So my hat is off to those that are trying new
things and letting us know about it!






-----Original Message-----
From: permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Scott Vlaun
Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2009 12:31 AM
To: permaculture
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Overly optimistic permaculture attitude
towardsland

When I interviewed Bill Mollison he related this story. it has always
inspired me not to be discouraged by poor soil.

http://www.seedsofchange.com/cutting_edge/interview.aspx

"...in Ecuador, around a little town whose name is Cangagua, when
they took the rain forest off there was only a thin layer of soil,
about a foot, and it washed away. Underneath that was silica, so all
the hills and valleys and everything's made out of glass. So you own
a glass landscape; how do you reclaim that? Standing on a glass hill
looking at a glass valley with a glass hill across the valley. Well,
one day, some of the troops in permaculture down there on the coast
noticed a guy up on one of those hills with a sledge hammer and he
was breaking the glass-which is thick-smashing it up and making a
sort of channel around the hill and then he was planting little trees
in the channel and they said, "Oh we can't let him do that on his
own," so they all went up there and helped him break channels around
the hills. And now they say there's a little jungle coming along but
it's going to take much longer than five to six years, but he decided
that he wasn't going to be dispirited by the glass. Cangagua, it's
called, after the town where it is. So, there are some very
discouraging places.

Since then we've managed to coax a trashed-out logging landing in the
woods, with very little soil and lots of erosion, into around five
thousand square feet of fertile raised beds, and produce some surplus
for our coop. We've gleaned tons of organic matter from local
resources but have also trucked in some locally made compost. Our
local cafe, conveniently located under our office in town and whom we
supply with greens, has been a great source of food waste which feeds
our chickens which feed the gardens. We've just discovered tons of
invasive plants that have been pulled from the local lake.

It seems like for most of us that are not blessed with 10 feet of
topsoil there are abundant resources of organic matter nearby in the
form of animal manures and food waste, not to mention of course
humanure which we'll all have to deal with to create anything close
to sustainable systems in the long run. CityFarm in Chicago is a
great example of a closed loop right in the city (no humanure...yet).
They have over an acre of organic production growing in windrows of
compost created from, among other sources, the waste stream of the
restaurants that they deliver produce to. Of course, plenty of fossil
fuel is burned in the process, but everything they do could be done
with human power. It will just take a lot more people.

We are now looking at two new projects which will need vast amounts
of organic matter to create soil. One is down a hill from a horse
farm and the other is in a small urban setting. In the former, a
private residence, the horses could haul their own manure to the
site, in the latter, a community garden project we could use bicycles
with trailers to haul waste in from the neighborhood.

I'm sure most of this group has read Heinberg's "50,000,000 Farmers"
essay. I still find it to be a source of inspiration and hope that we
can redefine "agriculture" to something that is human-scale,
community based, beautiful, and ultimately sustainable.

Scott Vlaun
Moose Pond Arts+Ecology
Design Solutions for a Sustainable Future

450 Main Street, Studio 2
Norway, Maine 04268
http://www.moosepondarts.com
207-739-2409 Studio




On Dec 2, 2009, at 1:20 PM, Rain Tenaqiya wrote:

As for myself, I was deeply influenced by Bill Mollison, and he
definitely seems like a booster to me. I remember him saying not to
worry too much about soil since you can always transform it with
organic matter and amendments (which is common in Australia given the
poor soil). His Global Gardener videos make it all look so easy. He
talks about how cheap earthworks are (not!) and gives inflated
statistics about how radically you can transform local climate. For
results within one person's lifetime, I'm learning to expect much less.


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_____________________________
Christopher Nesbitt

Maya Mountain Research Farm
San Pedro Columbia, Toledo
PO 153 Punta Gorda Town, Toledo
BELIZE,
Central America

www.mmrfbz.org







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