O.k., here’s the new one and it is actually posted!
There have been success stories and land degradation stories solicited by the UNEP and presented on the website http://www.oasisglobal.net/successes.htm
Look at some of the stories, comment on what you see is common between them, and how this relates to the video we watched in class “The Oregon Farming Story”.
Responses are due no later than Saturday night (1/24/09) by midnight (12:00)
11 comments:
When reading these stories and watching the farming video in class, there are a few things that they both found very important. How much money to spend on the land and the farming itself is one decision. In the case of the farming in Africa, how much money outside help was willing to spend was a main deciding factor. Another thing that was mentioned in almost evey single one of those articles was the serious need for water conservation. The water supply over in Africa is very limited and baing able to reuse water to keep the land fertile is challenging and very important. Using underground irrigation and natural resources such as nearby rivers for water on the farm are two very good ways to use surroundings as an advantage, and to conserve the limited amount of water, beacuse if the water were to run out, the fields would quickly dry up and continue to dry up in Africa's hot climate.
Not only Africa, but India and China have had successes in farming. In India, growing peas not only helps with business, jobs and food. but also provides firewood for the poor that live along the dryland. Still, the number one thing for farming in these countries is the importance of water. Even building small scale irrigation systems makes all the difference. Conserving water while creating business and hope.
As Kelsey said, water conservation plays a major role in the success of farming. Clearly, without water there is no way to grow crops. By conserving, those in Africa were able to use their once dried out "useless" land and cultivate it for farming. One other major factor shown in the first two stories (Burkina Faso and Niger) was sharing conservation techniques. By doing so they were able to utilize the zaï farming to cycle their system into sustainability. The dairy farmer in video we watched in class used a form of this technology. He stored the water and manure in a type of well and pumped it out to feed his crops. This then grew the crops that he used to feed his cows that provided milk for his dairy farm. Sustainable? for the most part, Expensive? with out a doubt. Farming today is growing increasingly expensive, and yet the prices for selling their product will not go up as well, thus leaving farmers to a hard life, and even bankruptcy if it persists. However, farming is a necessity in the world, without it there would be no food, so farmers continue on. Such as the farmers in Senegal. They went through govt. control, drought, and poor economy all at the same time, and still were able to struggle through to make a living, however meager it may have been at times. I feel that there needs to be a better way to conserve our resources, at this point if we do not take charge, we will run out in a short amount of time.
I remember in the video how farmers had trouble with diseases which would ruin their crop, which would lead to a downfall in the production which met high standards and needs to other companies, a good example is wheat which is a common grain that is distributed throughout the United States. This relates to the Pigeonpea story In India, which is about the Pigeonpea which is an important food grown and consumed mainly in dryland india, and farmers had a problem with Fusarium, which is a fungal wilt disease that effected the farmers in india, but now they have developed new type of this pea which is resistant to this disease.
Protection of your crop is important because then when a disaster occurs it doesn't affect your production, as long as its protected in a natural way its effective.
it seems to me that many of the stories talked about how people were helping each other, or sharing their knowlege or working together as a community to adapt and overcome an obstacle. whether it be putting together "community-based organizations to develop 'negotiated action plans' that set standards for land managementor" in the Mashreq and Haghreb project, or it be niger following Faso's idea, the fact that people working together is a recurring theme in mamy of the success stories.
Just like the point Brittany was making, farming is a necessity not only in American society but globally as well. For farmers, its a tough way of life with very little benefits and times for rest or vacation from work. But what I recognized from both the video and one of the articles about change in Senegal, is that farmers are persistent and motivated. A few farmers being interviewed in the video were talking about how even though it takes a lot of work, they would not be doing it if they didn't love it.
In Senegal, farmers adapted to the changing markets that made their produce less demanded and learned how to increase groundnut production by improving labor and water use efficiently.
Over time, farming has transformed immensely: using ox instead of horses to plow fields to the industrial revolution that introduced many effective and efficient tools- the techniques of farming are ever-changing to meet the demands and the call for sustainability of our environment.
I had trouble with the link. I think this one works.
That being said, the one thing in common between them all is that every single one has been a worthwhile investment to rehabilitate the land. Not a single story said the land got better, but was generally a waste of time for them to be helping.
This relates to the video we watched because more and more rehabilitated lands are crowding the market with more and more produce and driving prices down, which hurts domestic farmers. The land rehabilitation is a double edged sword, it benefits the world environmentally, but not so much Oregon farmers. Sadly this means that eventually all domestic farming, providing locally grown foodstuffs will either go out of business, or in the hope of saving our farmers the government will decrease funding to dryland saving. Us or them
All of the articles and the farming video we watched in class centered on the changes farmers have had to make to keep up with the changing conditions of the land, the economy, and their customers. Cece touched on this topic in her response and I agree with what she had to say. In order for farmers to subsist they must be as financially fiscal as possible and produce as much of their product as possible. Farmers in the video and in the articles have done this through changing the type of crop they grow, the irrigation, tilling and fertilization practices they use, and paying close attention to the economy and the market. Farming has become an increasingly difficult business to be successful in. Farmers must work together with scientists, economists, and environmentalists to be able to continue their line of work and to succeed in a world that is becoming increasingly urbanized.
I had trouble with the link as well. But yes, Peters does work.
As Kelsey said, money is always a huge issue when it comes to farming, or anything. Do we have the money for it? If we do do we want to spend it? How can we spend the least amount of money? In the first two stories that I read (Restoring land and soil in Burkina Faso and Niger learns from its neighbor) the same idea was used twice. In Burkina Faso, something was developed called the zaï technique, which is "digging holes to retain manure and water in the plant root zone." This helped increase the amount of groundwater considerably.
And I have something to say in response to Dario's post concerning the Pigeonpea. The fact that there can be a "new generation" of a fruit kind of freaks me out. I want to save New Generations for Star Trek. Yes, protecting your farm is very important but instead of making some giant invincible plant, I would rather change my crop. I understand making a living in India can't be simple, but the word "resistant" when paired with any kind of fruit or vegetable frightens me just a little bit.
In both America and developing countries, farmers need successful irrigation techniques and water for their crops, as was shown in the video.
Farmers who are able to save water to irrigate to their crops have a better outcome. The environments of India and China with more of this ability and availability, have better soil for agriculture.
So, the amount of water that can be conserved to fertilize is important..
But farmers face a problem;both in America, but especially in developing countries, and that is the cost to sustain this.
I felt the sense of community the farmers possessed in those stories really can provide noticeable benefits. in the video they talked of parched soil which could no longer support wheat production, but maybe we can borrow ideas from the Burkina Faso examples of zai technique's to help benefit our own production of food. I think that farming is such a unsteady income provider, because you practically grow the money you spend. So if the soil becomes barren, you can only wait. If there is a wealth of knowledge to draw upon, it becomes alot easier to deal with hardships. Especially if the economies low, and the proces of food & milk fluctuate like in the movie.
i think we should spend more money on the food we need to grow to survive, and maybe alternate ways of obtaining it. Our population just keeps getting bigger and bigger who's to say that our food supply can catch up, even with special farming techniques, can it still be considered a stall? If we run out of reasources to take care of the earth, or they are unavialable, how can we keep up this pattern of resource depletion.
One thing you can get from both the video and the stories on the website is that no matter where you are, whether it be Oregon, Kenya, Morocco, or China (to name a few) farmers struggle through the same aches and pains in order to deliver the crops that, as non-farmers, we take for advantage and leave these deserving people without recognition. Like any obstacle or challenge that confronts you, farmers seek ways to either adjust to these struggles and carry on, push through it, or just flat-out give up. The list of factors that need to be accomplished/maintained/taken into consider to make farming successful is huge - this is an over-arching theme among any farmers. Weather, money, motivation, time, these are few of the variables that play into the success or even the failure of farming.
Farming undoubtedly plays a large role in the way in which we obtain the food we eat and the nutrients we ingest in order to survive. The method of farming is one that revolutionized how humans lived - it allowed people to settle down in one place and be self-sufficient and sustainable... but that was then. The world has aged a lot since then and America's as well as the World's farmlands are shrinking, as the population is increasing - both of which are at a terrifying rate. Perhaps domestic farming isn't the road that the food industry needs to pursue in the future, as of now it for sure isn't the most realistically reliable way, given that the actions taken to reduce over population remains at a minimal level, therefore land developers, industrialists, and other people with similar interests in obtaining more land, now have their sights on land that farmers may currently be using.
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