Tag Archive for: Regenerative

Why We must Reclaim Our Movement’s Language from Corporate Takeover

Watch this presentation by Regeneration International’s Steering Committee Dr. Vandana Shiva, and international director Dr. André Leu to hear their message on the importance of reclaiming our movement’s language from corporate takeover.

May 11th and 12th, 2023, RI’s friends and affiliates, Compassion in World Farming and IPES-Food, hosted the Extinction or Regeneration conference in the heart of London at the Queen Elizabeth II Center in Westminster, which provided a platform for experts across the globe to share solutions for how we can transform our food and farming systems for better human, animal, and planetary health via a whole food systems approach to providing sufficient nutritious food for an expanding world population while remaining within the safe operating space of all nine planetary boundaries while protecting wild and domestic animals and restoring soils, oceans, forests, and biodiversity.

La Esmeralda: Regenerative Specialty Organic Coffee Farm

La Esmeralda, farm in the Municipality of Circasia is located at 1400 meters above sea level. Approximately 10 kilometers from the capital of the department. We have been working in this area for about 9 years with different varietal of coffee, a different coffee growing model.”

Previously on this farm 30 years of continuity in the hands of Felipe’s father-in-law, there was a conventional coffee crop, according to the guidelines of the federation.

Since they started with a new project, the first thing they did was to eradicate the coffee plantation and start from scratch with an “agroforestry” system in which they basically have shady transitional type:

Higuerillas (shrub plant, castor bean) and Musáceas (banana) especially plantain and banana and also have some final shady with forest trees mainly trees in the area that are excellent for nitrogen fixation such as Guamos is a process that has always been working without chemical synthesis products, everything is an organic agriculture process, initially it is a slow moment, it is something very difficult, because the trees in this transition are susceptible, practically to all kinds of pests, but once biodiversity begins to enter, the banana grows , the castor grows, and the forest trees are also growing, those of the shade.

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The Hope of Regeneration: Together

As I write this little note, Western Zimbabwe is in a dry and hot spell at an absolutely wrong time of the year. As agro-pastoral farmers, we are facing a bit of panic for the lagging crops that still needed a bit of rain, the crops that were ripened had to take an early drying. It’s a bit of a dilemma, as any rainfall now will cause sprouting of the drying grains and other root crops like peanuts and bambara nuts.

We are, on the other hand facing really hard times with Cyclone Freddy causing loss, of lives and properties in the Southern African region. Cyclone Freddy, having come in through Madagascar, is now in Malawi and making its way to Zambia and my home country Zimbabwe is under threat of this raging storm. The uneasiness that these moments stimulate, tends to bring a huge wave of hopelessness.

However, the potential of regenerative agriculture, stories of farmers, and many different humans of earth in regeneration have stimulated most of us to keep going. We now more than ever, need the hope of working TOGETHER, humans and nature to bring Team humanity out of the vicious cycles degeneration.

Photo credit: IGugu Trust-Zimbabwe

Photo from Kachechete Ward in Hwange, Zimbabwe, Leaders and community standing Together for regeneration.

Here’s a quote from Ronnie Cummins, one of The Founding Directors at Regeneration International that inspired me recently;

“Never underestimated 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, in our nation, and everywhere…”

This quote spoke deeply to me and I suppose it may resonate with most of us. Keeping the connections alive, keeps us inspired, hopeful and on track.  The idea is not to only dream, but to see it coming to pass by taking the smallest actions in a bigger collective! Thankfully, we have a lot of networks that are bringing to life this network building around regeneration, and agro-ecology, seed and food movements, Holistic Management and many more.

To digress a little; our efforts of potential impact are consistently watered down by individualism, scarcity mindsets and comparisons in the movement. Yet, if we are to regenerate this world, we have to embrace the depth, and complexity of the connectedness of all pieces in this global puzzle. It is a messy dance, but a dance anyways.  We are all re-learning how to design with living patterns at the core.

If we agree that regeneration and regenerative actions are a cure to ecological disasters, social decay, and economic struggles, then we must embrace that this work is established in chaos. That is, an acceptance that each of us have a localized wisdom on how to bring back the essence of our communities at all levels of life. We are learning again what made us and our ecosystems thrive, and how do we bring that to manifestation in the current times. Looking ahead, we are all building the beautiful story of regenerating our world.  There’s no singling out champions, because in the end, we either win or sink as Team Humanity. Which one will it be?

I am eternally grateful for all the incredible minds and human spirits (too many to count, but I hold you in my heart with lots of gratitude) that charted the path of thinking differently. I believe sharing our small victories, thoughts and lessons creates beautiful waves of learning, action and support. In my head, I’m reminded of the Mexican wave, in a huge soccer stadium, in a place of unlikely order or form, yet supporters and spectators in a game they love and wish for a win – achieve a metachronal rhythm to express their support and create a winning environment in the stadium.  The supporters don’t move from their seats –but their actions, create a ripple, and enhance a movement of the wave to the next community of people in the stadium. The catch-  they do it faithfully when it’s their turn, the wave continues to travel around the stadium. There is no particular order, within those disconnected seating arrangements, back and forth as others would have had a little much to drink- the idea is to win- Together!

Avanza la agricultura regenerativa en la Cuenca Copalita-Zimatán- Huatulco

De acuerdo con la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Agricultura y la Alimentación (FAO), los bosques son importantes proveedores de recursos naturales al ser una fuente tanto de agua como alimentos y fungir como acondicionadores naturales del aire, ya que ayudan a enfriar la temperatura entre 2 y 8 grados.

Por ello, la conservación de bosques y ecosistemas es importante en la lucha contra el cambio climático, mismo que representa el reto más apremiante de la actualidad. Así lo señalaron los expertos en el AXA Future Risk Report 2021, en el cual destacaron el cambio climático por delante de riesgos a la ciberseguridad, así como de pandemias y enfermedades infecciosas.

En este sentido, es importante señalar que México ocupa uno de los primeros lugares en tasas de deforestación en el mundo, según la Comisión Nacional Forestal (Conafor). Para 2018 se estimaba una tasa anual de deforestación de 166 mil 337 hectáreas, lo que representa más del doble que 17 años atrás.

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Agricultura Marina Regenerativa: Las algas protagonizan una historia de resiliencia en la costa patagónica

Las algas, las mejores amigas para el planeta, para tu cocina y mucho más. Conoce en esta nota todo lo que tienes que saber sobre ellas y sus usos con un enfoque ecosistémico, con alianzas que se potencian y contribuyen a la resiliencia en una comunidad costera.

La agricultura marina regenerativa se basa en el principio de producir generando el menor impacto posible en el ecosistema marino circundante, imitando el funcionamiento del mismo lo más posible. Con la combinación correcta de cultivos de especies nativas en una configuración en tres dimensiones en la columna de agua, se aprovecha el espacio y el hábito de vida y alimentación de cada especie. Por ejemplo, las macroalgas capturan dióxido de carbono del agua, al mismo tiempo de oxigenar los alrededores de la granja; los bivalvos, grandes filtradores, mejoran la calidad del agua al mismo tiempo que fertilizan.

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