Monthly Newsletter – Vía Orgánica

01/03/2024/by Vía Orgánica

Vía Orgánica Farm School

We welcome the year 2024. We begin with all the enthusiasm and energy to share and exchange experiences about the regenerative agriculture movement and to keep working for an environmental culture.
The essence of this project is to promote awareness of taking care of the planet, through different actions, among them, the experiences generated with our products and services from the Farm School.
Have you ever wondered how many times you have been in an ecological farm in action? Well, now is the time to do it!

Eco-tourism

Vía Orgánica’s agro-ecological park offers unique and memorable experiences. Enjoy a peaceful stay in the Jalpa Valley, the rustic cabins, which have been built on the ranch itself with adobe, a material that is made out of a mixture of clay soil and fibers, resulting in a compressed block of clay, which produces thermal constructions, allowing to cool down inside in the hot season and keeps it warm inside during the cold season. All the roofs of the buildings collect rainwater that is stored and used for irrigation and vegetable production; we also have solar energy and gray water filters. Our toilets are ecological, to avoid the use of water and compost waste.
Upon arrival at the ranch you will visit the different stations and areas to learn about the ecological management of plants, animals, forest areas, among others.
You will be able to enjoy a range of different dishes, made with local, seasonal ingredients, fresh salads and meals produced in a natural and regenerative way.
You can finish your experience watching a beautiful sunset from the lookout point, a quiet space at the top of the ranch with an incredible view. You can request a bonfire and bring a musical instrument.

Eco-Friendly Things to-do at the Farm School

In addition, you can rent a bicycle, take a ranger tour or walk along our hiking trail in the mountains; there is always plenty to do, no matter the season of the year.

As if that were not enough, you can attend the workshops offered throughout the year with diverse and very interesting topics such as: design and planning of your garden, composting, traditional cooking, ecological management of animals, medicinal plants, maguey breaking. It is important to tell you that we have activities for the whole family, school groups and fun activities for girls and boys.

Put together your custom package, enjoy and learn, be part of this movement and help us to promote tourism with integral and sustainable impact. Visit page here

Infographics

Seasonal Crops

Recipe of the Month

Rosemary Roasted Radishes
Ingredients (Serves 4)

Radishes 300 g
Garlic cloves 2
Fresh rosemary 2
Lemon 1
White wine 50 ml
Extra virgin olive oil
Ground black pepper
Salt

How to make rosemary roasted radishes. Difficulty: Easy

Preheat the oven to 200ºC and prepare a dish or tray. Wash the radishes well, removing the remains of soil and possible damaged parts, and cut the stalk -although the small leaves are edible-. Cut in quarters or in half, if they are small.

Place them in the dish and season with salt and pepper. Drizzle with a splash of good quality extra virgin olive oil, lemon zest and a little wine or white vermouth. Add the rosemary -we can use a couple of spoonfuls of dried rosemary- and season with salt and pepper, adding the unpeeled garlic cloves.

Bake for about 25-30 minutes, stirring the pan halfway through and adding a little more wine, if desired. Keep an eye on them towards the end of the cooking time and remove them when they are ready.

Meet the Animals from the Farm School

Tequila

This friendly and curious donkey is the oldest on the ranch, she has been with us since our beginnings, always showing her face to greet visitors and get a carrot. She also likes getting into mischief, like one time she tried to escape from a walk and lay down under a tree to avoid working. Thanks to her contribution of manure, many adobes and compost have been made. Meet Tequila on your next visit to the ranch by following the signs on the trails.

Next Workshops

EVERY FRIDAY WE TAKE YOU TO THE VÍA ORGÁNICA RANCH!

Includes transportation, lunch, mini tour of the garden and tamale making demonstration.

RESERVE ON THE FOLLOWING PHONES:
Office: 44 2757 0441
Whatsapp: 41 5151 4978

DON’T FORGET TO VISIT US!

Remember that we are open from 8 am to 6 pm
Carretera México/ Querétaro, turnoff to Jalpa, km 9
Agroecological Park Vía Orgánica.
For information on our products, seeds and harvest,
call our store at 442 757 0490.
Every Saturday and Sunday nixtamalized tortilla with Creole and local corn!
Enjoy our sweet and sour kale chips for children and not so children!

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The Definition of Regenerative Agriculture

12/22/2023/by Prof. Dr. André Leu D.Sc., BA Com., Grad Dip Ed.

There are claims that there is no clear definition of Regenerative Agriculture.

Regeneration International started the worldwide regenerative movement in 2015. We have published our definition many times. We are the oldest and most significant of all the inclusive regenerative agriculture movements working on all 6 arable continents on our planet. Consequently, we state with authority that our definition is the primary one.

By definition:

Regenerative systems improve the environment, soil, plants, animal welfare, health, and communities.

The opposite of Regenerative is Degenerative

This is an essential distinction in determining practices that are not regenerative.

Agricultural systems that use Degenerative Practices and inputs that damage the environment, soil, health, genes, and communities and involve animal cruelty are not regenerative.

The use of synthetic toxic pesticides, synthetic water-soluble fertilizers, genetically modified organisms, confined animal feeding operations, exploitive marketing and wage systems, destructive tillage systems, and the clearing of high-value ecosystems are examples of degenerative practices.

Such systems must be called degenerative agriculture to stop greenwashing and hijacking.

Regeneration International asserts that to heal our planet, all agricultural systems should be regenerative, organic, and based on the science of agroecology.

Different Definitions

Other organizations have put out different definitions of regenerative agriculture. These tend to be narrower than ours; however, most do not contradict our definition. They are equivalent.

It is the same with organic agriculture, with multiple definitions such as the USDA, the EU, the United Nations Codex Alimentarius, IFOAM – Organics International, over 100 national definitions, and numerous definitions in private standards. They are different. However, most do not tend to contradict each other. They are considered equivalent.

Significant contradictions exist in the numerous national and international organic standards and certification systems, resulting in inconsistencies so that most standards and certification systems are not considered equivalent.

Some of the examples are:

Europe allows antibiotic use in animals, whereas the USA and Australia prohibit it.
The USDA organic regulation permits carcinogenic nitrates as preservatives in processed meat, which is prohibited in most other countries.
The USDA allows hydroponics, which is prohibited by most standards and considered by many as the opposite of true organic agriculture. However, this is changing with other countries following the USDA’s lead and permitting hydroponics.
The European regulation encourages confined animal systems to the point that it wouldn’t give equivalence to organic animal products from Australia because their organic producers care for their animals on pasture.
European, USDA and Australian standards allow for very small pesticide residue levels, whereas many Asian organic standards prohibit any residue levels.

Many countries permit participatory guarantee systems (PGS) as a way to ensure fairness for small producers. PGS systems are based on farmers peer reviewing each other to ensure the integrity of organic claims rather than being certified by a third-party organization. Most professional groups, such as doctors, lawyers, and scientists, use peer review as a way to ensure the integrity of claims. Farmers should not be an exception. PGS has the advantage of being affordable for smaller farmers, especially in the global south, where third-party certification usually costs more than their annual income. The world’s largest organic markets, the EU and the US prohibit PGS and make it illegal for these producers to call their products, such as coffee, tea, and cocoa, organic. This is grossly unfair to some of the poorest farmers on the planet.

The fact is these significant differences in standards, and certification systems are the source of much disagreement in the national and international organic sectors. They have not been resolved despite decades of negotiations, protests, position papers, and discussions. There is no indication they will ever be resolved, and are resulting in the fragmentation of the organic and like-minded sectors.

Back to Basics with the Four Principles of Organic Agriculture

Regeneration International believes that rather than wasting decades trying to resolve the numerous inconsistencies and contradictions in standards, a more productive approach is determining if practices and inputs are regenerative or degenerative.

IFOAM-Organics International’s Four Principles of Organic Agriculture are the best criteria for determining this.

Health

Organic agriculture should sustain and enhance the health of soil, plant, animal, human and planet as one and indivisible.

Ecology

Organic agriculture should be based on living ecological systems and cycles, work with them, emulate them and help sustain them.

Fairness

Organic agriculture should build on relationships that ensure fairness with regard to the common environment and life opportunities.

Care

Organic agriculture should be managed in a precautionary and responsible manner to protect the health and well-being of current and future generations and the environment.

Why Focus on Regenerative Agriculture?

Most of the world’s population is directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture. Agricultural producers are amongst the most exploited, food and health-insecure, least-educated, and poorest people on our planet, despite producing most of the food we eat.

Agriculture in its various forms has the most significant effect on land use on the planet. Industrial agriculture is responsible for most environmental degradation, forest destruction, and toxic chemicals in our food and environment. It is a significant contributor to the climate crisis, up to 50%. The degenerative forms of agriculture are an existential threat to us and most other species on our planet. We must regenerate agriculture for social, environmental, economic, and cultural reasons.

The soil is fundamental to all terrestrial life on this planet. Our food and biodiversity start with the soil. The soil is not lifeless dirt – it is living, breathing, and teeming with life. The soil microbiome is our planet’s most complex and richest biodiversity area.

Farming practices that increase soil organic matter (SOM) increase soil fertility, water holding capacity, pest and disease resilience, and thus the productivity of agricultural systems. Because SOM comes from carbon dioxide fixed through photosynthesis, increasing SOM can significantly assist in reversing the climate crisis by drawing down this greenhouse gas.

The fact is our health and wealth come from the soil. However, our global regeneration movement is far more than this.

Regenerating our Degenerated Planet and Societies

We have much work to do. We live well beyond our planetary boundaries and extract far more than our planet can provide. As Dr. Vandana Shiva, one of our founders, puts it: “Regenerative agriculture provides answers to the soil crisis, the food crisis, the climate crisis, and the crisis of democracy.”

We must reverse the Climate Crisis, Migration Crisis, Biodiversity Crisis, Health Crisis, Food Crisis, Gender Crisis, and Media Crisis to regenerate our planet to have a better and fairer world.

More importantly, we must build a new regenerative system to replace the current degenerated system.

We have more than enough resources for everyone’s well-being. The world produces around three times more food than we need. We have unfair, exploitative, and wasteful systems that must be transformed and regenerated.

We must regenerate our societies and proactively ensure that others have access to land, education, healthcare, income, the commons, participation, inclusion, and empowerment. This must include women, men, and youths across all ethnic and racial groups.

We must take care of each other and regenerate our planet. We must take control and empower ourselves to be the agents of change. We must regenerate a world based on the Four Principles of Organic Agriculture: Health, Ecology, Fairness, and Care.

Ronnie Cummins, one of our founders, wrote: “Never underestimate the power of one individual: yourself. But please understand, at the same time, that what we do as individuals will never be enough. We’ve got to get organized, and we’ve got to help others in our region, our nation, and everywhere build a mighty Green Regeneration Movement. The time to begin is now.”

Why We Are Boycotting COP28

11/20/2023/by André Leu

Regeneration International and the Organic Consumers Association are boycotting COP28. We have participated in every COP since in Paris in 2015

The ministers from 196 countries, their entourages of staff, UN bureaucrats, and corporate executives will fly into Dubai in private jets and on first-class tickets. They will stay in 5-star hotels, eat in the finest restaurants, and be chauffeured in expensive luxury limousines to and from the talkfest at taxpayers’ expense. Hundreds of millions of dollars will be wasted on this extravagant display of corrupt excess. And don’t forget their massive greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change.

Like many other not-for-profit organizations, we have spent much money, time, and effort attending these events to stop catastrophic climate change. We flew cattle class, stayed in overpriced dives, and caught public transport to the meetings. We were allowed to observe but not participate in the negotiations. We were segregated in an observers area where we could hold side events to give our messages to a handful of like-minded people, preaching to the converted instead of being able to influence the negotiators.

The polluters have hijacked these international meetings. It is a classic case of regulatory capture, where instead of working for the people, the regulators work for the polluters. This year, COP 28 is being run by the Middle East oil and gas industry. COP 28 is being held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), one of the ten largest oil producers in the world.

Sultan Al Jaber, the CEO of the UAE’s state oil company, Adnoc, has been appointed as the President of COP 28. The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) stated that

Adnoc, pumped 2.7 million barrels of oil per day in 2021. Sultan Al Jaber plans to increase production to five million barrels daily by 2027.

The COPs have been a total failure as the rate of greenhouse gas emissions continuously increases. The international agreements are worthless as the targets are not being met. The fact that this northern hemisphere summer was the hottest on record says everything about the success of the previous 26 United Nations Climate Change COPs that started from the Rio Summit in 1992. 30 wasted years.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main greenhouse gas (GHG). The Mauna Loa Observatory on Hawaii’s big island measured CO2 at an average of 424 parts per million (ppm) in May 2023, the highest in 800,000 years. It is up 3 ppm on the May 2022 average, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data.

401 ppm CO2 was recorded in 2015, the year the United Nations Paris Agreement was adopted by 196 countries as an international treaty on climate change. The goal was to limit global warming to below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 to 3.6 °F).

CO2 emissions have been increasing by about 2.87 ppm per year since 2015. Emissions increased at 2 ppm per year in the decade before the Paris Agreement, so the emissions rate is rapidly accelerating. The Paris Agreement is a meaningless piece of paper as most countries are exceeding the emission reduction targets they committed to in 2015.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that the temperature will overshoot the Paris Agreement targets without additional mitigation to draw down this excess CO2. Global mean surface temperatures in 2100 will range from 6.7 to 8.6 °F (3.7 °C to 4.8 °C) compared to pre-industrial levels.

The targets have already been overshot, and the emissions rate is accelerating. Reducing emissions and transitioning to renewable energy are no longer sufficient to stop severe warming.

The IPPC states that the only way to limit global warming to 2.7 °F (1.5 °C) is to achieve net negative emissions (reverse emissions) by using carbon dioxide removal (CDR) to draw down CO2 from the atmosphere. It advocated for CDR technologies such as regenerating natural ecosystems and soil carbon sequestration.

Unfortunately, the opposite is happening. Instead of actively reducing emissions, scaling up renewable energy, regenerating natural ecosystems, and increasing soil carbon sequestration, money is being wasted on greenwashing scams and corruption.

Blood Carbon

To justify increasing their fossil fuel emissions, countries such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are funding dubious carbon trading schemes. The worst of these are called ‘Blood Carbon’ due to the way they are illegally evicting the First Nations owners from their land. It is a repeat of colonialism as they are stealing the land for these schemes.

A distressing example is the signed Framework of Collaboration (FOC) between UAE’s Blue Carbon and the Republic of Kenya for developing REDD+ projects and the origination of carbon credits for millions of acres on October 25, 2023. Before signing this agreement, a delegation of official representatives from Kenya, including the Deputy Director of Climate Change Mitigation, visited Blue Carbon’s offices in the UAE to discuss potential avenues of collaboration and opportunities.

This FOC closely followed a partnership announcement between Blue Carbon and the Republic of Zimbabwe on developing REDD+ projects on 18,750,000 acres (7.5 million hectares). Blue Carbon’s parent company, Global Carbon Investments, agreed to secure $1.5 billion for financing carbon credits in Zimbabwe. Blue Carbon recently signed MOUs with Liberia, Zambia, Tanzania, and Pakistan.

In October, before Kenya signed the FOC with Blue Carbon, the Kenyan president, William Ruto, ordered security agencies to remove the Ogiek people from the Mau Forest, the largest forest in the country. Ruto stated this was to drive Kenya’s climate change action. Forest rangers would evict the “illegal settlers,” causing the “wanton destruction of forests.” He further stated that protecting Mau forest resources was necessary to fight the climate crisis.

Ogiek woman Elisabeth Tabinoy sits in front of the remains of her torched and smashed home after a previous eviction. Ngongeri, Njoro, Kenya. © Lewis Davies/Survival. Courtesy of Survival International

The Ogiek people (Ogiek means ‘caretaker of all plants and wild animals’) are the traditional owners of the Mau Forest. They have lived there since time immemorial as the First Nation civilization that sustainably managed the complex ecosystem. Around 35,000 to 45,000 live in the one million-acre (400,000-hectare) Mau Forest Complex.

They have been subjected to brutal evictions and land grabs since the days of British colonial rule. Since independence, Kenyan authorities have carried out many violent and brutal evictions of the Ogiek, destroying homes and property and killing people who tried to protect their land. Corrupt officials gave the land to their political cronies, who logged the forest for substantial profits.

The Ogiek went to court to assert their land rights and ownership. The 2017 ruling by the African Court on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR) found that the government had violated the Ogiek’s land rights and explicitly recognized the Ogiek’s crucial role in conserving and protecting the Mau Forest.

The Kenyan government ignored the ACHPR ruling and evicted more Ogiek communities from the Mau Forest. The Ogiek went to the ACHPR a second time. They won a reparations ruling in 2022, stating that the government owed the Ogiek reparations for not complying with the 2017 ruling.

They are being evicted again, as I write (November 2023), on the basis that they are “illegal settlers,” causing the “wanton destruction of forests.” The Ogiek have responded to this by saying that they are the forest owners and protectors. The damage to the forest has been caused by the corrupt allocation of land to loggers and others who cut down the trees to either sell timber or charcoal.

Rangers from the Forestry and Wildlife Services, in collaboration with the police, are blatantly breaking the court ruling that the Ogiek own the land. They have illegally evicted up to 700 Ogiek people, destroying their homes by either dismantling or burning them. This is a massive human rights crime.

An Ogiek home burned to the ground during illegal and brutal evictions by the Kenyan authorities. © Anon. Courtesy of Survival International

The story of the Ogiek is just one of many First Nation communities who are fighting to save their traditional land from being stolen under the pretense of fighting climate change. Land grabs for carbon credits are just part of the problems caused by industrial approaches to climate change.

The Need to Remove GHG Emissions

Current annual global greenhouse gas emissions are increasing every year. Even if the world transitioned to 100% renewable energy tomorrow, this would not stop the temperature and sea level rise. The world will continue to heat up because CO2 lasts 300 to 1,000 years in the atmosphere. The oceans’ heat will continue adversely affecting the climate until it slowly dissipates.

We must do more than reach net zero. We need to remove the excess CO2 by drawing it down to achieve reverse emissions as soon as possible to avoid runaway global warming, wholesale biodiversity collapse, climate catastrophe, endless poverty-driven conflict, forced migration, and wars.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) states that limiting global warming to 1.5°C can only be achieved through net negative emissions using carbon dioxide removal (CDR) to draw down CO2 from the atmosphere. “All pathways that limit global warming to 1.5°C with limited or no overshoot project the use of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) on the order of 100–1000 Gt [billion tons] CO2 over the 21st century. CDR would be used to compensate for residual emissions and, in most cases, achieve net negative emissions to return global warming to 1.5°C following a peak (high confidence).”

The IPCC has advocated regenerating natural ecosystems and soil carbon sequestration as CDR technologies.

We are in a climate emergency now. We must reduce GHG emissions, speed up the transition to renewable energy, stop clearing all forests, regenerate ecosystems, and make a great effort to use the available nature-based methods to draw down CO2 from the atmosphere.

The current carbon credit system is based on trading carbon as a financial commodity that is bought and sold on markets like stocks and bonds. Most of the profits are made by the traders and scheme owners, with very little of the funds going to the landholders. It is an exploitative system that is currently being misused.

Rewarding Ecosystem Services

Rather than evicting traditional owners such as the Ogiek, First Nations communities and other land managers of ecosystems, such as forests and rangelands, should be financially rewarded for their ecosystem services. These include maintaining and/or regenerating natural and agroecosystems and soils. One of these ecosystem services is CDR.

Instead of trading carbon as a commodity on financial markets, the polluters should pay the people regenerating the climate and environment for the service of doing this. Currently, these services are being provided for free. The landholders doing the right things are being exploited.

The world must recognize that climate change, biodiversity loss, rainfall, water quality, and others would be far worse without these services. It is time to pay for the actual value of these services instead of taking them for free. This is real climate change and environmental justice.

Trillions of dollars have gone into various United Nations organizations, carbon credit schemes, and industrial-scale carbon capture and storage over the decades, with very little to show for it except for bulging bureaucracies with highly paid staff who produce reports and fund projects that funnel money through corrupt governments and billionaire cartels.

They have failed to stop the increasing GHG emissions, the destruction of forests, the vast loss of biodiversity, wars, the increase in weather extremes of droughts, fires, and floods, and the billions of undernourished people living in crushing poverty.

Instead of continuing to waste trillions of dollars, it must be redirected to compensate those providing the ecosystem services to regenerate our climate, environments, food and farming systems, and communities. This needs to be done with a new program that is not connected to the current corrupt and ineffective global system.

Regeneration International and the Organic Consumers Association are developing a program to do this. We will inform you about it soon.

Please support us to do this! Make a donation today.

Joint Statement Rebutting Distorted Media Lies About Sri Lanka’s Organic Pathway

10/18/2023/by Thilak Kariyawasam, Dr. Ranil Senanayake, Dr. Vandana Shiva, and Dr. Andre Leu

Agribusiness cartels and media articles stated that Sri Lanka’s economic chaos was caused by the government forcing the country to go organic.

These articles’ familiar false narratives, untruths, and language style show spin doctors wrote them from a PR company employed by pesticide/big agriculture cartels. They were cut and pasted by poor-quality journalists who did not fact-check.

The narrative was that the government forced farmers to become organic by banning chemical fertilizers. This caused crop failures and food shortages, which caused the riots causing economic chaos.

This is a gross distortion of the truth by falsely connecting dots. The economic chaos was not caused by the country going organic, as it hadn’t gone organic. The government was only planning to do so in the future.

Sri Lanka’s Economic Troubles

Sri Lanka was in severe economic trouble due to the build-up of financial debt caused by a combination of factors that began with the crippling financial drain, infrastructure damage, and social disruption of the decades-long civil war.

On top of this, tax cuts in 2019 reduced government revenue and deepened that country’s national debt. The 2020 Covid-19 pandemic decimated the tourism industry. All these factors caused a significant increase in inflation, contributing to shortages of food and essential goods and increasing food insecurity in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka was in severe economic and social trouble by the beginning of 2021.

The Import and Export Control Department banned the importation of chemical fertilizers on April 27, 2021, because they contributed over $400 million to the trade deficit. This was the start of a range of measures that would be proposed to create an economic recovery.

Organic Agriculture was not the Cause of Sri Lanka’s Economic Chaos

The ban on chemical fertilizers and agrochemicals was not to turn Sri Lanka into an organic country; it was to reduce Sri Lanka’s crippling national debt. A presidential task force was formed to develop a green, climate change-resilient economy of which organic agriculture was one aspect.

Sir Lanka never implemented a national organic transition program, so the campaign to blame the collapse of its economy on organic agriculture is pure misinformation based on a series of lies fed by a PR company to poor-quality journalists who did not fact-check.

The Rice Miller Oligarchies were Contributors to the Chaos

The traditional withholding of rice stocks and the artificial increases of prices that the rice miller oligarchies manufacture every year after the primary harvest season created artificial shortages that contributed to the chaos that started riots. Other contributing factors resulted from fuel and essential items shortages and excessive inflation, making everything more expensive and unaffordable.

Transitioning to Organic

The sudden reduction of fertilizer caused a decline in rice production. However, this was not because the country went organic. It takes three years to transition a farm to organic and decades to transition a country or region, as in the cases of the successful transitions of Bhutan and Sikkim. Just stopping chemical fertilizers does not make a farm organic. Cuba successfully transitioned to organic agriculture when fertilizers and oil were blockaded.

The national and international organic sectors advised the Sri Lankan Government to develop plans to manage the transition to organic and advised against the sudden cessation of fertilizers and agrochemicals. A plan was never developed for Sri Lanka, although a few proposals were started to begin the process that would require several years to implement.

Organic agriculture is not a system of neglect. Stopping chemical fertilizers and toxic agrochemicals does not make a farm organic. Organic agriculture has a variety of management systems to increase soil fertility and effectively manage weeds, pests, and diseases. These take years to develop, one of the reasons for a three-year transition period to achieve organic certification.

Higher Yields with Organic Agriculture

Transitioning to organic does not have to decrease yields. Best practice organic systems are getting equal to higher yields than industrial and agricultural systems, especially in developing countries like Sri Lanka.

Noémi Nemes from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) analyzed over 50 economic studies. She stated that the data: ‘… demonstrates that, in most cases, organic systems are more profitable than non-organic systems. Higher market prices and premiums, lower production costs, or a combination of the two generally result in higher relative profits from organic agriculture in developed countries. The same conclusion can be drawn from studies in developing countries, but there, higher yields combined with high premiums are the underlying causes of their relatively greater profitability.’

The critical issue is that organic agriculture provides a higher income and yields in developing countries. Yields can be significantly increased by teaching farmers to add science-based regenerative and organic practices to their traditional methods.

Increases in Rice Production

Rice is the most important staple food crop in Sri Lanka. There is ample evidence that rice production and profitability can increase with regenerative and organic agriculture based on the science of agroecology.

A research project conducted in the Philippines by MASIPAG found that the yields of organic rice were similar to industrial systems. The research project significantly compared the income between similar-sized industrial and organic farms and found that the average income for organic farms was 150% higher than for industrial farms.

The improvements in the science and practices of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) using regenerative and organic systems are getting impressive yields higher than the average for chemical fertilizer systems.

Professor Uphoff from Cornell University states: “SRI methods have often enabled poor farmers to double, triple, or even quadruple their yields, not just individually but on a village level, without purchasing new varieties or agrochemical inputs.”

The Future

The new Sri Lankan Government is working with the Lanka Organic Agriculture Movement (LOAM), EarthRestoration, and other stakeholders to develop a plan to implement organic agriculture.

The transition program is essential because of the current exceptionally high prices for synthetic fertilizers and the poor exchange value of the Sri Lankan currency; most farmers cannot afford these fertilizers. They are going into deep debt when they use them or have reduced yields by not using them because they haven’t been taught effective alternatives.

Adopting best-practice organic and regenerative systems based on the science of agroecology will ensure good yields and higher incomes for farmers without these expensive and toxic chemicals.

The world will have to transition to fossil fuel-free organic agriculture to address climate change since industrial agriculture and fossil fuel emissions are significant drivers of climate change.

Navdanya and Regeneration International will continue supporting the Sri Lankan organic movement in achieving this critical outcome.

October 18, 2023
Thilak Kariyawasam, Lanka Organic Agriculture Movement (LOAM)
Dr. Ranil Senanayake, EarthRestoration
Dr. Vandana Shiva, Navdanya
Dr. Andre Leu, Regeneration International

Monthly Newsletter – Vía Orgánica

10/05/2023/by Vía Orgánica

Eco-techniques and Ecological Construction

The Ranch School is complemented by the ecological construction of the adobe cabins, a thermal material that allows temperature regulation. When the weather is cold, the cabins stay warm, and when it is hot, they stay cool.

The adobe is made on the ranch with a mixture of fine earth, slightly sandy soil and horse manure. The materials are mixed with water until a dense paste is formed, which is placed in molds and left to dry in the sun.

For maintenance, after the rains, a mixture of cactus slime and earth is applied to the walls with a brush to waterproof the adobe walls.

Cisterns have been placed under each adobe building to store rainwater collected from the roofs.

In addition, we have dry toilets that are similar to conventional toilets, the only difference is that there is no flushing of water each time they are used. Their operation is ecological because the solids are separated in a cavity and are treated with dry soil, biochar or sawdust to dehydrate the waste and compost it, so that it can be integrated into the forest areas; the liquids are also separated and can be used once they have fermented, diluted in water in forest areas.

The use of ecological toilets avoids the use of water and allows the waste to be managed so that it can be incorporated through composting.

As part of the demonstration space, we have a prototype of a fuel-saving stove that allows us to make efficient use of firewood for cooking and take full advantage of the heat. Another eco-friendly device we use is the CATIS ceramic filter, which allows us to filter rainwater for drinking water.

These eco-technologies together allow us to equip a house in an ecological way, making the most of the resources in an efficient and environmentally friendly way.

Learn more about our eco-techniques at the school ranch and learn how to implement them in your home!