Producing Food and Capturing Carbon

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Author: rty Mangan | Published: 

An interview with Ariel Greenwood, a “feral agrarian” and grazer who manages a herd of cattle while restoring ecosystems.

Describe where you work.

I live and work on a 3,000-acre research preserve in the inter-coastal Mayacamas mountain range region of Sonoma County. Pepperwood has around 1,000 acres of open grassland, another several hundred of mixed oak woodland mosaic, deciduous and evergreen, and some serpentine outcropping, and then some dense dark woodlands. We actually have, I think, the eastern most stand of redwoods in the County. There’s a lot of bay trees and scrubby chaparral too in its own natural state. It’s a really breathtaking and in many ways really challenging landscape.

Pepperwood is a private operating research and ecological preserve. Really, every aspect from the vegetation to the soil to the broader watershed, and then even more largely the climate that we’re situated in is monitored and researched here with staff and other visiting researchers, so it’s very much a progressive conservation-oriented place. This is considered quite a robust eco-tone, the meeting of several different environments.

How does holistic management differ from conventional thinking and methodology?

It’s a broad question, because holistic management is a pretty broad comprehensive platform. But essentially holistic management is a way of managing complexity; it emerged from Allan Savory who is a Zimbabwean biologist and researcher in Africa as a way to attend to some of the problems that were plaguing ranches and grassland preserves in that area. What he found was that while people may profess to have certain values, we often do not manage our projects or ourselves in a way to actually honor those values and those goals.

Here, what that means for our planned grazing is that we regularly compare notes with the preserve about what its goals are in grazing. I graze for a company called Holistic Ag. We are a separate entity from Pepperwood, but we are essentially operating their conservation grazing program. The goal of that program is to steward grasslands, and that looks like many different things, but it’s all predicated on the notion that grasslands need grazing in order to stay healthy. So the grazing here is intended to mitigate the spread of invasive exotic annual grasses and other species. It’s intended to propagate and revitalize native bunchgrasses like Stipa pulchra. It’s intended to improve soil condition and water holding capacity, to mitigate the spread of coyote brush, which in turn mitigates the spread of Douglas fir.

Holistic Ag, of course, has its own goals on top of that. The herd was formed as an ecosystems services company, but because we are doing this with domestic cattle and have to be able to pay for the expense of doing so, we produce and sell beef, which I market under my own brand, Circle A Beef. That means we have to keep our animals healthy. There’s that added layer of complexity, but all of that is intended to be harmonized with the outstanding ecological goal of the place.

So, holistic management allows us to discover those goals, articulate those goals, and then test our decisions against those goals. A really important principle I find very hard to practice, but nonetheless very important in holistic management, is this idea that you’re supposed to assume that you are wrong, so you are actually looking for evidence that you’re right rather than assuming you’re right and, as it often turns out, avoiding evidence that you are wrong.

Because it’s so complex here in California, especially in the Mayacamas, and because we are in not only seasonally dry and wet areas, but pretty significant hills, just moving cattle sensitively across the landscape is another layer of complexity.

Holistic management is just a way to check all of our decisions and make sure they are in keeping with our actual goals. I find that if we didn’t have goals, it would be so easy to drift from our mission. Holistic management puts ecology on the forefront. That is one thing that is kind of non-negotiable with holistic management, whether it is managing a company, a ranch, or a research preserve, or all of those combined. The idea is that if you are managing for the whole, you can’t externalize costs, and the most easily externalized cost is the environmental cost. Social cost is often pretty invisible too.

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Can Agroecology Feed the World and Save the Planet?

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Author:Henrietta Moore | Published on: October 9, 2016

You wouldn’t necessarily know it, but right now Africa is facing a food crisis. With Brexit, global terror attacks, the war in Syria and the seemingly endless string of sporting fixtures vying for our collective attention in 2016 so far, the fact that up to 50 million people across east and Southern Africaare at risk of hunger seems to have largely escaped mention.

The continent has been wracked by drought following one of the strongest ever El Niños. And while a natural phenomenon is the immediate cause, however, Africa’s food security has been undermined over recent decades by the rise of monocropping – the planting of single-crop tracts across vast swathes of scarce arable land.

Starting in the 1960s, the “green revolution” saw industrial farming practices transplanted to poorer nations. In the second half of the 20th century, its success seemed unassailable: the global harvest of maize, wheat and rice trebled from 640 million tonnes in 1961 to almost 1.8 billion tonnes by 2000.

Africa, in particular, embraced new maize varieties with alacrity. Corn now covers up to 70% of some African nations’ farmland and accounts for about 50% of calories consumed by humans.

But the enormous cost to the land and people is now becoming clear. A recent report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) summed up the problem bluntly, stating: “Past agricultural performance is not indicative of future returns”.

The meticulously-researched document concludes that the green revolution’s “quantum leap” in cereal production has come at the price of soil degradation, salinisation of irrigated areas, over-extraction of groundwater and the build-up of pest resistance. Add climate change into the mix and you have a recipe for disaster. While Africa’s population is set to double to 2.4 billion by 2050, the FAO warns that maize yields could fall by nearly 20% over that period.

The problem is affecting not just quantity, but quality. Lack of rotation and over-use of phosphates and nitrates has degraded the nutrient content of the soil, leaving 2 billion people globally suffering micronutrient malnutrition, many in sub-Saharan Africa.

KEEP READING ON ECO WATCH

How Crop Waste Can Give It Back to Soil and Keep the Air Clean Too

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Author:  | Published on: October 10, 2016

NEW DELHI: US-based Brian Von Herzen and his team at Climate Foundation India believe that agricultural waste can be processed into not just something useful for farmers but also enrich the soil by putting back carbon into it.

Paddy straw and wheat residues are usually burned by farmers in Punjab and Haryana in the absence of affordable alternatives to dispose them of. Every year, in November and February , burning of agricultural res idue in these states causes severe air pollution in Delhi.

According to Climate Foundation India’s proposal for the Urban Labs Innovation Challenge, nearly 60 mega tonnes of rice straw is burnt openly annually . Haryana and Punjab comprise 48% of total emissions due to rice straw burning across India. “During the months rice straw is burned, PM 2.5 (fine, respirable pollution particles) levels commonly exceed 400 parts per million,” it said.

The team at Climate Foundation India proposes to make biochar out of the agricultural residue instead. Inspired by scientist James Lovelock’s Gaia theory, which explained how the soil can act as an effective sink for greenhouse gases, Brian’s team developed a “charvester”-an equipment that harvests grain and cuts the straw at the same time.

KEEP READING ON THE GUARDIAN

Governor Signs Bill to Help Farmers Adapt to Climate Change

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Published on: September 15, 2016

State Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Solano, chair of the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Resources, Environmental Protection, Energy and Transportation, applauded Gov. Jerry Brown’s approval this week of numerous budget measures on resources, including a number of bills to help the state reach its climate change goals.

The governor signed legislation Wednesday establishing a $7.5 million Healthy Soils Program to support agricultural practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and store carbon in soil, trees and plants. The bill, which funds the state’s cap-and-trade program, includes the language of Wolk’s Senate Bill 1350 to establish and fund the Healthy Soils Program.

“By providing farmers and ranchers with greater access to programs and other resources, the state will not only help agriculture adapt to climate change but will also help this sector play an important role in addressing climate change by reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and storing, or sequestering, carbon in the soil,” Wolk said in a press release. “I applaud the governor’s decision to establish and fund the Healthy Soils program, as well as other important programs such as those to provide clean drinking water to disadvantaged communities and protect our state’s natural resources.”

Senate Bill 859 will establish a Healthy Soils Program to support projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural operations and increase carbon sequestration, or storage, in agricultural soil. Benefits to increased health of agricultural soils include the ability to store more carbon and other greenhouse gases through sequestration, provide more nutrients for plants, retain more water, and reduce erosion — resulting in improved air and water quality, water conservation, enhanced wildlife habitat and healthy rural communities.

KEEP READING ON THE REPORTER

Resistance Is Fertile: It’s Time to Prioritize Agroecology

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Author: Colin Todhunter | Published on: August 29, 2016

Food is becoming unhealthy and poisoned with chemicals, while diets are becoming less diverse. There is a loss of plant and insect diversity, which threatens food security, soils are being degraded, water tables polluted and depleted and smallholder farmers, so vital to global food production, are being squeezed off their land and out of farming.

Over the last 60 years or so, Washington’s plan has been to restructure indigenous agriculture across the world. And this plan has involved subjugating nations by getting them to rely more on U.S. imports and grow less of their own food. Agriculture and food production and distribution have become globalized and tied to an international system of trade based on export-oriented mono-cropping, commodity production for the international market, indebtedness to international financial institutions (IMF/World Bank) and the need for nations to boost foreign exchange (U.S. dollar) reserves to repay debt.

This has resulted in food surplus and food deficit areas, of which the latter have become dependent on agricultural imports and strings-attached aid. Food deficits in the global South mirror food surpluses in the West.

Whether through IMF-World Bank structural adjustment programs, as occurred in Africa, trade agreements like NAFTA and its impact on Mexico or, more generally, deregulated global trade rules, the outcome has been similar: the devastation of traditional, indigenous agriculture.

KEEP READING ON THE HUFFINGTON POST

Watersheds Lost up to 22% of Their Forests in 14 Years. Here’s How It Affects Your Water Supply

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Author: Yyuan Qin and Todd Gartner | Published on: August 30, 2016

Drought in Sao Paulo. Flooding in the Himalayas. And pollution in Sumatra. These three distinct water crises have a common cause—degradation in forests.

That’s because upstream forests, wetlands and other “natural infrastructure” play a critical role in supplying clean water downstream. They stabilize soil and reduce erosion, regulate water flow to mitigate floods and droughts, and purify water. Yet the world’s watersheds lost 6 percent of their tree cover on average from 2000-2014, putting citizens at risk of losing their water supplies.

Global Forest Watch (GFW) Water, a global mapping tool and database launched today, examines how forest loss, fires, unsustainable land use and other threats to natural infrastructure affect water security throughout the world. GFW Water provides data sets, statistics and risk scores for all of the world’s 230 watersheds, areas of land where all of the water drains to a common outlet such as a river. Users can drop a pin anywhere to learn about the risks to the water supply near them, and find resources on how investing in natural infrastructure protection can help alleviate these threats.

KEEP READING ON WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE

Is Climate Change Reversible? Can Regenerative Agriculture Farming Solve the Climate Crisis?

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[ English | Español ]

Author: Greg Reitman | Posted on: January 19, 2015 

How to deal with our carbon problem in lieu of climate change was the big question being asked on Monday September 22nd at the Rodale Institute.

We heard from such speakers such as Dr. Vandana Shiva; Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association; Mark Smallwood, the head of the Rodale Institute; Andre Leu of IFOAM; Dr. Richard Teague from Texas A&M University; and Tom Newmark, Co-Founder, The Carbon Underground.

Scientists and world leaders of agrarian reform met to discuss how to reverse climate change by bringing excess atmospheric CO2 back home to the soil, where, as soil carbon, it can improve food production, resilience to climate extremes, and water management. And yes, actually, quickly remove the perilous excesses of CO2 that threatens humanity.

Tom Newmark led the presentation with an analogy: imagine a morbidly obese patient going to a physician. Weighing 400 pounds, the patient struggles daily and fears for the future. The physician makes the obvious diagnosis: you’re severely overweight, he tells the patient. You need to go on a diet! So the doctor then maps out a diet that will keep the patient from gaining any more weight, but will keep him at 400 pounds. The patient is bewildered, but that’s all the physician has to offer. Just don’t gain any more weight.

KEEP READING ON HUFFINGTON POST

River Pollution Puts 323m at Risk from Life-Threatening Diseases, Says UN

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Author: Arthur Neslen | Published on: September 22, 2016

Waste water, pesticide run-off and pollution threatens people across Africa, Asia and Latin America. Regulation, data and business action are needed.

A week before Russia’s Daldykan river was turned red by a leak from a metals plant, the UN issued a warning as chilling as it was overlooked: 323 million people are at risk from life-threatening diseases caused by the pollution of rivers and lakes.

Cholera, typhoid and other deadly pathogens are increasing in more than half of the rivers in Africa, Asia and Latin America, according to a UN environment programme (Unep) report. Salinity levels have also risen in nearly a third of waterways.

Asia has been worst hit, with up to 50% of all rivers now affected by severe pathogen pollution caused by a cocktail of untreated waste water disposal, agricultural pesticides run-off and industrial pollution.

In a telling footnote to the Russian Norilsk disaster, Nasa released satellite images on 15 September showing that far from being a one-off, the Daldykan river had turned red on multiple occasions in the past 20 years.

KEEP READING ON THE GUARDIAN

Bill Mollison: The Birth of a Global Movement

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Author: Bill Mollison | Published on: January 28, 2016

In 1981, Bill Mollison, the co-founder of permaculture, won the Right Livelihood Award. This is his acceptance speech. It explains his motivations, how he began the global permaculture movement from nothing and his determination to find solutions amid ecological collapse.

I grew up in a small village in Tasmania. I was born in 1928, but my village might have existed in the 11th century. We didn’t have any cars; everything that we needed we made. We made our own boots, our own metal works, we caught fish, grew food, made bread. I didn’t know anybody who lived there who had one job, or anything that you could define as a job. Everybody had several jobs.

As a child I lived in a sort of a dream and I didn’t really awake until I was about 28. I spent most of my working life in the bush or on the sea. I fished, I hunted for my living. It wasn’t until the 1950s that large parts of the system in which I lived were disappearing. First, fish stocks became extinct. Then I noticed the seaweed around the shorelines had gone. Large patches of forest began to die. I hadn’t realised until those things were gone that I’d become very fond of them, that I was in love with my country. This is about the last place I want to be; I would like to be sitting in the bush watching wallabies. However, if I don’t stand here there will be no bush and no wallabies to watch. The Japanese have come to take away most of our forest. They are using it for newsprint. I notice that you are putting it in your waste‑paper basket. That’s what has happened to the life systems I grew up in.

It’s always a mark of danger to me when large biological systems start to collapse, when we lose whole stocks of fish, as we’ve lost whole stocks of herring, and many stocks of sardines, when we lose huge areas of the sea bottom which were productive in scallops and oysters. When we enquire why this happens, it comes back to one thing: the use of energy sources not derived from the biological system.

KEEP READING ON PERMACULTURE

Urban Farming, Africa Style

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Author: Richard Farrell | Published on: September 7, 2016

When I was in junior school in Cape Town in the late fifties / early sixties, ‘grand apartheid’ had not yet kicked in. While schools and buses already had racial segregation, we lived in an integrated suburb comprising different cultures some of whom set their gardens aside for agriculture.

The government’s final solution included separating the races, and passing stricter urban planning rules. These prohibited all forms of business on residential plots, including keeping livestock and agriculture. We emerged as a free country in 1994. Ten years later, the Tshwane University of Technology Centre for Organic and Smallholder Agriculture reported that 48% of the people still lived below the breadline.

Many of these have abandoned their traditional homes in the hinterland, and trekked to South African metropolitan municipalities in hope of a better life. They congregate in vast squatter camps the government tries to replace with starter houses. The people continue to stream in. Demand will grow faster than supply until entrepreneurship replaces social dependence.

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR CITY AGRICULTURE

This change has started. On 11 March 2016 David Olivier, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Global Change and Sustainability Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand posted a paper titled ‘Uprooting Patriarchy: Gender and Urban Agriculture on South Africa’s Cape Flats’. The Cape Flats is a low-lying area around Cape Town Airport between the Cape Town mountain massif and the hinterland.

Geologically speaking, the area is essentially a ‘vast sheet of aeolian sand, ultimately of marine origin, which has blown up from the adjacent beaches over a period of the order of a hundred thousand years.’ In the summer, blistering winds blast the sand against your legs. In the winter, every winter, there are floods.

KEEP READING ON PERMACULTURE REASEARCH INSTITUTE