Tag Archive for: Water

Utopian off-grid Regen Village produces all of its own food and energy

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Author: Lacy Cooke

Danish architectural firm EFFEKT envisioned a future where self-sustaining communities could grow their own food and produce their own energy. They incorporated that vision into the ReGen Village, a planned off-grid community that addresses issues ranging from climate change to food security through sustainable design. They plan to start building these utopian communities this summer.

According to EFFEKT’s website, there are five principles behind the ReGen Villages: “Energy positive homes. Door-step high-yield organic food production. Mixed renewable energy and storage. Water and waste recycling. Empowerment of local communities.”

Homes in these gorgeous communities are totally designed for sustainable living. They’re powered by photovoltaic solar panels, but passive heating and cooling systems take some of the pressure off the electrical use of each house. Families grow their own vegetables and fruit in connected greenhouses. Together, the houses form a “shared local eco-system.”

Villages include several public squares that are equipped with electric car charging stations, and there are also vertical aquaponic farming spaces. The community shares water storage facilities and “waste-to-resource” systems. In addition, there are areas for livestock, communal dining, playgrounds, and community learning centers.

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Strange ‘Farmfellows?’ Pigs and Chickens Regenerate the Land in Bela Bela, South Africa

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When I arrived at the farm, six mother pigs were sleeping under a tree. Surrounding them were about 50 piglets calmly intermingling with dozens of chickens.

I came here, to Bela Bela, north of Pretoria, South Africa, to learn more about a project I’d heard so much about. Run by a diverse team of individuals, this grass-fed pig and poultry project is attracting widespread attention from neighbors, cooperatives, government officials and many who are interested both in restorative grazing methods, and how to run an economically successful farm.

What I learned from my visit with the operators of this innovative project was this: Pigs and chickens make great companions. And when fed a natural diet, and properly managed, they regenerate degraded lands, require minimal medical intervention and use of antibiotics, provide a good income even in during times of drought, and create opportunities for synergy with other local businesses.

From cattle to pigs and chickens

The Bela Bela pilot project is a “necessity is the mother of invention” story. The team here used to raise cattle on the 40-hectare (ha) (about 100 acres) farm. But then circumstances forced them to give up on cattle. The land simply could not sustain an economically viable number of cattle because of its size and because of the degraded state of the land and vegetation. It was impossible to rear cattle herds without massive external inputs of purchased feeds

So the owners decided to purchase a herd of nine pigs.

A short 16 months later, the herd has grown to 500—about 200 adult pigs and 300 followers—who forage side by side with chickens, which have proven to be good companions.

Managing the pigs is as simple as keeping them in three herds. The farm team moves the herds daily, using “tractors.” Moving the herd takes about 30 minutes per herd, and the pigs are counted through a race, which is a portable metal structure which funnels the pigs through a narrow (roughly 2 meters long) section for easy counting, inspection and sorting and moving.

Sows that are ready to farrow are isolated and kept behind the main herd, until their piglets are weaned. Weaned piglets move to the “nursery school” herd—which is where I found 200 piglets happily eating aloes the day I visited. The aloes, a favorite food for the piglets, also serve as a natural de-wormer.

Creative watering points provide wallows for the pigs who enjoy a mud bath just as warthogs and wild pigs would in the wild habitat. The mud provides the best natural dip, eliminating the need for dipping, which is the term used to describe the application of chemicals used to kill external parasites, mainly ticks, on livestock. Dipping has become routine on most farms and is a glaring example of symptomatic treatment using linear thought processes, instead of addressing the root causes of challenges faced by farmers. Routine dipping leads to livestock becoming dependent on the chemicals applied at very strict timings. 

Good for the environment and the animals

Previously, the land at the Bela Bela farm had been exposed to high doses of herbicides which had created large swaths of bare, exposed soil. But the introduction of pigs and chickens is gradually restoring the land’s biodiversity.

Some parts of the farm may take time to fully recover from the impact of previously used degenerative farming practices. But so far the team here is finding that proper management of the pigs and chickens can help repopulate the land with new species of grass, earthworms and insect activity. As it turns out, the hoof action of pigs, and the soil-scratching activity of chickens hunting for insects, break the soil’s hard surface. This improves the soil’s permeability, which in turn encourages the regrowth of natural vegetation.

Combining pigs and chickens is also proving to keep disease to a minimum. Farm Manager Anderson Mutasa says that it is critical to spend a great deal of time with the animals, observing both the environment and the animals, in order to be able to read the signs indicating that either is unwell. Mortalities are low and at a level to be expected as pigs adapt to a new environment. The ethos on this farm is that treating with antibiotics only masks the symptoms of the diseases and does not breed a herd that is well adapted to their environment. Consequently, there is no specific breed of pigs found in this herd, only those that are adapted to this environment. In this case, it is the darker skinned pigs that are proving to be the best adapted.

Profitable for farmers and the local economy

Pigs are not only fast land regenerators, but they also provide a quick return on investment. Because none of the team members had any prior experience raising pig, there were some initial costs associated with the learning curve. But what the team has since learned is that raising pigs and chickens together, in harmony with the environment, presents an excellent opportunity to make good profits at almost no cost at all. Unlike big livestock, such as cattle, pigs have lower investment costs. The animals breed 2.5-3 times a year with an average of 6-7 piglets per pig.

The team here describes their work as “low cost but high skill farming” because the managers must invest time in observing and understanding the environment and animals they are working with, in order to help the animals adapt to the their environment. But they do not spend money on expensive inputs, such as fertilizers and pesticides.

While the farm prospers, so do other local businesses. Waste from local dairies and hatcheries is recycled as feed for the pigs. For instance, waste from the production of yoghurt and cheese provides food that is rich in probiotics, which helps maintain the pigs’ gut health. And unfertilized eggs from a nearby hatchery, along with discarded vegetables not suitable for sale at the local market market provide excellent protein and other nutrients for the pigs.

The project at Bela Bela provides another benefit to the local community: education. As word spread about the project’s success raising pigs and chickens without commercial feed, the farm soon evolved into a teaching farm. Fortunately for farmers wanting to venture into free-range pig and chicken farming, the team at Bela Bela is happy to share experiences and knowledge. They have already been approached for training by a cooperative of about 350 households in the area, and they helped set up the pig and poultry project at the Africa Centre for Holistic Management (ACHM).

This project is showing huge potential for sustainable and scalable farming. It is accessible to entry-level farmers, and is particularly well suited for community projects because of quick returns at low cost. Unlike big livestock like cattle, pigs have lower investment costs. The animals breed 2.5-3 times a year with an average of 6-7 piglets per pig.

Many new collaborations are on the horizon and we wish them well and look forward to hearing more about their sure success in the future.

Precious Phiri is the Zimbabwe-based Africa coordinator and steering committee member of Regeneration International, a project of the Organic Consumers Association.

Carbon is not the problem

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Author: George King

I recently had the privilege of flying Walter Jehne from the southern temperate zone of New South Wales, through the deserts of Central Australia to the subtropics of the Northern Territory.  About 20 hours of return flight time looking at and talking about Australia’s environments.  Walter is a soil microbiologist and probably the most intelligent and knowledgeable person I have ever met.  He is immensely patriotic to Australia and has the clearest understanding of environments.

Here is the layman’s version of some of what I learnt.  Carbon is not the problem, it is certainly a major symptom of the problem though.  Even if we cut our carbon emissions to zero right now it will take hundreds of years for the carbon levels to fall to pre-industrial revolution levels.  And no developed country is going to cut their standard of living so drastically.

The root problem is that on a local level we have adversely affected the hydrological cycles of the environment.  The world population and distribution is at such a saturation now that human local land management is catastrophically effecting the global environment.  The good news is that we have the ability to reverse any damage we have done to the hydrological processes, it is simple, it is affordable and we will produce more food in the process.

For the past 420 million years soils have been the foundation for the evolution of life on land, it stands to reason that the soils will hold the solution to turn around our current practice from damaging soils globally to growing them again as nature has been doing for millennia.  Almost without exception every nation’s greatest export by volume and value is eroding soil.

Our soils are formed and are governed by the microbial processes which regulate much of the Earth’s critical carbon, water, nutrient, heat dynamics, cooling and climate cycles and more importantly their interconnected balance.  The natural hydrological processes govern 95% of the heat dynamics and balance of the blue planet.  We have been damaging these hydrological processes for more than 10,000 years but particularly in the past 300 years.

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Justice for All Filipino Farmers: A Statement on the Kidapawan Massacre and the State’s Abandonment of Agriculture

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The National Movement for Food Sovereignty, a local affiliate of the Asia-Pacific Network for Food Sovereignty, and an alliance of small holder farmers, artisanal fishers, rural women, rural youth and other anti-neoliberal individuals and organizations, stand in solidarity with the victims of the Kidapawan Massacre. We strongly condemn the Philippine Government’s abhorrent actions last April 1, 2016. We are calling for immediate and long-term justice for all protesters, whose rights were blatantly violated and whose tragic situations were ignored.

We demand accountability from the government armed forces whose responsibility in the first place is to ensure that people’s rights are protected. At the same time, we are calling for a food production system wherein small producers are not left on society’s fringes to die of hunger.

A Tragic History

The Philippine agriculture has been made backward by a landed elite dominated government, which systematically neglects and abandons it, resulting to the peasantry’s further desolation. As if economic violence were not enough, Filipino farmers have also time and time again encountered state-perpetrated violent suppression and reaction.

Year Name Location Fatalities
1950 Maliwalu Massacre Maliwalu, Bacolor, Pampanga 21
1966 Culatingan Massacre Culatingan, Concepcion, Tarlac 7
1985 Escalante Massacre Escalante City, Negros Occidental 30
1987 Mendiola Massacre Manila City 13
1987 Lupao Massacre Lupao, Nueva Ecija 17
2004 Hacienda Luisita Massacre Hacienda Luisita, Tarlac 7

The table above illustrates the tragic history of the Filipino farmer’s struggle for land, food, and justice. Time and time again, the poor Filipino farmers have put forward their legitimate demands to the Philippine government. Yet instead of meting out social justice, the state has chosen to respond with armed violence – with the Mendiola and the Hacienda Luisita Massacres perhaps being the most prominent examples in recent history. By no means is the list complete, as there are surely more cases of such atrocities inflicted upon the peasantry that have been effectively kept under wraps or hidden in the guise of the government’s anti-insurgency programs.

Rampant Hunger and Protests

It is at this juncture that we found ourselves in when, once again, the state has turned its guns against its own citizens. As combined elements of the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines shot at a crowd of poor and hungry farmers conducting a peaceful protest in Kidapawan City, we are again reminded of the degree of marginalization and oppression being imposed upon our small food producers.

In January 2016, a State of Calamity has been declared in the provinces of Mindanao due to the drought caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon. Damages to crops are estimated at around P3.6 million. Expectedly, most affected by this crisis have been poor farmers. According to DA estimates, 17,000 hectares of rice and corn land have been damaged by the drought and more than 20,000 farmers have been affected in Maguindanao alone. The damage to their crops is beyond repair, resulting to too much hunger and poverty.

Reports from the ground have revealed cases of farmers having to eat pig feed because they have nothing else, and of a farmer having committed suicide because of no yield. The drought has virtually taken away their source of livelihood, if not their source of subsistence. In the face of this crisis, the Philippine government has done nothing to genuinely address the needs of its primary food producers.

With the El Niño crisis having become a matter of life and death to farmers and their families, it is not surprising then that Mindanao farmers were moved into collective action. No less than 6,000 farmers rose up and blockaded the Cotabato-Davao Highway, denouncing state neglect, and demanding the local government to release 15,000 sacks of rice as calamity aid.

The blockade was already on its third day when the police and armed forces intervened. Instead of government assistance, what the hungry farmers received was a hail of gunfire. The ensuing chaos left at least 3 farmers dead, 87 missing, and 116 hurt – 18 of which are hospitalized, most of whom due to gunshot wounds. The remaining protesters are now held up in a nearby church that has granted them refuge, yet security forces still continue to harass them and have even resorted to cutting off the building’s electricity in the middle of the night. Of course, the military is defending its action by accusing protesters of instigating the chaos. Yet, nothing can justify such violent act against an unarmed group of protesters with a very legitimate demand.

Hunger, Rural Poverty, and State Abandonment

The marginalization of the peasantry is a natural product of the neoliberal economic order to which the Philippine economy is being fully integrated. Under this economic system, policies of deregulation, liberalization, and privatization were designed to shift away from government subsidy in order to freely facilitate profit extraction by corporate business and financial institutions. These neoliberal policies have proven devastating to the Philippine economy, specifically agriculture and rural development. Philippine agriculture has been dramatically spiraling downward over the past decades with its GDP share steadily contracting. At the same time, its technological advancement has stagnated, with most of the farmlands still dependent on manual labor. Rural poverty continues to rise. Environmental degradation continues to worsen. Yet, the government has instead further pursued the same neoliberal policies causing rural poverty.

State abandonment of agriculture and rural development also manifests itself in terms of the government’s lack of emergency assistance and comprehensive rehabilitation program for agriculture, which is the first victim of climate change. Until today, farmer victims of Typhoons Lando and Nona in Luzon remain unassisted and unsupported. As if this is not enough, farmlands in Nueva Ecija are now being plagued by army worms – commonly classified as climate change pests – resulting in widespread damage to crops and loss of capital. Despite the government’s claims that we are climate change ready, the government’s lack of action on the issue only proves otherwise. More importantly, however, this serves as another proof of the government’s insensitivity towards the needs of our food producers.

The neoliberal policy direction is made even more apparent in the development aggression projects being pursued by the Philippine government. Development aggression occurs when the state imposes ‘development’ projects on unwilling communities. The mining projects in the province of Zambales fit this description perfectly. Zambaleños have strongly opposed mining operations in the province citing their harmful impacts on the environment. For one, the mining operations have exacerbated the impacts of Typhoon Lando in the area – resulting in severe flooding of homes and rice fields. This has led to community’s resolve to barricade the mining area and demand the ouster of these mining firms. As usual, the people’s legitmate protest was also violently suppressed by the PNP resulting to injuries and illegal arrests of protesters.

This shooting in Kidapawan and the other examples mentioned here are clear manifestations of the generalized forms of state-violence currently being perpetrated against farmers and other small food producers. Bogus land reform programs, coupled with development aggression, as well as the lack of subsidy and support services make up the government’s policy of abandoning its peasantry and agriculture. It pushes the peasant class to the brink of existence. It is not simplistic to say then, that this whole situation was created solely by the Philippine government and its fixation with the neoliberal dogma.

Justice and Food Sovereignty

The Philippine government’s response to the legitimate demands of its farmers is beyond abhorrent. However, the general condition of Philippine agriculture is even more detestable as it perpetuates the cycle of violence being imposed upon the impoverished Filipino small food producers. We are living in a society with an agricultural sector that is so backward that our farmers remain in the quagmire of hunger and poverty.

Hence, we are calling for a food system that is just and sovereign. We call on everyone to join us in our fight for justice and food sovereignty.

We demand the Philippine government to:

  1. Free all protesters who were unjustly detained.
  2. Immediately investigate and prosecute all police units/forces and government officials involved in the Kidapawan Massacre.
  3. Immediately provide food assistance to El Niño farmer families at least one sack of rice per farmer-family until they recovered from the El Niño crisis.
  4. Stop withholding food and aid to farmers and hold local government accountable for this crime against the farmers.
  5. Indemnify all victims of the Kidapawan Massacre and their families.
  6. Provide financial assistance to farmers for the recovery of their livelihood and rehabilitation of their farmlands.
  7. Implement genuine agrarian reform; stop resource grabbing.
  8. Stop the unabated plunder and excessive exploitation of the ecosystems in the Philippines.

 

Initial Signatories:

South Asian Network for Social & Agricultural Development (SANSAD)

Comité catholique contre la faim et pour le développement (CCFD) -Terre Solidaire

Mokatil-Movimentu Kamponezes Timor Leste (Timor Leste Farmers movement)

North South Initiative (NSI)

Jagrata Juba Shangha (JJS)

Progresibong Alyansa ng Mangingisda sa Pilipinas (PANGISDA)

Katipunan ng Bagong Pilipina (KABAPA)

Pambansang Kilusan ng Makabayang Magbubukid (PKMM)

Pagkakaisa Labab sa Liberalisasyon sa Agrikultura (PALLAG)

Nagkakakaisang Samahan ng Kababaihan sa Kanayunan (NAGSAKKA)

MAKABAYAN-Pilipinas

Center for Grassroots Studies and Social Action

SEAFISH for Justice

Koalisi Rakyat untuk Keadilan Perikanan (KIARA)

Damayan ng mga Manggagawa,Mangingisda at Magsasaka (DAMMMBA)

Pambansang Kaisahan ng mga Magbubukid sa Pilipinas (PKMP)

Dunong at Dangal ng Makabagong Dumagat (DUMAGAT)

Regeneration International

 

Soil Health: It’s All About the Carbon

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Author: Mark Watson

Adding carbon to the soil is critical to restoring health to the soil by increasing the organic matter content.

Producers in today’s modern agricultural systems are working with soils that contain far less carbon than our soils originally contained prior to the implementation of modern agriculture. All of our soils are now degraded.

The good news is we now know how we can regenerate our soils and put the carbon back in the soil. This is a very simple process, but at the same time, also very difficult.

Finding Stability

So why is carbon so important? It’s the building block for soil health. As you increase the carbon content, you begin to improve the aggregate stability. These aggregates are formed by excretions from the soil microbes, which begin to stabilize the soil particles into larger aggregates. This provides the home for all the soil microbes living in these aggregates.

A healthy soil provides a healthy environment for these soil microbes. The microbes will provide the nutrient cycling of soil organic matter making nutrients available for the plants growing in the soil.

These aggregates also provide the pore space necessary to infiltrate and store water in the soil. In our semi-arid environment on the Plains, the ability to infiltrate and store water is critical to crop production.

Stable aggregates that can infiltrate and store additional water can also lower our irrigation pumping requirements by improving soil water efficiency. Lowering our groundwater consumption is critical to stabilizing the currently rapid decline of our groundwater resource.

KEEP READING IN NO-TILL FARMER

Regenerative Farming — One Solution That Solves Many Problems

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We face a number of very pressing problems in the world today. Water scarcity is getting worse as aquifers are drained faster than they can be refilled. Soil erosion and degradation is also rapidly worsening. Ditto for air and water pollution.

Land is turning into desert at a rapid clip, and with it, we’re losing biodiversity of both plant and animal life. Manure lagoons from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) pose hazards to the environment and human health.

Everything is getting more toxic, and according to scientists, we may have less than 60 years’ worth of “business as usual” before we reach a point at which nature will no longer sustain us on any front, be it water, air, or soil quality.1

Modern Farming Has Proven Itself a Failed Experiment

These environmental problems, which have all been either caused or made worse by modern farming practices, have also led to a distinct reduction in food quality and safety. Nutrition has declined and toxicity has escalated, thanks to the excessive use of agricultural chemicals.

Agricultural overuse of drugs, especially antibiotics, has also led to the development of drug resistant disease,2 which has now become a severe health threat.

Modern farming practices have also been accused of contributing to global climate change — a controversial and hotly contested issue if there ever was one. However, let us not lose sight of what’s really important.

Regardless of whether manmade climate change is real, or whether the climate shifts are the result of wholly natural warming and cooling cycles, the fact remains that our weather and environment are changing, and these changes pose challenges to our food security and survival.

Moreover, these challenges must be addressed with genuine, long-term, and sustainable solutions. We have to learn how to overcome droughts, floods, and various temperature fluctuations.

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Clearing Forests May Transform Local—and Global—Climate

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Author: Judith Schwartz

In the last 15 years 200,000 hectares of the Mau Forest in western Kenya have been converted to agricultural land. Previously called a “water tower” because it supplied water to the Rift Valley and Lake Victoria, the forest region has dried up; in 2009 the rainy season—from August to November—saw no rain, and since then precipitation has been modest. Whereas hydropower used to provide the bulk of Kenya’s power ongoing droughts have led investors to pull out of hydro projects; power rationing and epic blackouts are common. In a desperate move to halt environmental disaster by reducing population pressure, the Kenyan government evicted tens of thousands of people from the land.

Severe drought, temperature extremes, formerly productive land gone barren: this is climate change. Yet, says botanist Jan Pokorny of Charles University in Prague, these snippets from Kenya are not about greenhouse gases, but rather the way that land-use changes—specifically deforestation—affect climate; newly tree-free ground “represents huge amounts of solar energy changed into sensible heat, i.e. hot air.” Pokorny, who uses satellite technology to measure changes in land-surface and temperatures, has done research in western Kenya for 25 years, and watched the area grow hotter and drier. The change from forest cover to bare ground leads to more heat and drought, he says. More than half the country used to be forested; it’s now less than 2 percent.

Each year Earth loses 12 million to 15 million hectares of forest, according to the World Wildlife Fund, the equivalent of 36 football fields disappearing per minute. Although forests are ebbing throughout the world, in Africa forest-climate dynamics are easily grasped: according to the United Nations Environmental Programme, the continent is losing forests at twice the global rate. Says Pokorny, the conversion of forest to agricultural land, a change that took centuries in Europe, “happened during one generation in western Kenya.” Pokorny’s work, coupled with a controversial new theory called the “biotic pump,” suggests that transforming landscapes from forest to field has at least as big an impact on regional climate as greenhouse gas–induced global warming.

After all, de-treeing the landscape alters the way ecosystems function and self-regulate. For Pokorny, the key is evapotranspiration, whereby plants continuously absorb and emit water in the form of vapor. Evaporation consumes heat and thus has a cooling effect. He calls this “the perfect and only air-conditioning system on the planet.” On a moderately sunny day, a tree will transpire some 100 liters of water, converting 70 kilowatt-hours of solar energy into the latent heat held in water vapor. When soil is bare and dry—paved over or harvested—the process comes to a halt. The sun hits and warms the ground directly.

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Stewardship with Vision – Episode 1: Jeff Laszlo

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As a result of the O’Dell Creek restoration, Granger Ranches has documented a 900% increase in waterfowl species and a 600% increase in species diversity. The ranch now hosts at least fifteen species of concern, including the American White Pelican, Clark’s Grebe, Great Blue Heron, White-Faced Ibis, Franklin’s Gull, Caspian Tern, Long-billed Curlew and American Bittern, Baird’s Sparrow, McCown’s Longspur, Sprague’s Pipit, Burrowing Owl, Short-eared Owl, Ferruginous Hawk. Trumpeter Swans, once gravely imperiled, take refuge on the ranch with 20-50 wintering annually. Raptor species increased from four to ten. Up to 5,000 Rocky Mountain Sandhill Cranes now make annual migratory visits. The wetlands are also supporting river otters, moose, deer, and rare and sensitive flowers.

Watch More Videos on Western Landowners Alliance’s Youtube Channel

A Continuing Inquiry Into Ecosystem Restoration: Examples From China’s Loess Plateau and Locations Worldwide and their Emerging Implications

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Authors: John D. Liu and Bradley T. Hiller

4.8.1 A JOURNEY BEGINS

In early September 1995, after spending 15 years working as an international news television producer and cameraman, John D. Liu embarked on a life-changing assignment that ultimately prompted this section (Figure 4.8.1). Liu was part of a documentary crew flying in a small Soviet-era copy of a Fokker Friendship aircraft (dubbed the “Friendshipsky”), which landed at a small, dusty airport in Yanan in Shaanxi Province, on China’s Loess Plateau (see Box 4.8.1).

4.8.1.1 CONSIDERING THE IMPLICATIONS

The Loess Plateau has proven to be an excellent place to pursue a type of ecological forensics to witness and understand how human actions over time can destroy natural ecological function. The restoration process of the plateau is providing a living laboratory in which the potential of returning ecological function to long degraded landscapes can be studied. Essentially, what has been witnessed and docu- mented on the Loess Plateau is that it is possible to rehabilitate large-scale damaged ecosystems. This realization has potentially enormous implications for human civilization. Witnessing firsthand many geopolitical events as a journalist, including the rise of China from poverty and isolation throughout the 1980s, the Tiananmen tragedy in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union, global terrorism, and much more, provided John D. Liu with references to compare to the restoration of the Loess Plateau. He quickly came to realize that, in terms of significance for a sustainable future for humanity, understanding what occurred on the Loess Plateau would be critical.

Yanan is perhaps most famous as the mountainous hideout where Mao Zedong led the Chinese communist Red Army to escape annihilation by the Nationalists (this retreat is often referred to as the “Long March”). The typical dwellings in Yanan at the time were man-made cave dwellings dug so deeply into the soil that they were almost invisible, which made Yanan a particularly good place for a revolutionary to disappear. By 1995, the Chinese communist revolution had moved on and China’s socialist market economy was flourishing on the eastern coast and making waves worldwide. But Yanan remained virtually untouched by the agricultural changes, the industrial growth, and the increasing international influence that much of China was experiencing. Yet in this backwater, a new revolution was brewing.

The purpose of the assignment was a World Bank baseline study for an ambitious development project called the Loess Plateau Watershed Rehabilitation Project (see Box 4.8.2). The scene (as depicted in Figure 4.8.2) was of a completely barren landscape.

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Life in Syntropy

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[ English | Português ]

“Life in Syntropy” is the new short film from Agenda Gotsch made specially to be presented at COP21 – Paris. This film put together some of the most remarkable experiences in Syntropic Agriculture, with brand new images and interviews.

Watch More Video’s on Agenda Gotsch’s Youtube Channel