permaculture

[Robyn Francis <erda@nor.com.au>]

I¹m forwarding this request from Petra and IDEP who are working in the
volcano disaster zone in Java.  If you know of any helpful information,
research papers, anyone who¹s worked in fresh volcanic ash land rehab and
anything about use of volcanic ash in agriculture please let me know ­ I¹m
reading through, summarising and extracting relevant info to send on to
IDEP.  
Thanks
Robyn

------ Forwarded Message
From: Petra Schneider <petra@idepfoundation.org>
Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2010 08:49:07 +0800
To: Robyn Francis <robyn@permaculture.com.au>, John Champagne
<brogopg@bigpond.net.au>
Cc: "Coordination @ IDEP" <coordination@idepfoundation.org>, Melissa Loh
<melissa@idepfoundation.org>
Subject: Volcanic Ash


Hi Robyn and John,

Wondering if you are able / willing to help me with some advice. There is A
LOT of volcanic ash over in Java at the moment. A LOT.
> There are also some strong organic farmers networks (of course their fields
> are all trashed and at the moment they are refugees but they are anxious to
> get working again as soon as possible.
> 
> I was thinking maybe we could do some rapid research about:
> 1. what needs to be mixed with the ash so it makes viable soil and people 
> can
> start planting again
> 2. when that could safely start to happen
> 3. what the beneficial factors of the minerals in the ash are, if they can 
> be
> useful in other places maybe it can be packed up and sold to other areas as 
> a
> soil supplement? Help people over there make some income????

> Please send me any thoughts / advice you might have an this / other ideas of
> what we could do asap.... Santi and Tewel are being sent back to Bali on
> Wednesday (they have been in the field over a week and I am worried about
> their lungs need a breather so to speak) but we want to keep working on 
> deeper
> solutions while supporting immediate needs. So if there is any field 
> research
> / etc they need to do now we have a small window within which we can do 
> that.
> 
> Thanks so much
> 
> P
> 
> Petra Schneider
> Development Advisor, IDEP Foundation