Though forests burn, trees retake farmland globally as agroforestry advances | Hacker News Reader

Though forests burn, trees retake farmland globally as agroforestry advances

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193 pointsTanakaTarou106 comments

> Agroforestry is an ancient agricultural technique being rediscovered all over the world as limitations of the globe’s highly industrialized agriculture become obvious.

What are the "obvious limitations"? There are many problems with today's industrialized agriculture, but I wouldn't call the limitations obvious. The article says it doesn't work well in Africa for instance, and I believe it, but isn't it just because we don't have the proper GMOs/fertilizers/pesticides for this kind of soil due to a lack of interest? Is there some "obvious limitation" that makes it impossible.

I am not criticizing agroforestry. It is not like I want pesticides, artificial fertilizers and lifeless fields. But they cite 1920 as the starting year for the beginning of modern agriculture. During that time, the world population went from 2 to 7 billion. If we want do bring back ancient techniques, we have to do it in that context.

I often see the forest treated as an example of an efficient for of agriculture, and sure, forests are really dense with life. However, they are like closed systems, everything that is produced by the forest is used by the forest. Now, what we want is a patch of land from which we can pull as much as possible in order to feed our cities. There may be trees, but it won't be like a natural forest.

To make things clear again, I don't view agroforestry as a bad thing. If it allows good yields on previously unexploited land and does it so while preserving biodiversity, what's not to love. I am just skeptical when considered as a substitute for modern industrial agriculture.

"However, they are like closed systems, everything that is produced by the forest is used by the forest."

No, they are not. It depends on the type of forest of course, but in general forests produces excess. We get oxygen out of them. Wood. Meat. Mushrooms. Berries. Herbs .. and recreation.

Also forests grow with the right conditions and they can even create the right conditions to grow, if not bulldozed down, or dried up, or set on fire.

But I agree very much with the point, that it is a very annoying idea, to suddenly be able to feed all the people of the earth with ancient methods, that were not at all able to feed so much people.

(my bet is on highly automated intensive greenhouses, btw.)

we get little oxygen from the mature forests.

With the exception of oxygen (where a forest is definitely not a closed system, since the light from the sin and the co2 we breathe go back to the forest), the amount that we remove from forests through foraging and hunting is trivial compared to the amount of resources we demand from agricultural land. And when we continually harvest wood, well, forests don't do well. Managed forests are basically just farms. Nutrient cycles are pretty slow - as we remove minerals amd nutrients from a forest (and dump those nutrients into oceans via sewage) - we are depleting forests. Forests can't produce excess minerals.

"the amount that we remove from forests through foraging and hunting is trivial compared to the amount of resources we demand from agricultural land."

Sure thing. I just debated the "closed system" point. Forests are mostly a cycle in themself (called ecosystem), but not enclosed.

Modern farming isn't suitable for Africa for two reasons. First, the poor people cannot afford expensive modern equipment (but there are a few rich farmers who can and in some cases the governments have stepped up to buy modern equipment to be shared, though only time will tell if this is real efforts or just a publicity stunt) , and many governments lack rule of the law such that you can invest in something better and get a return (if there is another revolution you lose the land and all your effort to make it better are lost).

Note that both of these are political problems at the core. The first will be solved (or not) as people decide living in a city is better leaving more land for the rest to get rich from. Education is a major factor here, and things have improved a lot in many countries. However political problems threaten to take this away.

Political problems are hard. I don't know how to get stable governments and rules so that farmers can trust some investment in better farming is worth making. Nobody else does either, but you will see lots of people proposing something.

> many governments lack rule of the law such that you can invest in something better and get a return (if there is another revolution you lose the land and all your effort to make it better are lost).

It's not revolutions. If you as an ordinary not politically connected person are doing well, one of the government's henchmen will just take your property off you, and you (or your surviving family members) have no recourse.

It's easy to see how this dis-incentivizes investment in improvements.

Secure property tenure is probably the key problem to crack.

> What are the "obvious limitations"? There are many problems with today's industrialized agriculture, but I wouldn't call the limitations obvious. The article says it doesn't work well in Africa for instance, and I believe it, but isn't it just because we don't have the proper GMOs/fertilizers/pesticides for this kind of soil due to a lack of interest? Is there some "obvious limitation" that makes it impossible.

Basically pollution, resource destruction, and expense; from the OP:

> But today, the downsides of that kind of farming are becoming all too painful. Excess nitrogen fertilizer runs down watersheds to create vast dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere around the world. The rich soils of the U.S. Midwest or Ukraine, grown over thousands of years by billions of grazing animals, are almost gone, damaged by relentless plowing, blown away by the wind or washed away by storms.

> Everywhere, farmland is becoming increasingly acidic, demanding additional liming. Vast monoculture plantations act like an open bar to pests and diseases, forcing farmers to spend more and more on pesticides. Aquifers are being sucked dry, raising the cost of irrigation as new wells must be dug ever deeper. Industrial farming is engaged in a vicious circle of ever more inputs at ever greater expense to try to keep up with the challenges it creates.

> And often, it fails. About a third of the planet’s farmland has already been abandoned because of soil degradation.

20% of the African population is dependent on food aid. There are now more Africans living in Poverty than at any time in history.

How much of our agricultural bounty is sent as food aid, and serves to create only more hungry mouths?

Disabling all food aid, and requiring (/forcing) recipient populations to develop self-sufficiency, is a necessary step to fundamentally improving our agricultural systems. We can assist by providing education and family planning to Women in poverty-stricken countries.

http://www.fao.org/3/X0262E/x0262e21.htm

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2018/11/21/fi...

> 20% of the African population is dependent on food aid. There are now more Africans living in Poverty than at any time in history.

> How much of our agricultural bounty is sent as food aid, and serves to create only more hungry mouths?

Also, I've read that such aid basically kneecaps the local economies. A large fraction of the local population is employed in food or clothing production, and the aid ends up just undercutting them and increasing unemployment (and even more dependence on aid).

The obvious limitation is that conventional agriculture can't scale endlessly. This isn't controversial, even among conventional farmers. It's a known issue that the 'next green revolution' is needed to feed the ever expanding billions of people on the planet. Conventional agriculture, while a modern miracle in many ways, is just inefficient – in space, resources, etc.

One also can't just hand-wave over the negative externalities of modern farming. Pesticides, soil-carbon loss, and the energy requirements are completely unsustainable.

It is true that there's an enormous difference between a 'food forest' and a natural one. A lot of the research suggests that to adequately address climate change, we can't simply convert farmland to food-forests and call it a day. We actually need to return a significant portion of land back into natural forests.

1: http://carbonfarmingsolution.com

That is the exact opposite of the truth - conventional agriculture is conventional because it scales so well that rural unemployment is a massive problem and that picking up the end product is in many cases the biggest economic problem.

There are problems but to deny the merits is delusional and dooms failure any insane strategy where a small shepard and veteran slinger believes himself the strongest and tries to wrestle Goliath instead of just slinging a rock at his head.

I stand by what I said. It has worked. Has. It will not scale indefinitely. This is not a controversial statement. This is precisely the motivation behind genetic modification and continued research. It is why conventional agriculture talks about looking for the next green revolution.

One nuance to make is that having trees doesn't necessarily equal a forest. Lots of agroforestry ends up being a monoculture with very limited biodiversity.

I mean it literally can not be a monoculture, for it to be agroforestry there has to be at least two species

I don't know anything about this, but that seems pedantic? Is a duoculture significantly better than a monoculture?

Yes. Many invasive species/pathogens are not as likely to devastate the whole area when they do not have a single clear pathway to infect.

Two species are at least twice as good as 1, right?

Not really, you still have a lack of biodiversity.

Japan had a government policy of only reforesting with two types of trees for economic purposes, in some cases replacing natural forest, and as a result there's a lack of biodiversity and Japan now has allergy seasons that are estimated to cost $2B a year: https://ensia.com/features/japan-reforestation-deforestation...

To add insult to injury, the economic rationale for planting lots of fast-growing wood never really panned out, because it turned out with even Japanese oversupply of timber that it was cheaper to import it from SEA.

Do you have any links for the cheaper wood from SEA. I am always facinated about how things are cheaper to buy and cheap halfway around the world versus buying locally.

Yeah, much better

Here in Finland the agroforests (99% of all forest coverage) generally do get some biodiversity in them but then the entire plantation is clear cut and the forest floor is raked clean and sterilised of all life. They take everything but rocks. The end result is a massive biodiversity loss. Everything is put through a grinder and shipped away. I hate agroforestry like this with a passion and fully expect prison sentences to these criminals in the future.

Done like this, it's like a carbon sequestration project that would decide to periodically dump all of its captured CO2 in the wild back again...

There is a lot living in the slash left after a harvest operation, also that's forestry, not agroforestry. Wood also has to come from somewhere.

Not much when the slash site dries out so much that newly planted trees fail. Happens here in Central Europe, as recently there are dry spells more often. Foresters have to (very reluctantly) accept that cutting everything clear won't work.

This also seems like a recipe for soil degradation and erosion.

Yes but they don't leave it at that. They dig up the roots, stumps everything up and pile it up and grind down and ship it out.

Sustainable forestry would only take out some of the trees, leave the stumps and replant. The forest would still look like a forest but only a little sparser for a while. there are studies proving this leads to greater yields.

Have you got a source for that? I would be very surprised if they dug up roots and stumps but I guess its possible when producing wood chip

Thats less a forest and more just a farm pretending to be a forest. If they are criminals, then the people growing monoculture wheat fields are also criminals.

I think you mean plantation forestry rather than agroforestry. An agroforestry system tends to be quite biodiverse and have multiple canopy layers. You also usually intercrop with food crops.

We need to have trees mixed with diverse crops. Trees will provide nutrients for the crops through a network of micro fungus which are living in biodiversity with the trees roots. Trees will naturally also cool the close surroundings so that it does not get too warm needed due to global warming.

Already a lot of fields in Europe are not active due too over production of crops. We should probably mix trees and farmland and open up some of those closed fields. Trees will take some capacity of the land but that can be replaced by opening up closed areas.

“ Roots take in water, and nutrients, from the soil. Without help from fungus for better uptake of nutrients, trees would be small or would die. Most trees have a favorite species of fungus that they associate with for this purpose.” Source: https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree

Now say that you mix crops and trees then you probably can find trees and crops which mix well together. The crop will side load get a boost of nutrients from the trees fungus.

The key is crop diversity because brassica plants (cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts, etc) are not helped by mycorhizal fungi at all, and in abundance it might even be detrimental to them. Some mycorhizal fungi types will destroy some species of plants in order to benefit their species of choice, going so far as to tap directly into other plant roots to use them as nutrition.

One issues with trees is that they block sunlight. Thus if the type of crop you are growing needs a lot of sunlight, you are going to have problems.

Furthermore, since the amount of photosynthesis is dependent on the amount of sunlight, it is likely that your staple crops would be the ones that required a lot of sunlight, since those are usually calorie dense.

It depends on the crop, but many crops don't suffer much, some even do better from the additional shade and shelter.

That doesn't seem like a particularly compelling answer. By varying the crop, you can grow things virtually anywhere. In practice though, people want to grow the things they're familiar with. Shade presents a problem with at least three of most important crop families: grasses, pulses, and nightshades. Their wild ancestors preferred sunny, warm environments without a lot of shade.

And some of those will do fine in mild shade, this is far from full canopy cover.

I'm imagining something along the order of wide-spaced modern orchards, which have tree spacing of ~20-40ft. I wouldn't exactly call those "mild shade".

I just don't see any benefits beyond companion planting with a groundcover crop like cucurbits, which would be far easier to mechanize.

This article is about countries bordering on the Sahara using trees to help nurture back desert no good for growing anything back to healthy farm land. There's a notion there of too much sun light preventing growth because it dries out the land and kills off what remains of the soil turning all of it into desert unable to retain any water; UV radiation is not great for microbial life. Using trees to restore water balance and regulate temperatures, seems like it works.

We have similar processes going on in industrial farming in North America and Europe where we have been slowly depleting and giving up on what used to be healthy farm land. E.g. large parts of Spain are very arid but that wasn't always the case. Likewise parts of Italy and France are drying out because of intensive farming. It's less of an issue in more Northern parts of Europe but even there, decades of monoculture have created problems.

The message here is simple: it's a revertible process and it's a relatively quick process that doesn't necessarily involve much more than a bit of pruning, nurturing, and being mindful of the way nature works locally. It seems most of the complexity and cost is related to creating the right incentives, removing bureaucratic obstacles, and educating people a bit. Scaling this up seems like it's worthwhile. In most places where this could work, people have very little left to lose and a lot to gain.

If Africans in the middle of nowhere, far away from modern infrastructure can pull this off in some of the harshest environments in the world with little or no means, others can do that too. E.g. the Mid west and Texas come to mind in the US. Or the plains of Spain, which used to have forest and now looks more like the Sahara.

The mid west is improving their soils. No till and cover crops make the soil better. Different climates demand different farming to improve .

You're going to design your farm according to your context and the needs of your crops.

For example, a farm in the UK may follow the Wakelyns approach: https://vimeo.com/256082580 Alleys oriented to maximise the sun for the crops they're intending to grow. With tree species selected for various reasons, e.g. their size and if they fix nitrogen.

In the Sahara, maybe you want shade. Many growers intentionally use shade nets to reduce evaporation and heat stress. It depends on your context and your aims.

I expect there's some degree of trade off. Lose a portion of productivity of your annual staple crops, in exchange for the benefits of mixing perennial crops with annuals. Depending on your situation you may be able to control much of this when designing the farm.

Trees don't provide nutrients to crops through fungus, if anything it is the opposite.

They encourage mycorrhizae growth, which is probably what they mean by “fungus”.

Yes but the mycorrhizae from trees usually can't infect crops

This is actually an area I plan to invest time in after moving back to the US next year. Specifically, on automation-enhanced sustainable microfarming.

Crop diversity is a pretty key part of that, as is appropriate fungal and insect management.

Avoiding chemical pesticides is hard by the way -- in my current (tiny) garden, it's been the only way I was able to keep the aphids and mites from absolutely destroying my jalapeños. Ladybugs would be preferable, but are incredibly hard to come by here.

Home and/or municipal composting adds another level to this, and it'd be great to get to the point where a large percentage of packaging was directly compostable. That'll be tricky -- you don't want the packaging to break down until after the lifetime of the food inside it -- but likely doable as manufacturing advances.

> Home and/or municipal composting adds another level to this, and it'd be great to get to the point where a large percentage of packaging was directly compostable. That'll be tricky -- you don't want the packaging to break down until after the lifetime of the food inside it -- but likely doable as manufacturing advances.

I think we should change our expectations for food shopping/packaging and shelf life. If we move away from an expectation for year-round availability, and crazy long shelf life, we can do away with all of the shipping, warehousing and packaging that is derived from that demand. In regards to carbon, packaging is non-trivial, but I think it is second to the shipping involved.

> If we move away from an expectation for year-round availability

So, here's a question: do you think you could convince people to give up smartphones?

Because I think it'd be about the same level of difficulty.

People really, really, really don't like to surrender convenience or comfort.

I realize you aren't advocating this -- you have great intentions -- but crazy long shelf lives keep a lot of people from starving.

I'm interested in the micro-farming idea primarily because (a) I like the idea of adding more redundancy into the food supply; (b) because fresh food tastes amazing; and (c) because it's an interesting problem to solve. But I'd rather see that we roll the clock forward, and develop better technology to enable both year-round availability and healthy ultra-long-life foods, while at the same time deploying indefinitely sustainable agricultural practices.

We are definitely on the same page regarding the likelihood of people giving up their comforts of their own accord, I am just an optimist first and a pragmatist second!

In practice however, you may see carbon taxes change the way people consume international goods as prices on food would most certainly go up. Bananas in Australia are a good example, occasionally they fluctuate in price and you can see consumers aren't willing to wear the higer costs. Maybe it wouldn't be a disaster if Australians could only eat local fruits for example, I think it would ruffle the status quo but pretty quickly people would adapt.

I feel like a carbon tax on shipping would level the playing field toward local microfarming as well, and I would love to see agrofarming become a part of big country landscapes. Both the US and Australia are characterized by a vast majority of land being a patchwork quilt of cleared fields. I would love to see that change in my life time.

I would expect the wasteage to outstrip the packaging and shipping contributions. Increased waste also calls for increased production and conversion from wild habitats.

I am not saying don't preserve food though, rather cut out the activities that make us need to preserve it so long. For example, shipping food internationally in cooled shipping containers. It seems pretty excessive, in some cases frivolous. Like shipping out of season fruits to Australia so we don't miss out year round.

I think I wouldn't have this opinion if shipping were carbon nuetral mind you.

Citation please. In my fields the worst yield is near the trees. Why? Because the trees suck up all the water and nutrients. This is for corn, soybeans, wheat, and milo.

https://www.iaea.org/publications/8181/management-of-agrofor...

The abstract seems to validate both the parent comment's claims and your experience:

> The studies show that the integration of trees and crops can increase resource use efficiency, but careful management and a system design tailored to local climatic and soil conditions are required if competition and consequent reduction in crop yields are to be avoided.

If you live in the UK, you might be interested in helping crowdfund this new regenerative agroforestry project in Scotland:

https://projectwren.com/projects/regenerative-agroforestry

For profit company, but asking for crowd funding with little in return.

I love to support - but ultimately I am volunteering my money for their profit margin.

I have been planting and tending to trees in a forest that I purchased a few years ago. On top of that I have been actively building organic soil in my fields by top dressing with compost and organic cover crops.

That being said, recently I have been feeling that all my efforts are for not, sure I might be making the world a better place in my own small way but for what purpose?

Every day I watch as the people around me exploit the environment to enrich themselves while I get left behind. So lately the little voice in my head has been whispering "You own this land, why not clear cut the trees, make a couple hundred grand off the raw logs, buy a tractor to disc the land that's left and grow out a few years of annual grains then sell off the spent pesticide laiden land and live the rest of my life in a condo with a big bank account."

I know this sound selfish but why should I just scrape by working my fingers to the bone, whilst the rest of my community sells out? I feel like someone shit in the pool and I'm going to be the last one to get out.

I guess my point is every inch of soil I build and every tree I protect is like money in the bank, I can cash in at any time I want. The truth is every day I get more tired and feel the pull to cash it all in for my own selfish gains.

Surely you can sell the land for much more money if you haven't ruined it?

Making money by destroying your own property is in general not doable.

i take it you've never seen the remainders of a pit mine

I might be able to get 300K for the land with the house on it right now, if I nuke the forest and put it into hay production that piece alone would earn me 200K for the logs and 50K-100K per year contracting it out to cattle or hay producers.

It might not make sense but it is what it is, I guess.

Not necessarily, often the value of the land is mostly the value of the trees on it based on type, age, quality, density, ...

As such, nature areas - especially when they have a protected status - will be worth less than areas where the trees can be harvested commercially.

It's really a shame that our current economic system has no way to account for miniscule value provided to everyone. I'm glad about every tree on the planet and I'm sure there are many others who feel the same way. Yet that value doesn't get reflected. The value only gets reflected once three is out of the commons and logged.

I was thinking from a commercial perspective.

A piece of land will have value proportional to how much (say) timber it can produce in the future. OP talked about turning it into "spent pesticide laden land", which to me sounds like nothing will ever grow there again.

And commercially, dead land like that has no value.

You could start a rotation of timber harvesting. Then you're collecting interest on that money in the bank, without clearcutting your capital. In the big picture you'll get more value out of your asset that way.

Thats a good idea, unfortunately most of the trees worth harvesting are 60+ years old, im not sure I have enough years to do that.

Truth is I was having a weak moment when I wrote that comment, I dont think there is a homesteader that hasn't share my thoughts at some point.

Sorry for the whining rant!! Chin up!

Once you establish a track record with a clear path forward to perpetual annual yield, whenever you want to sell the property it can be valued based on the projected ongoing yield, even if you don't personally harvest any trees you yourself have planted.

Just trying to provide a middle pathway that compromises between "cash it all out" and "leave it pristine & don't touch anything" :)

Depending on where you are there are many commercially viable trees that have rotations shorter than 60 years

you are setting an example, you are fulfilling a duty to the transcendent. you are a beautiful person, can you market more? start a patreon and a vlog? the not clearcutting is much more interesting from that position. i wish you well.

> you are a beautiful person, can you market more? start a patreon and a vlog?

First, it is not against you personally but I have seen this remarks and suggestions too much that I need to scratch an the itch. When the idea of the necessity to market oneself and go get a patreon had raised so much? I get it, it is a way to be the patron of some person doing art, good, whatever in the world as an alternative to grant, funding and old-school benefactors. But why do we have to create a content in response to that, act like we have to create a community around oneself or the project to get the money?

It make me really awkward every time I see a reach like that. I perceive it like a call to create a cult-ish of personality and to enforce the exposure of all in the world through a tiny window made by the different communities you are being part of. And for those people be upfront, they have to stay always the same to keep being the reflection of every member of their communities or it backlashes against them. I always feel awkward that the first response to funding finish to be : put yourself out there and market yourself to get a community and money to create your project. Do not forget to create daily vlog/insta/youtube/whatever so everyone can see that your are here making what we give you money for.

Sorry for the rant.

You could do some coppicing if you have any use for the wood and it's the right varieties. Here I can do it with poplar. I have some I cut down 4 or 5 years ago and then a stand of spindly ones came up from the roots, but some of them are already 5-6" in diameter. With some thinning out in another 5 years they will be wide enough for me to make skis with.

I basically try to plant something for everything I take out, and to replace non-natives with natives. A coffee table from the Norway maple that a storm took down, and an eastern black cherry growing next to its rotting stump. Feels good.

Thats an interesting idea, I do have lots of cottonwoods that are coppicing, they are currently around 20ft tall and 2-3 inches thick. They tend to grow along the edges of the forest, as the conifers shade them out further in.

Are you planning on making water skis? I normally just cut a few each year for my runner beans, I have heard that the larger trees mill into good floor boards in barns as they are easy on animals feet. I do know they don't make very good firewood as they produce insane amounts of ash.

I have made wooden snow skis, with a poplar (well eastern cottonwood) core. It's a good lightweight material for that.

I had a number of exceedingly huge poplars taken down 5 years ago as they were threatening the house. I had some of it milled and had a dining room table made, and have a bunch for my own hobbying as well. It's a great wood, really should be used more simply because it's very renewable; cut it down and it comes right back Obi-Wan.

Yes, it's soft but it's easy to work, is lightweight but has good tensile strength (great for skis!), and has a beautiful tone -- mine had sat in the field for a year and had developed some beautiful spalting, rainbow toned. Mostly that goes away after it is sanded and so on and sits inside but there's still some there.

So my goal now is to see how long it will take for poplars to grow with the minimum diameter to make ski cores. I might not even need to hire a mill, might be sufficient to just get them to a minimum diameter, peel and dry them, and then plane them -- they grow pretty straight. Even not growing wide, ski cores are usually a composite of laminated strips, I could probably glue a number of narrower ones together just fine.

Pollarding is an alternative to coppicing. It is coppicing, but at a higher height, e.g. 10 feet, than coppicing. Different pros and cons, e.g. involving sunlight.Google the terms and check out Geoff Lawton (permaculture pioneer and guru) specific videos on the subject (coppicing etc.).

I'm actively scouting around for my own plot of land, so this resonates with me.

> That being said, recently I have been feeling that all my efforts are for not, sure I might be making the world a better place in my own small way but for what purpose?

There's two things there to unpack.

First, making our part of the world better is really all we can do.

I'm a big fan of "be the change you want to see in the world". Be a role model. Show others why doing this is a good thing.

If that proves unworkable, then, well, as the saying goes, "there's your problem."

Educate others, but when they push back -- listen. Don't shout over them, or insult them. Understand why they push back, and either learn to address their concerns, or adapt your world-view to encompass them.

The second part -- what's the purpose? -- is something only you can answer.

I love nature. Especially trees. Living in Tokyo, you really start to miss trees and green spaces.

The Tokyo mindset seems to be, "oh, look, there's a bit of dirt, we could pour concrete on that."

That's why I want some land. I'm not trying to change the world, or score points from other people. My motivation is purely intrinsic -- I want that for me. And because I believe it makes the world nicer, but since I live in the world, that's also something for me.

Probably also for my future kids. I want them to be at home anywhere, whether it's rural nowhere, or a dense urban core. Far too many people have only one perspective, and it limits them.

Figure out why things matter to you. If it's because you want something from other people, validation or what-have-you -- and I am not saying that is the case -- then you're just going to be disappointed.

> I guess my point is every inch of soil I build and every tree I protect is like money in the bank, I can cash in at any time I want. The truth is every day I get more tired and feel the pull to cash it all in for my own selfish gains.

Well, which would make you happier? More money in the bank, or having your own personal forest?

You made some good points.

Interesting fact, it was a Japanese farmers book that started me off on my path towards owning this property.

I too was living in a big city and felt the pull back to nature, then I read a tiny book called "One Straw Revolution" and I was sold on the simpler life.

I guess it's kind of a grass is greener situation as I have recently been missing living in the city with all the services offered there but when I was there I wanted to live in the country.

I think I will take the day off tomorrow (after my chores) and go for a couple hour walk through the bush, maybe it will refresh my attitude if I take a break from the grind.

> I guess it's kind of a grass is greener situation as I have recently been missing living in the city with all the services offered there but when I was there I wanted to live in the country.

Emotions matter. You're feeling that way for a reason, and should probably dig a bit into that.

Maybe it might help to sit down and list out what it is you miss, and why?

That'd give you a good starting point to see if you can't fix some of those things.

You can also book an AirBnB in a city and go spend some time there, which might help you gain a better sense of perspective.

>then I read a tiny book called "One Straw Revolution" and I was sold on the simpler life.

Good book, I have read it. Check out Krishna McKenzie of Solitude Farm, Auroville, India. An Englishman who studied at a J. Krishnamurti school in England, read that One Straw book by Masanobu Fukuoka while still in school, was so influenced by it that he went to Auroville and started a farm there (with a few others), based on Fukuoka's natural farming and permaculture's principles - all this, 25 years ago, and he is still going strong there. He has many videos on his Youtube channel about his farm work, edible weeds of the area, their farm cafe where they sell/serve healthy organic food made from their farm products, food and medicinal values of the 140-odd species they grow there, making permaculture circle gardens, hedgerows, mulch trenches, growing with high biodiversity, etc.

A few of his videos:

The incredible values of edible weeds. https://youtu.be/Ne39EwOffOU

20 types of Greens to eat during Lockdown!

https://youtu.be/g1_omHjjdMs

LOW EFFORT, Easy To Grow Plants in a Permaculture Food Forest, Circle Garden & Perennial Hedge

https://youtu.be/eq7ASQSVjGQ

The One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka ~ CHAPTER 7 & 8 read by Krishna McKenzie

https://youtu.be/Ow4vqB1uODY

Hahaha making money off grain farming is very hard and extremely capital intensive.

I’m no farmer but I do love well looked after land and the smaller scale higher quality goods sustainably produced on it. Your story is a huge competitive advantage over your neighbors. You’ve already sold me on your story so why not sell me some products?

Not saying it's the right path, but worst case, could you log and crop part of it and retain the rest for peace of mind? Obviously your financial stability is important, but having some sort of legacy and purpose is also. Maybe you can balance both.

Alternatively set up some tiny house cabins and rent them out.

It's not just for farmland folks. You can have you own mini food forest in your backyard in the span of 5 years. You just have to start.

Check out my YouTube channel [1] if you find yourself wanting to learn more. I'm trying to get 1,000 subs to unlock mobile streaming so I can go live during weekends while tending to an establishing food forest.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/c/RussellBallestrini

Do you know of any resources for places on water restriction? We’re moving out of the city in a few weeks to an area that allows for zero outdoor water usage other than roof catchment. I’ve got some native wildflower areas planned out but haven’t been able to find much on drought tolerant fruits and vegetable. The couple suggestions I found pointed me towards varieties that didn’t turn out to be drought tolerant once I researched further.

We’ll be in an area that gets a fair amount of precip (typical afternoon t storms) but could go a week or two with rain.

Water catchment for rain is important. Currently I use hugelkultur [1] (might not work in your context), swales of various widths/lengths/depths to hold extra rains from running off.

I've modified my driveway to pull water off the road and into my system.

I also use grey water; I have a sink in the garden where I wash produce and it drains into a mini-swale to feed strawberries, onions, and a couple plum trees.

I'm also considering rigging up an outside shower for the same reason to water another area.

My goal is to eventually get some IBC totes to hold roof runoff. I'm also considering purchasing a small pump since I have access to a fast flowing 15 foot deep stream.

One other thing to note, you'd be surprised just how resilient trees, srubs, and plants are to water stresses, if you use enough mulch. The soil life will thank you as well.

Additionally, once you establish a system it tends toward self-renewal, planting perennial trees, shrubs, vines, and ground cover resolves water issues in most contexts. The biomass (both alive and dead) will accumulate and help with water retention.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%BCgelkultur

Yeah! Hugelkultur is on my list of things to explore. Sadly we are not allowed to take the gray water outside or capture any water outside of what falls on the roof, nor are we allowed to divert any streams or anything, so if there's a longer drought we'll likely run out. Indoor water is not a problem it's just that we're limited on what we can do outside because outdoor water usage results in the water leaving the local water system and that water already has senior rights attached to it. We're also not allowed to create and kind of water runoff storage system like a swale or redirect water from the driveway.

We do have a ton of trees and shrubs and bushes and I'm going to be making some gardens with native wildflowers that should be able to resist the local weather machinations but I'd like to find some drought tolerant vegetables.

The Groasis Waterboxx is a device designed to help in growing trees in dry areas. [1]

It works by using a slow dripping wick to make a connection with the capillary water deep below for the roots to follow. [2]

A cheaper biodegradable version is available. [3]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groasis_Waterboxx

[2] https://www.groasis.com/en/technology/how-does-the-reforesta...

[3] https://www.groasis.com/en/products/plant-trees-and-bushes-i...

Interesting, thanks! I'll have to see if this is allowed under our water laws

Should be okay as you just fill it once then rainwater does the rest.

Mulch heavily (with compost if you can, else with other mulch materials). Google for and apply mulching pros and cons and precautions. It can help a lot with lessening the need for water, plus it has 3 to 4 other benefits. Check Youtube mulching videos, ditto composting.

Mulching also buffers the precipitation, acting like a sponge. See my sibling comment.

Time to give another plug to https://projectwren.com -- one of their biggest CO2 compensation projects is tree planting in Kenya: https://projectwren.com/update/2/may-2020

Support it!

Well, there is the problem that the reduction in farmland utilization is reliant upon cheap artificial fertilizer, which is currently produced using natural gas as an energy/chemical source, which causes pollution.

This life cycle analysis paper shows that 90% of co2 output from fertilizer is offset by increased biomass production. This is important nuance.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030147971...

So it's a net non-zero CO2 footprint?

That would rather be against fertilizer then.

Oh yeah, growing food is definitely one of the biggest sources of emissions! 26%. But many things besides fertilizer. Reviewed here.

Poore, J., & Nemecek, T. (2018). Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science, 360(6392), 987-992.

Thanks a lot for the reference!

We are an animal species literally growing on fossil fuels.

Yes, that is correct. Really important to get the transition right. Then we just have to deal with creating a post scarcity political economy :)

Not really, it depends upon the cost of not using fertilizer. The 10% emissions could be better in immediafe emissions again than having to farm N times more acres to get the same production.

You could still have good production by using permaculture or other natural methods (or at least methods that are not energy-intensive).

2% of current greenhouse gas emissions are creating ammonia for fertilizer from natural gas.

Two potential solutions are a)

Create the ammonia from green hydrogen i.e. made from water with renewavle electricity

Theres a process that turns natural gas (ideally from food waste) into hydrogen plus graphite do the carbon becomes a usable resource ratger than being vented as CO2.

c) use practices that were commonplace before artificial fertilizer was invented; fallowing, manure, compost, etc.

Of course, manure and compost have their own set of CO2 (and methane) emission problems. At least it's carbon neutral I guess.

And get much lower yields as a result

Pivot Bio [1] has genetically modified microbes to provide plants with the nitrogen they need without the excess greenhouse gases that synthetic alternatives produce.[2]

[1] https://www.pivotbio.com/

[2] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/We-should-discuss-soil-as-...

This article is based on assumptions of global and local ecosystem health. Quantifying ecosystem health is fascinating, important and very difficult. Etymologically, health is based on wholeness. In classical Greek philosophy, health is harmony, which can be defined as integrated diversity. Can we therefore measure the diversity and integrity of ecosystems? Bio-Diversity measures in ecosystems seem easy, but are actually quite complicated (two species of pine the same as pine and oak, or pine and rare moss?) — and measures of ecosystem integrity are even harder. But not hard as in impossible, hard as in more scientists should be working on it. Here's one recent paper.

Vieweger, A., & Döring, T. F. (2015). Assessing health in agriculture–towards a common research framework for soils, plants, animals, humans and ecosystems. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 95(3), 438-446.

As a tree-lover this is a heartwarming story but it has to be put in context: the population of Niger will double by 2050. The country will be growing by almost a million people per year. How will it support all those people who will be living on the edge of starvation? And how many of those desperate people will be tempted to cut down the trees?

https://xkcd.com/605/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_momentum

Our North American aquifiers are drying up and topsoil is being blown away? I live in a major farming province of Canada and none of this is true. There's a massive worldwide glut of wheat this year because there are so many good crop-producing areas around the world and this has been true for decades.

I don’t think this will work... as usually we just destroy everything...

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