Rowan Reid (University of Melbourne, Forestry) recently suggested that every
farm should have 22.4% (from memory) of each farm in some kind of tree
cover...having travelled through Oklahoma last year I could see that much of
this state, like much of the rest of the great agricultural regions that we
travelled or worked in (US, brittle Europe, Argentina and Australia for that
matter) have done their level best to remove anything even looking like a
tree...so much so that any perennials don't even get a look in. A bare earth
policy prevails and so from that the dehumification cycle starts. So there
is much to be done at that level and it means using Holistic ManagementTM,
Keyline Design, Carbon Farming & Integrated Farm Forestry (especially Alley
or Avenue Farming) to start the rehumidification process.
As for the potential for dam failure due to leakage...a good idea is to
actually do some test holes with a backhoe or excavator and test the
substrate from which you are going to build the storage. I have the unedited
copy of the 2000 Permaculture Activist article on all of this at:
http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dct6rvhv_17gn3b6sfh . Doing some testing
is a good and I believe necessary part of the process of risk management,
especially these days when diesel is sooo expensive...even though these
structures and other well considered 'terraforming earthworks' are
appropriate for the objective of rehumidifying human landscapes.
The 'Great Agricultural Retrofit' as I call it starts however with the soil
and its coverage and management and there are no shortage of methods proven
to build soil on any scale...as Allan Savory puts it: "...Its all up to
human decision making..."
All the best,
Darren Doherty
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