THE MOTHER WHO PLANTS
TREES
A working model to get farmers involved in restoration agroforestry.
As I was traveling in India I met many farmers who could only continue farming by digging new bore
wells every 2 years or switching over to dry
land farming. Some had switched to dry land farming and were not getting
enough rain for their crops. New bore wells cost thousands of dollars and so not doable by subsistence farmers. This problem extends across many states in India.
The problem stems from several things (among many others I am sure):
1) Cutting down the trees for thousands of years to cook their food,
2) Dams that were built that divert the ground
water,
3) The green revolution where thousands and thousands of acres of agroforestry were taken out to make way for monoculture, hybrid plants fed by chemicals which take 3 – 4 times the amount of water used for open pollinated, poly-cultured, organically grown plants.
Permaculture water solutions combined with agroforestry was the perfect solution. I had seen in a U-tube about Don Tipping's farm in Williams, Oregon, that when he built his ponds, the wells of his neighbors filled up. And the question then became how to get the farmers to adopt what worked.
The answer seemed simple. It is to make it financially worthwhile for them to plant the trees and replenish the water, thereby skipping the stage which required big money to reverse desertification.
The farmers like our ideas, inter-planting the existing trees with
medicinal herbs, vegetables, and fruits, planting diversified new trees on key lines along with open water sources etc. They want a demonstration. The chemical establishment still holds sway telling them that any auxiliary crops will take away from the main crop and moreover will steal their expensive chemical fertilizer from their crops.
We are cataloging the many agroforestry demonstrations already available here in India in Tamil Nadu and Kerala and making posters of them for our presentations. Also setting up community meetings with the farmers that need these methods, (although most of these farmers who are doing the intercropping are now using chemical) and the farmers who are already utilizing them, which we want to be organic. There is a long history here of diversified tree plantings mixed with herbs, spices, vegetables and fruits. Unfortunately the magnificent food forests that remain are being undermined by the chemical industries need to find markets for their products. In the long term the chemicals will kill the soil, the goose that lays the golden egg.
How do we find the villagers who want to work with us? We based our model on Navdanya (Vandanna Shiva’s organization): We are doing presentations in the surrounding villages looking especially for subsistence farmers who are willing to convert to
permaculture and natural farming practices combined with agroforestry. We are also contacting government offices, NGO’s and
local networks for contacts with subsistence farmers.
We will provide information and consultations about their crop and water needs and we will buy their produce from them at a higher price as incentive. This is a great opportunity to do restorative agroforestry.
For these Indian farmers the rubber is meeting the road. They are not in the theoretical phase where if they do nothing, they will continue to have food.
We are looking for funds to continue the work.
To see more about our
project please go to our crowd funding site:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-mother-who-plants-trees/x/6482952
Also our web site: handsonpermaculture1.org
In the body of the web site is our India travelogue.
On the right hand side are the breakout descriptions of this project
We would appreciate it a lot if you forwarded this to anyone who might be interested.
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