Sustainable Farming

Food, Inc. is a new documentary by Robert Kenner that examines the state of food, and particularly "Big Food" in America. Doesn't look like it has been released widely yet, but should be certainly worth watching. Check out the trailers below:

I'm off to the Permaculture Design Certificate Course in Molokai tomorrow. Blog updates will probably be infrequent for the next couple of weeks, but stay tuned on twitter.

You've probably heard that each calorie of food we eat takes more than one of fossil fuel calorie*:

All together the food-processing industry in the United States uses about ten calories of fossil-fuel energy for every calorie of food energy it produces. ... It takes thirty-five calories of fossil fuel to make a calorie of beef this way; sixty-eight to make one calorie of pork. - The Oil We Eat, Harper's Magazine

The following is from Table 1.1 in The Natural Way of Farming.

Farming Method	(Energy Output)/(Energy Input)
Large scale mechanized agriculture (ca. 1980)	2
Medium scale mechanized agriculture (ca. 1970)	4
Small scale mechanized agriculture (ca. 1960)	10
Farming with animals (ca. 1950)	20
Natural Farming	100-200

Now watch the presentation below by Saul Griffith about the components of our energy use, and the changes we need to make (including reduction in energy consumption and ramping up clean energy production) in the next 25 years to have any chance of controlling global warming. (If you're in a rush, skip the first 10 minutes or so to the -18.45 mark.)


It's pretty clear that highly mechanized industrial farming can not be a part of any long term scenario.


* See here and here for more in-depth discussion.

One of the major differences in conventional agriculture and natural ecosystems is in the number and complexity of components. Conventional agriculture is a fairly simple and linear system with very few components and pathways. In contrast, natural ecosystems are highly complex with hundreds, if not thousands of active components (microbes, insects, plants, animals) as well as numerous pathways through the system for energy and materials.

The needs of each component in a natural ecosystem are fulfilled by the outputs of multiple components, and in return, each provides multiple useful inputs for others. Furthermore, each need can often be fulfilled through multiple pathways. These needs are not only material requirements like nutrients and water, but also environmental requirements, like the right amount of sunlight, humidity, pest control, pollination and physical support.

This complexity has two direct benefits -

1. Since everything is useful for something else, there is no 'waste' in the system, increasing energy and resource use efficiency.
   
2. Due to multiple pathways for fulfilling each need, removal of a few components does not debilitate the system.

Thus, a complex system with multifunctional components remains stable and productive with only sunlight, water and air as inputs. Conversely, it is precisely because we insist on keeping farms in an unnatural, simplified state that we need vast amounts of energy and labor for growing food in the conventional manner.

In permaculture, such complexity is intentionally designed into the system, creating a "food forest" with as many as 500-600 plant species, a few domesticated animal species, and attracting a large number of beneficial wild insects and birds. With this approach, a permaculture farm can produce an abundance of food practically throughout the year, without any chemical or mechanical inputs, and requiring far less labor than a conventional farm.

We need to shift our point of view significantly to realize how this is possible - we know that managing a farm with five plant species takes work. Managing a farm with fifty productive plant species will probably take even more work. What is perhaps a little un-obvious is that a farm with hundreds of plant species, a number of animal, and numerous insect and bird species can be completely self regulating and self sufficient, provided the components are chosen well to work together with each other and the local climate and landscape:


On a related note, the BBC series 'Natural World' recently showed the documentary A Farm for the Future, produced by wildlife film maker Rebecca Hosking:

Realising that all food production in the UK is completely dependent on abundant cheap fossil fuel, particularly oil, [Rebecca] sets out to discover just how secure this oil supply is.

Alarmed by the answers, she explores ways of farming without using fossil fuel. With the help of pioneering farmers and growers, Rebecca learns that it is actually nature that holds the key to farming in a low-energy future.

If you're in the UK, you can watch this program on the internet. Otherwise, it may be available on your local BBC channel.

In the last three posts, we saw that the major goal of permaculture (as well as natural farming and other sustainable land use practices) is to create a highly efficient and productive ecosystem by utilizing sunlight, land, and rainfall* to the maximum extent possible. The techniques of permaculture, like swales-and-ponds, mulching, or creating a 'layered' food forest, are derived from a few underlying themes.

Once we understand these themes, it is easy to design own low input highly productive systems, even in small urban spaces:

Designing the system with beneficially interdependent components is a major themes underlying permaculture design. This applies not only to interdependence between biological components (plant guilds, plants and bees, or plants and birds), but also to biological and nonbiological components. For example, plants grown on swales reduce erosion of the swale and in return get a dependable source of water.

The other important interdependence, of course, is between the human and natural components of the land. This includes using the waste products of human activities as feed/mulch/compost/manure for the the natural systems, and in return getting a better harvest from the plants and animals.

It is also important to reduce harmful relationships in the ecosystem. This includes increasing the distance between plants that may hurt each other chemically or physically, situating non-biological and biological components to minimize harmful effects of temperature and humidity, etc.


* I should mention maximum utilization of air too! Apart from water, practically all the biomass on the land is the carbon and nitrogen captured from air.

One of the major problems facing small and subsistence farmers is the quality of the land. The 'prime' agricultural land - large stretches of level ground with easy access to water - is already in the hands of larger and usually more financially capable farmers. Conversely, the poorest farmers cultivate marginal lands that have lower soil quality, that are often on hill slopes, and have rainfall as the only source of irrigation. Slash and burn agriculture is also often practiced on such marginal land, leading to a whole host of undesirable consequences.

However, most of the productivity of an ecosystem comes from the interactions of it's living components. This is especially true in tropical areas, where the temperature allows things to grow throughout the year. In a permaculture system, everything uses the outputs of something else. Nutrients are naturally integrated and then fully retained in the system. Over time, the inorganic soil serves primarily as a substrate, and all the necessary nutrients are obtained from the naturally composted biological matter on the top.

These beneficial interactions in a complex ecosystem, combined with small earthworks (swales and ponds) can convert any piece of land into a sustainable, productive, and profitable farm. The key is to plan a rich ecosystem that works with the layout of the land, and generates a harvest that satisfies the needs of the occupants.

An added bonus is that permaculture and natural farming practices work best without mechanization and do not require plowing. This is particularly beneficial for small farmers, who often go into debt to borrow farm machinary or even plow animals.

Here is an example of how seemingly barren land can be converted to a productive farm using permaculture principles:

As you can see, the knowledge of bringing barren lands back into production has been available for the past three decades. Unfortunately, the education and implementation has tremendously lagged behind the needs of subsistence farmers everywhere.

With this post, I am starting a series to explore the various aspects of sustainable land use. I still have a lot to learn, but a number of basic principles are becoming clear to me. In this series I plan to discuss the basic aspects of these interrelated concepts. I will discuss the complexities (and corrections!) in future posts.

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The goal of sustainable land management should be to create a habitable system that

• has very low running costs and labor requirements,
• provides for most of the needs of the people dependent on it,
  
• generates a substantial profit.

One of the key resources required for land to be productive is water. In the next few decades, water scarcity is only going to get worse.


Projected water shortage in the year 2050.
Most urban water harvesting schemes (rooftop collection and storage in dedicated reservoirs), though laudable, are expensive in the short term and neither sufficient nor sustainable in the long run.

To fully utilize the rainfall on a piece of land, it is necessary to

1. minimize water runoff
2. increase top soil moisture content and productive surface water
3. replenish deep underground water reservoirs

These water management principles were often utilized successfully to provide water for farming and urban communities. With the advent of modern engineering, we gave up these low cost, small scale techniques in favor of ever deeper bore wells, massive dams and long canals. Especially in the developing world, these mega projects are not only being built primarily for the benefit of large cities and industries, they have also suffered from corruption, social disruptions, massive delays and cost overruns, and most importantly, ineffectiveness.

The false sense of water security of these techniques spurred wasteful water use and indiscriminate water pollution. Conversely, the impending scarcity has brought us to the point where even the availability of water as a free resource is now under serious debate (even 007 himself got involved! ;).

In light of this evidence, probably the most effective (and cost effective) method is to implement water catchment and groundwater replenishment on the small scale. There are many ancient techniques to learn from and improve upon, but one of the simplest and most cost effective method is creating swales (also known as contour bunding).

Swales are simply long and shallow trenches dug on contour in a sloping landscape, with the dug out material piled on the lower end. This creates a barrier and reservoir for the water flowing down the slope. The water pooled in the trench slowly seeps into the ground, and also provides a stable source of water for plants planted on the mound. Especially in regions where rainfall is highly seasonal and/or irregular, swales are a very powerful way of slowing down the water so that it is available more uniformly throughout the year.


Due to their low cost and effectiveness, swales are an excellent way of beginning a permaculture food forest. These simple water features can be complemented by small interconnected ponds that hold water, percolate it slowly to replenish groundwater, and act as more sites for food production. This method also get rid of the false dichotomy of distinguishing between a 'catchment area' and a 'cultivation area', instead utilizing the available land for maximum productivity.

An excellent example of this approach is Sepp Holzer's* forty hectare mountainside farm in Austria that contains many productive ponds, as well as orchards and vegetable areas:


Do you know anyone that has a small farm or unproductive piece of land? Please tell them about this method of bringing the land back to maximum productivity with minimal investment. With the 3 billion new people joining us on the planet in the next forty years, the only way to for everyone to survive peacefully is to bring all the land back to high productivity without any resource depletion or pollution.

*You can also buy a DVD with three films about the various approaches Sepp Holzers has developed on his farm.

Permaculture is a popular method of sustainable agriculture management. In this method, the agricultural potential of an area is maximized by

• completely utilizing the resources - sun, water, and land
  
• by making small modifications to the landscape
• and introducing a large variety of productive and interdependent plant and animal species to occupy all niches, creating a high biodiversity environment
  

What does such a landscape look like? The short video below shows the established food forest on the Permaculture Research Institute campus*:


Bill Mollison, the founder of the permaculture movement, gives an overview of the set-up sequence of a typical food forest in this blog post:

Thus the phases of abundance in tropical – subtropical systems of from 1-2 acres upwards in wet seasons could be:

• Season 1. Establishment of an abundant richness of species for trial.
• Season 2. An abundant source of propagation material is produced.
• Season 3. Several species are sufficiently numerous to provide an abundance of yield.
• Season 4. Yield is excellent, propagation material “unlimited”, and slower species start to produce. Absolute abundance is achieved.
• Season 5 on. Abundant yield from as many as 30 perennials and the same number of annuals is achieved, and can be made to persist for as long as is needed.

* You can buy the DVD here.

Michael Pollan (Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at UC Berkeley) talks about* the need to change agricultural practices in the context of changing energy and environmental realities. Highlights:

• After automobiles, agriculture is the largest carbon emitter in the US
• Policy changes in the '70s took the closed nutrient loop solution to farming - small multicrop farms with animals on them - and divided it into two enormous problems - giant fossil fuel fed farms, and cattle feedlots that are animal waste producing factories.
• In the coming expensive-energy era, this industrial farming model is going to be unfeasible, and more people are going to have to return to farming in the US. For this to happen, the status of agriculture needs to be elevated.
  

Michael Pollan also wrote an open letter on the same theme to the president-elect a while ago.

On a similar note, watch this TED Talk by Mark Bittman:


Compared to US agriculture practices, developing world farming is far more sustainable and at the right scale. However, to improve the long term survival of small farming, we need to act now. Improving the profitability by reducing material and labor costs, and improving stability by enhancing biodiversity will prove to be the key factors.

* Hat-tip to Rachel Nisselson bringing the Michael Pollan interview to my attention.

The reduction in rainfall due to climate change, and the concomitant increasing population, are projected to cause tremendous water scarcity in Asia and Africa in the next 20-50 years, slowing down development and increasing poverty and armed conflict. The Water Wars are already beginning.

At the heart of both natural farming and permaculture is the efficient use of local resources including rainfall. Harvesting rainfall efficiently by improving ground cover as well as by creating small low cost structures to trap water and percolate it into the ground will improve the water availability in most areas of the world.

Large infrastructure projects may be necessary in a small number of extreme cases, but especially in the developing world, they cause massive mismanagement of resources, human displacement, and ineffective alleviation of the water scarcity purportedly being addressed. Drowned Out is an excellent case study of the mismanagement of India's Narmada Dam Project, and also shows how local water harvesting can solve water scarcity in Gujrat.

The video below shows how permaculture transformed of a barren wasteland near Hyderabad (a chronically drought prone area) to a lush tree covered farm in just a couple of years:

Seed balls are the essence of natural farming.

These marble sized spheres are made easily by mixing together a variety of seeds with soil, compost, and water. Disperse by merely tossing them on ground, seed balls lie dormant in the wild, protecting the seeds within. After sufficient rainfall, when conditions are just right for the seeds to sprout, the soil mixture crumbles, and new plants take root.

Seed balls are an cheap and easy tool on many scales - you could create a new garden painlessly, introduce vegetation on empty plot of land, restore trees in and around your city, or stop the spread of deserts!

Take minimal action, promote mutually beneficial biodiversity, and let nature take its own course. What could be simpler?

Here's a short documentary on making and using seed balls: