The Super Tree

From an article by Ochieng’ Ogodo on 27 August 2009

African farmers could triple yields by planting a type of acacia tree that sheds its nitrogen-rich leaves in time for the growing season alongside their crops.

“Besides organic fertiliser and livestock fodder for farmers, it also acts as a windbreak, provides wood for fuel and construction and cuts erosion by loosening the soil to absorb water during the rainy season. The tree becomes dormant and sheds its leaves during the early rainy season at the time when seeds need fertiliser and regrows them at the beginning of the dry season, so not competing with crops for light” he said at the 2nd World Congress of Agroforestry in Nairobi this week.

Planting the trees can nearly triple yields, he says. In Malawi, maize yields under the acacia canopy are 280 per cent higher than outside it.

http://www.scidev.net/en/news/acacia-tree-can-boost-crops-and-more-across-africa.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_news

Early Rice Harvests Ease Annual Famine In Bangladesh

Problem:

In Bangladesh  Monga ( famine that affects 2 million households from Sept to Dec when food has run out) can be decreased by

• Planting seed directly into ground instead of the usual method used in Asia.

[The rice seeds are sown by hand in special nursery beds. Then they are transplanted to rice fields.]

• Using a seed with shorter growing season

What is achieved?

• The growing season 25 – 40 days shorter
• Increases rice yield
• Direct planting reduces planting costs
• This permits growing of 2^nd crop eg maize, potato wheat chickpeas or vegetables
• Give 2 lots of work to landless peasants

Full article found here:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090722093808.htm

1.02 Billion People Hungry: One Sixth Of Humanity Undernourished, More Than Ever Before

The cause is NOT poor global harvest. It IS the global economic crisis which has lead to lower incomes and more unemployment and also stubbornly high food prices in many poorer countries.  About 100 million more people are chronically hungry than last year.

The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).say that encouraging the poorer countries to invest in farming and so gain local food security is the only way to solve the problem.

FAO’s Director-General Jacques Diouf say that “Many of the world’s poor and hungry are smallholder farmers in developing countries. Yet they have the potential not only to meet their own needs but to boost food security and catalyse broader economic growth. For most developing countries there is little doubt that investing in smallholder agriculture is the most sustainable safety net, particularly during a time of global economic crisis,”

The full article is here. It also includes some useful stuff on migration:

• Urban migrants are loosing their jobs so less money is being sent back to their families in the country
• Many of them are going back home adding to the rural unemployed

RESTORING THE LIVELIHOODS OF POST-TSUNAMI VICTIMS IN THE MALDIVES WITH IRIS AUTOPOTS

I saw this article here about how this innovate method of farming in uncompromising circumstances was leading to improved community facilities (aka Fair trade-type arrangement) as well as  local people earning a better and more sustainable living using these autopots. It would seem that the Maldives are very sandy are were not much use for agriculture but are now into producing golden melons much loved by the tourists! And the system is sustainable, eco friendly etc.  etc. So I went searching and found this picture.

What appears to be the way it works is that water + nutrients flow through the pipe to a valve on the lower right – the little box then fills and allows liquid through to the tray on the left. Once full, the valve closes and does not open again until all the liquid has been taken up by the plant in the big pot.

These are the types used in the Maldives. However, in many other areas big commercial systems using the same system in big banks  in China and many other places in Malaysia (where it was first developed) and other Far Eastern Countries.

GM corn comes a step closer to a complete meal

There have been plenty of promise that GM foods could help alleviate third world health problems. But precious little evidence that it had been achieved – until now.

Scientists have for the first time genetically modified white corn to increase the levels of several different vitamins — bringing closer the prospect of crops that can deliver full nutritional requirements.

The team increased the levels of beta-carotene, the precursor of vitamin A 170-fold; levels of vitamin C six-fold and also doubled the folic acid in the African staple.

See here for more details

Lives changed by a millipede

This is in Kenya, near Mombasa

Look around at the lush and fertile landscape and it’s hard to believe that this is a man-made environment. Yellow weaver birds making a huge din whilst building their pendulous nests, a sleek cormorant prepares to dive into the water and even a hippo wallows in the mud.

The hippo as it turns out has a vital role to play in the ecosystem. The mud on it’s back is removed from the ponds and so stops the water hole from silting up. The crocodiles too play their part. They feed on the dead farm animals or remnants from the thriving organic fish-farm. And their excreta helps fertilise the water making the algae grow, which is food for the fish as well as nutrients for the rice paddies and bananas

Only 30 years ago – this thriving forest landscape was a rocky, lunar-like desert, created by mining coral for cement. Actually, there are still parts of it which have been newly quarried to give one an idea of how it all started. The inspiration behind the transformation is Dr. Rene Haller, a Swiss agronomist, who has just celebrated his 50th anniversary of living on the Kenyan Coast.

He started experimenting with different trees to see if any would put down roots into the dry, rocky terrain. The Casuarina tree, whose seeds had been washed onto Kenyan shores when Krakatoa erupted in the 1860s, was the best candidate. It produces nutrients in nodules on its roots and so is self-sustaining

But Haller’s most miraculous discovery was the beneficial effects of the millipede. This marvellous red-legged insect loves eating the needles dropped by the casuarinas. It’s pooh then becomes the humus for the more vegetation – thus starting the whole ecosystem development.

Haller’s vision didn’t stop there. He managed to set up lots of different business enterprises supported by rehabilitated land, both employing and providing food for hundreds of local people. He also managed to demonstrate the value of conservation – for example, by showing farmers the benefits of tree-planting in preserving water for irrigation.

To find out more about his ideas go to www.haller.org.uk

Consumer demand for Fairtrade products ’set to explode

3rd April 2009 17:42  Here

There will be an “explosion” in the growth of demand for Fairtrade product over the next few years as consumers are increasingly disillusioned with the way the global economy is run, an expert has said. Giles Robertson of independent non-profit organisation the Fairtrade Foundation said households also see a “direct connection” between buying Fairtrade products and helping people in the developing world. According to a recent survey carried out by the foundation, 25 per cent of UK shoppers now regularly buy several products bearing the Fairtrade mark. Recognition of the mark is also increasing, with 70 per cent saying they recognised it last year, compared to 57 per cent in 2007. Among 25 to 34-year-olds, 76 per cent can identify the symbol, the survey found. “People are increasingly look for new ways to potentially make a difference and increasingly we are seeing that people see buying a Fairtrade product as a real opportunity to make a development impact,” Mr Robertson said. Sales of Fairtrade goods increased 72 per cent between 2006 and 2007.

Brazilian City Makes Food A Basic Right And Ends Hunger by Jeff Nield,

Popular (People’s Restaurant) by Bruno Spada/MDS Back in 1993, the newly elected city government of Belo Horizonte, Brazil declared that food was a right of citizenship. At that time, the city of 2.5 million had 275,000 people living in absolute poverty, and close to 20 percent of its children were going hungry. Since the declaration the city has all but wiped out hunger and only spends 2% of the city budget to do so. So how did they make it happen? Writing in the Spring edition of Yes! Magazine Frances Moore Lappé, author of the classic book Diet For A Small Planet, digs into how Belo Horizonte residents and government officials keep their city food secure. The city agency developed dozens of innovations to assure everyone the right to food, especially by weaving together the interests of farmers and consumers. It offered local family farmers dozens of choice spots of public space on which to sell to urban consumers, essentially redistributing retailer mark-ups on produce-which often reached 100 percent-to consumers and the farmers. Farmers’ profits grew, since there was no wholesaler taking a cut. And poor people got access to fresh, healthy food. Once the concept of food as a right took hold a variety of different methods for getting healthy food to the people emerged. Entrepreneurs are given the chance to bid on high-traffic plots of land to sell produce. In return they agree to sell 20 or so fresh produce items at 3/4 of the going market price, and the rest of their produce can be sold at the market price. Three large scale “People’s Restaurants” serve healthy meals to 12,000 people a day for the equivalent of $0.50, and innovative school programs ensure that students are well fed. Belo’s food security initiatives also include extensive community and school gardens as well as nutrition classes. Plus, money the federal government contributes toward school lunches, once spent on processed, corporate food, now buys whole food mostly from local growers. In just a decade Belo Horizonte cut its infant death rate—widely used as evidence of hunger—by more than half, and today these initiatives benefit almost 40 percent of the city’s 2.5 million population. One six-month period in 1999 saw infant malnutrition in a sample group reduced by 50 percent. And between 1993 and 2002 Belo Horizonte was the only locality in which consumption of fruits and vegetables went up.

The last word goes to Lappé who says, “Hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but a scarcity of democracy”.

Mustard Seed Meal Suppresses Weeds

During processing, the useful oils are extracted from the mustard plant, leaving mustard seed meal, or MSM, as a byproduct.  This has been shown to suppress annoying weeds like common chickweed, creeping woodsorrel and liverwort and many grasses. So it is hoped that organic farmers may have an alternative to hand weeding. However, while it works well for some crops, other crops also suffer some damage. Hence scientists are running trials to see how the chemicals in MSM can be most appropriately used. For more see here

Organic farming ‘could feed Africa’

YES!

An analysis of 114 projects in 24 African countries found that yields had more than doubled where organic, or near-organic practices had been used. That increase in yield jumped to 128 per cent in east Africa. The study found that organic practices outperformed traditional methods and chemical-intensive conventional farming. It also found strong environmental benefits such as improved soil fertility, better retention of water and resistance to drought.

And there is more. Find out about Henry Murage here.