Vea la versión en español a continuación
The Amazonian rain forest is being systematically destroyed in Bolivia, and it’s mostly legal. That’s what I learned recently from Juan Pablo Chumacero, the director of Fundación Tierra, a Bolivian think tank.
Speaking at the meeting of the Bolivian Agroecological Movement, Chumacero was able to keep a friendly tone, in spite of his disturbing topic.
I knew the rain forest was being cleared, and fast. Massive forest fires, set on purpose, darken the skies of cities hundreds of kilometers away. Besides fire, some forests are also cleared more discretely, by bulldozers.
Eight million hectares have been deforested already, and 300,000 to 400,000 more are cleared every year. That means that an area larger than Rhode Island, or of Luxemburg, is lost every year. There is quick money to be made from deforestation, and many people are getting into the act, including medium and large farmers,  Bolivian and foreign companies, Mennonites, peasant farmers, land grabbers and “interculturales†(people who are moving away from their rural, Andean homes, and shedding their indigenous identity).
The irreparable damage is a structural problem. The Bolivian government has set a goal, to triple farmland from 3.5 million hectares to 10 million, and to boost the cattle population from 10 million head to twice that many. To speed that goal along, the government has now made it easy to get a deforestation permit. You no longer need to have title to the land to get an authorization to deforest. Three-fourths (74%) of deforestation is happening legally.
The main reason is to plant more soya. After a few years the soil’s natural fertility is exhausted and the land may be used to raise cattle. Some of the forest grows on soil that is too poor to support agriculture. After a couple of years of growing soya, the former forest is nothing but sand, and the agricultural frontier moves on.
There is still time to save this valuable forest, but it will take action.
What you can do:
- Boycott Bolivian beef and soy beans.
- Eat less meat. The rising market demand for meat that entices governments to adopt policies to destroy the forest.
- Put concerted pressure on the Bolivian government and on international organizations to adopt a forest conservation policy.
Photo by Enrique Canedo, Wikimedia Commons
CENIZAS DE LA AMAZONÃA: DESTRUCCIÓN LEGAL DE LOS BOSQUES DE BOLIVIA
Jeff Bentley, 8 de septiembre del 2024
El bosque amazónico está siendo destruida sistemáticamente en Bolivia, y es mayormente legal. Eso es lo que aprendà recientemente de Juan Pablo Chumacero, el director de Fundación Tierra, una ONG boliviano.
Hablando en la reunión del Movimiento Agroecológico Boliviano, Chumacero pudo mantener un tono amistoso, a pesar de su tema perturbador.
Yo ya sabÃa que estaban arrasando con el bosque, y rápidamente. Incendios forestales masivos, provocados a propósito, tapan el cielo con humo en ciudades a cientos de kilómetros del fuego. Además de los incendios, algunos bosques también se botan de manera más discreta, por maquinaria pesada.
Ya se han deforestado ocho millones de hectáreas, y talan entre 300,000 y 400,000 más cada año. Eso significa que se pierde un área más grande que Rhode Island o Luxemburgo cada año. Se gana dinero rápido con la deforestación, y muchas personas se prestan a hacerlo, incluidos agricultores medianos y grandes, empresas bolivianas y extranjeras, menonitas, campesinos, avasalladores y “interculturales†(personas que se están alejando de sus hogares rurales andinos y dejando a un lado su identidad indÃgena).
El daño irreparable es un problema estructural. El gobierno boliviano ha establecido un objetivo de triplicar la tierra cultivable de 3.5 millones de hectáreas a 10 millones, y aumentar la población de ganado de 10 millones de cabezas a 20 millones. Para lograr sus metas, el gobierno ahora ha agilizado el trámite de obtener el certificado de desmonte. Ya no es necesario tener tÃtulo de propiedad de la tierra para obtener una autorización de desmonte. Tres cuartas partes (74%) de la deforestación ocurre legalmente.
La razón principal es para sembrar más soya. Después de unos años, la fertilidad natural del suelo se agota y la tierra solo sirve criar ganado. Dan tÃtulos a los interculturales para tierras de vocación forestal. Pero siembran soya, y lo dejan un arenal. La frontera agrÃcola sigue avanzando.
Aún hay tiempo para salvar este valioso bosque, pero se necesitará acción.
Lo que puedes hacer:
- Boicotear la carne y la soya bolivianas.
- Comer menos carne. La creciente demanda del mercado de carne es lo que incita a los gobiernos a adoptar polÃticas que destruyen el bosque.
- Hacer presión concertada sobre el gobierno boliviano y sobre organizaciones internacionales para adoptar una polÃtica de conservación forestal.
Foto por Enrique Canedo, Wikimedia Commons
Nederlandse versie hieronder
Not a single day passes without news of the increasing challenges farmers face in Europe and in much of the world. Rainfall has become more erratic and intense, and heatwaves are becoming the new normal. We should all be concerned about the speed at which climate change is affecting our planet. How we decide to live, what to eat, where to source our food, and how we spend our leisure time cut across all of society: agriculture, industry, tourism, transport, as well as urban planning and rural land use.
According to the main Spanish farmers’ association, the Coordinator of Farmers’ and Livestock Owners’ Organizations (COAG), drought affects 60% of Spain’s countryside and has destroyed crops across 3.5 million hectares. This is more than double the farm land we have in Belgium and six times that of Flanders.
Three years of very low rainfall and high temperatures have put Spain officially into long-term drought. This year, losses are not limited to wheat, barley and maize, but also expected for nuts, orchards, vineyards, olives, sunflower and vegetable farming. As vegetation is scarce, bees are failing to make honey. Beekeepers are facing a third consecutive season without a harvest. According to a recent CNN article Disappearing lakes, dead crops and trucked-in water, these conditions point to a new reality for parts of Europe, which is warming twice as fast as the global average.
Farms are not the only places in trouble. Municipal water systems are dryer across much of southern Europe. In Italy, in April this year extreme drought was already affecting Lombardy and Piedmont, with 19 towns experiencing the highest level of shortage. Some places have already started receiving water in tanker trucks.
As it takes 15,000 litres of water to produce 1 kilogram of beef and 3,000 litres of water to produce 1 kilogram of cheese, it is no wonder that livestock farming is also at risk. After all, farmers need pasture to feed their animals. When a choice has to be made between ensuring drinking water for its citizens or irrigating pasture and crops to feed animals, governments usually favour cities over farms, but countries need both.
Often governments come up with short-term solutions, such as asking people to stop watering their lawns or washing their cars, instead of planning for long-term measures to conserve water. Different food and fodder crops (and combinations) need to be promoted; more trees and living hedges need to be planted in and around fields to reduce evaporation by the hot sun and dry winds. Above all, measures are needed to store more carbon in the soil.
Enabling citizens to have online access to real-time monitoring of the depth of the groundwater, a natural resource that is invisible, could help to sensitise all of us about the need to conserve water. Groundwater drops quickly due to continuous pumping yet rises only slowly as it is recharged by rainwater from the surface. While monitoring is needed, let us not be naïve and think that when the groundwater table is recharged, households, industry and farming can go back to using water in an unlimited way. Already in rural Belgium, even though we had the wettest spring since records began to be kept in 1833, in the countryside we see many old oak trees suffering from the three previous years of water and heat stress.
In many European countries, agricultural lobby groups aggressively sustain their opinion that the livestock sector should not shrink in order to survive. With all that is happening, how long will they be able to continue taking such an unrealistic position? Animals can be properly fed with technologies that use water and fossil fuels more efficiently , but technological solutions also have their limitations. If lobby groups do not help their members to adapt, the climate will soon dictate what is possible and what is not. The changes we see in southern Europe should set off alarms in the north as well.
If we are unable to quickly and drastically curb greenhouse gas emissions and invest in an agriculture that helps to cool the planet, rather than deplete its natural resources, we will soon no longer need to fly to the Sahara to see a desert. Climate refugees will come from Southern Europe, and we will scratch our heads and wonder why many of our favourite food products are no longer available or affordable.
Sources
Bertelli, Michele. 2023. ‘No water, no life’: Drought threatens farmers and food in Italy. https://www.context.news/climate-risks/no-water-no-life-drought-threatens-farmers-and-food-in-italy
CNN. 2023. Disappearing lakes, dead crops and trucked-in water: Drought-stricken Spain is running dry. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/02/europe/spain-drought-catalonia-heat-wave-climate-intl/index.html
Related Agro-Insight blogs
Gabe Brown, agroecology on a commercial scale
Recovering from the quinoa boom
Killing the soil with chemicals (and bringing it back to life)
Farmer learning videos on adaptation to climate change
Improved pasture for fertile soil
Living windbreaks to protect the soil
Mulch for a better soil and crop
Intercropping maize with pigeon peas
Europese woestijnen, binnenkort
Er gaat geen dag voorbij zonder nieuws over de toenemende uitdagingen waar boeren in Europa en een groot deel van de wereld voor staan. Regenval is grilliger en intenser geworden en hittegolven worden het nieuwe normaal. We zouden ons allemaal zorgen moeten maken over de snelheid waarmee klimaatverandering onze planeet beïnvloedt. De manier waarop we besluiten te leven, wat we eten, waar we ons voedsel vandaan halen en hoe we onze vrije tijd doorbrengen, heeft invloed op de hele maatschappij: landbouw, industrie, toerisme, transport, maar ook stadsplanning en landgebruik op het platteland.
Volgens de belangrijkste Spaanse boerenorganisatie COAG treft de droogte 60% van het Spaanse platteland en heeft het gewassen vernietigd op 3,5 miljoen hectare. Dat is meer dan het dubbele van de landbouwgrond in België en zes keer zoveel als in Vlaanderen.
Drie jaar van zeer weinig neerslag en hoge temperaturen hebben Spanje officieel in langdurige droogte gebracht. Dit jaar blijven de verliezen niet beperkt tot tarwe, gerst en maïs, maar worden ook verliezen verwacht voor noten, boomgaarden, wijngaarden, olijven, zonnebloemen en de groenteteelt. Omdat de vegetatie schaars is, lukt het bijen niet om honing te maken. Imkers worden geconfronteerd met een derde opeenvolgend seizoen zonder oogst. Volgens een recent CNN-artikel Verdwijnende meren, dode gewassen en aangevoerd water wijzen deze omstandigheden op een nieuwe realiteit voor delen van Europa, dat twee keer zo snel opwarmt als het wereldwijde gemiddelde.
Niet alleen boerderijen hebben problemen. Gemeentelijke watersystemen drogen in een groot deel van Zuid-Europa uit. In Italië werden Lombardije en Piemonte in april van dit jaar al getroffen door extreme droogte, waarbij 19 steden te kampen hadden met het grootste tekort. Sommige plaatsen zijn al begonnen met het aanvoeren van water in tankwagens.
Aangezien er 15.000 liter water nodig is om 1 kilo rundvlees te produceren en 3.000 liter water om 1 kilo kaas te produceren, is het geen wonder dat ook de veehouderij gevaar loopt. Boeren hebben immers weiland nodig om hun dieren te voeden. Als er een keuze moet worden gemaakt tussen het veiligstellen van drinkwater voor de burgers of het irrigeren van weilanden en gewassen om dieren te voeden, geven regeringen meestal de voorkeur aan steden boven boerderijen, maar landen hebben beide nodig.
Vaak komen regeringen met kortetermijnoplossingen, zoals mensen vragen om te stoppen met het besproeien van hun gazons of het wassen van hun auto’s, in plaats van langetermijn maatregelen te plannen om water te besparen. Verschillende voedsel- en voedergewassen (en combinaties daarvan) moeten worden gepromoot; er moeten meer bomen en levende heggen worden geplant in en rond akkers om de verdamping door de hete zon en droge wind te verminderen. Bovenal zijn er maatregelen nodig om meer koolstof in de bodem op te slaan.
Door burgers online toegang te geven tot realtime monitoring van de diepte van het grondwater, een natuurlijke hulpbron die onzichtbaar is, kunnen we ons allemaal bewust worden van de noodzaak om water te besparen. Grondwater daalt snel als gevolg van voortdurend pompen, maar stijgt slechts langzaam als het wordt aangevuld door regenwater van het oppervlak. Hoewel monitoring nodig is, moeten we niet naïef zijn en denken dat wanneer het grondwaterpeil weer wordt aangevuld, huishoudens, industrie en landbouw weer onbeperkt water kunnen gebruiken. Hoewel we in België de natste lente sinds het begin van de metingen in 1833 hebben gehad, zien we op het platteland al veel oude eikenbomen die lijden onder de drie voorgaande jaren van water- en hittestress.
In veel Europese landen houden landbouwlobbygroepen agressief vol dat de veehouderij niet mag inkrimpen om te overleven. Hoe lang kunnen ze zo’n onrealistisch standpunt blijven innemen, nu er zoveel gebeurt? Dieren kunnen goed gevoed worden met technologieën die efficiënter gebruik maken van water en fossiele brandstoffen, maar technologische oplossingen hebben ook hun beperkingen. Als lobbygroepen hun leden niet helpen om zich aan te passen, zal het klimaat snel dicteren wat mogelijk is en wat niet. De veranderingen die we in Zuid-Europa zien, zouden ook in het noorden alarmbellen moeten doen rinkelen.
Als we er niet in slagen om de uitstoot van broeikasgassen snel en drastisch te beperken en te investeren in een landbouw die de planeet helpt afkoelen in plaats van haar natuurlijke hulpbronnen uit te putten, dan hoeven we binnenkort niet meer naar de Sahara te vliegen om een woestijn te zien. Klimaatvluchtelingen zullen uit Zuid-Europa komen en wij zullen ons op het hoofd krabben en ons afvragen waarom veel van onze favoriete voedingsproducten niet meer verkrijgbaar of betaalbaar zijn.
A movie about rural people, filmed with them, in their communities, is rare, even more so when it touches on important topics like climate change.
In the Bolivian film Utama, directed by Santiaga Loayza, the main characters, Virgilio and Sisa are an elderly couple living on the Bolivian Altiplano, in a two-room adobe house. They still love each other, after many years together. Virgilio has never forgiven his son, for moving to the city, years ago. When the couple´s grandson, Cléver, comes to visit, the old man is angry. He feels that Cléver’s father has sent him to take Virgilio and Sisa to the city.
The stunning photography shows the stark beauty of the hills and mountains rising from the high plains. The characters are believable and authentic. The title, Utama, means “our home†in the Aymara language.
The story takes place near the end of a long drought, exacerbated by climate change. Virgilio, Cléver and some of the neighbors hike to a mountain top to perform a ritual to bring the rain, which never comes. Some families leave for the city. Virgilio develops an agonizing cough, refuses to let Cléver take him to the hospital, and dies at home.
The elderly couple is played by José Calcina and Luisa Quispe, who are married in real life, and are from the community where the movie was filmed, Santiago de Chuvica, in PotosÃ, Bolivia. They were cast because of their obvious affection for each other. This realism is accentuated when the couple speak to each other in Quechua, a native language of Bolivia.
Loayza had previously visited Santiago de Chuvica while making a documentary film. In reality, the village is an outpost for travelers visiting the famous Salar de Uyuni, a giant salt flat, an ancient lake bed surrounded by sparse vegetation.
This is one of the most remote parts of Bolivia, and one of the most marginal environments for agriculture in the world. Quinoa is the only crop that will grow here. Until the mid-twentieth century, local farmers made their living by packing out quinoa on the backs of llamas, to trade for food in other parts of Bolivia. It was an ingenious, and unusual cropping system, based on one crop and one animal.
But as the world gets hotter and dryer, places like Chuvica will only become more stressed.
Although not shown in the movie, some parts of Bolivia are far more favorable to farming, with spring-like weather much of the year, where many crops will grow. People are also leaving these areas for the city. Whole communities are emptying out. In the provincial valleys of Cochabamba it is common to see few homes except for ruined, empty farm houses. The grandparents who lived there may have died, but their heirs are still tilling the fields, commuting from town. Farming is often the most resilient part of rural life, and the last to be abandoned.
Climate change is a real problem, and will turn some people into environmental refugees. But villagers are also leaving more favorable farm country, pulled by the opportunities for jobs, education, health care and commerce in the cities. If rural-to-urban migration is seen as a problem, then country life needs to be made more comfortable, with roads, electricity, potable water, schools and clinics.
At the 2022 Sundance Film Festival Utama won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic Competition. Â Hopefully other filmmakers will make more movies on climate change, and on rural life. There are lots more stories to tell.
Previous Agro-Insight blogs
Recovering from the quinoa boom
Videos on climate
Recording the weather, also available in Spanish, Quechua and Aymara
Forecasting the weather with an app, also available in Spanish, Quechua and Aymara
Additional reading
Sagárnaga, Rafael 2022 Alejandro Loayza: Hay que hacer que el mundo escuche tus historias. Los Tiempos 13 Feb pp. 2-3.
El PaÃs 2022 ‘Utama’, la historia de amor frente al olvido en el Altiplano que sorprendió en Sundance
Vea la versión en español a continuación
I
n southwestern Bolivia, a whole ecosystem has been nearly destroyed, to export quinoa, but some people are trying to save it.
Bolivia’s southern Altiplano is a harsh place to live. Although it is in the tropical latitudes it is so high, over 3800 meters, that it often freezes. Its climax forest, the t’ular, is only a meter tall, made up of native shrubs, grasses and cactuses.
For centuries on the southern Altiplano, farmers grew quinoa, an annual plant with edible seeds, in the shelter of little hills. No other crop would grow in this high country. People herded llamas on the more exposed plains of the Altiplano. The farmers would take quinoa in packs, carried by llamas, to other parts of Bolivia to trade for maize, fruit and chuño (traditional freeze-dried potatoes) as well as wool, salt and jerky.
In about 2010 quinoa became a fad food, and export prices soared. Bolivian plant breeder, Alejandro Bonifacio, who is from the Altiplano, estimates that 80% of the t’ular was plowed under to grow quinoa from 2010 to 2014.This was the first time that farmers cleared the dwarf forest growing on the open plains.
After the brief quinoa boom ended, in some places, only 30% of the lands cleared on the t’ular were still being farmed. The rest had simply been turned into large patches of white sand. The native plants did not grow back, probably because of drought and wind linked to climate change.
At the start of the quinoa boom, Dr. Bonifacio and colleagues at Proinpa, a research agency, realized the severity of the destruction of the native ecosystem, and began to develop a system of regenerative agriculture.
In an early experience, they gathered 20 gunny bags of the seed heads of different species of t’ulas, the native shrubs and grasses. They scattered the seeds onto the sandy soil of abandoned fields. Out of several million seeds, only a dozen germinated and only four survived. After their first unsuccessful experience with direct seeding, the researchers and their students learned to grow seeds of native plants in two nurseries on the Altiplano, and then transplant them.
So much native vegetation has been lost that it cannot all be reforested, so researchers worked with farmers in local communities to experiment with live barriers. These were two or three lines of t’ula transplanted from the nurseries to create living barriers three meters wide. The live barriers could be planted as borders around the fields, or as strips within the large ones, spaced 30 to 45 meters apart. This helped to slow down soil erosion caused by wind, so farmers could grow quinoa (still planted, but in smaller quantities, to eat at home and for the national market, after the end of the export boom). Growing native shrubs as live barriers also gave farmers an incentive to care for these native plants.
By 2022, nearly 8000 meters of live barriers of t’ula have been planted, and are being protected by local farmers. The older plants are maturing, thriving and bearing seed. Some local governments and residents have started to drive to Proinpa, to request seedlings to plant, hinting at a renewed interest in these native plants.
The next step in creating a new regenerative agriculture was to introduce a rotation crop into the quinoa system. But on the southern Altiplano, no other crop has been grown, besides quinoa (and a semi-wild relative, qañawa). In this climate, it was impossible even to grow potatoes and other native roots and tubers.
NGOs suggested that farmers rotate quinoa with a legume crop, like peas or broad beans, but these plants died every time.
Bonifacio and colleagues realized that a new legume crop would be required, but that it would have to be a wild, native plant. They began experimenting with native lupines. The domesticated lupine, a legume, produces seeds in pods which remain closed even after the plant matures. When ancient farmers domesticated the lupine, they selected for pods that stayed closed, so the grains would not be lost in the field. But the pods of wild legumes shatter, scattering their seeds on the ground.
Various methods were tried to recover the wild lupine seed, including sifting it out of the sand. Researchers eventually learned that the seed was viable before it was completely dry, before the pod burst. After the seed dried, it went into a four-year dormancy.
In early trials with farmers, the wild lupines have done well as a quinoa intercrop. Llamas will eat them, and the legumes improve the soil. When the quinoa is harvested in March, April and May, the lupine remains as a cover crop, reaching maturity the following year, and protecting the soil.
The quinoa boom was a tragedy. A unique ecosystem was nearly wiped out in four years. The market can provide perverse incentives to destroy a landscape. The research with native windbreaks and cover crops is also accompanied by studies of local cactus and by breeding varieties of quinoa that are well-adapted to the southern Altiplano. This promises to be the basis of a regenerative agriculture, one that respects the local plants, including the animals that eat them, such as the domesticated llama and the wild vicuña, while also providing a livelihood for native people.
Further reading
Bonifacio, Alejandro, Genaro Aroni, Milton Villca & Jeffery W. Bentley 2022 Recovering from quinoa: regenerative agricultural research in Bolivia. Journal of Crop Improvement, DOI: 10.1080/15427528.2022.2135155
Previous Agro-Insight blogs
Wind erosion and the great quinoa disaster
Related videos
Living windbreaks to protect the soil
The wasp that protects our crops
Acknowledgements
Dr. Alejandro Bonifacio works for the Proinpa Foundation. This work was made possible with the kind support of the Collaborative Crop Research Program (CCRP) of the McKnight Foundation.
RECUPERÃNDOSE DEL BOOM DE LA QUINUA
Por Jeff Bentley, 30 de octubre del 2022
En el suroeste de Bolivia, todo un ecosistema casi se ha destruido para exportar quinua, pero algunas personas intentan salvarlo.
Es difÃcil vivir en el Altiplano sur de Bolivia. Aunque está en latitudes tropicales, está tan alto, a más de 3.800 metros, que a menudo se congela. Su bosque clÃmax, el t’ular, sólo tiene un metro de altura, formado por arbustos, hierbas y cactus nativos.
Durante siglos, en el Altiplano sur, los agricultores cultivaron quinua (una planta de ciclo anual y tallo herbáceo) con semillas comestibles, al abrigo de las pequeñas colinas. Ningún otro cultivo crecÃa en esta zona alta. En las llanuras más expuestas del Altiplano, la gente arreaba llamas. Los campesinos llevaban la quinua cargados por las llamas, a otras partes de Bolivia para intercambiarla por maÃz, frutas, chuño, lana, sal, y charqui.
Hacia 2010, la quinua se convirtió en un alimento de moda y los precios de exportación se dispararon. El fitomejorador boliviano Alejandro Bonifacio, originario del Altiplano, calcula que entre 2010 y 2014 se aró el 80% del t’ular para cultivar quinua.
Tras el breve auge de la quinua, en algunas zonas solo el 30% de las tierras desmontadas en el t’ular seguÃan siendo cultivadas. El resto simplemente se habÃa convertido en grandes manchas de arena blanca. Las plantas nativas no volvieron a crecer, probablemente por la sequÃa y el viento atribuible al cambio climático).
Al comienzo del boom de la quinua, el Dr. Bonifacio y sus colegas de Proinpa, una agencia de investigación, se dieron cuenta de la gravedad de la destrucción del ecosistema nativo, y comenzaron a desarrollar un sistema de agricultura regenerativa.
En una de las primeras experiencias, reunieron 20 gangochos conteniendo frutos con las diminutas semillas de diferentes especies de t’ulas, los arbustos nativos y pastos. Esparcieron las semillas en el arenoso suelo de los campos abandonados. De varios millones de semillas, sólo germinaron una decena que al final quedaron cuatro plantas sobrevivientes. Tras su primera experiencia frustrante con la siembra directa, los investigadores y sus estudiantes aprendieron a cultivar semillas de plantas nativas en dos viveros del Altiplano con fines de trasplantarlos.
Se ha perdido tanta vegetación nativa que no se puede reforestarla toda, asà que los investigadores trabajaron con los agricultores de las comunidades locales para experimentar con barreras vivas. Se trataba de dos o tres lÃneas de t’ula trasplantadas desde los viveros para crear barreras vivas de tres metros de ancho. Las barreras vivas podÃan plantarse como bordes alrededor de las parcelas, o como franjas dentro de los campos grandes, con una separación de 30 a 45 metros. Esto ayudó a frenar la erosión del suelo causada por el viento, para que los agricultores pudieran cultivar quinua (que aún se siembra, pero en menor cantidad, para comer en casa y para el mercado nacional, tras el fin del boom de las exportaciones). El cultivo de arbustos nativos como barreras vivas también incentivó a los agricultores a cuidar estas plantas nativas.
En 2022, se han plantado casi 8.000 metros de barreras vivas de t’ula, que se protegen por los agricultores locales. Las plantas más antiguas están madurando, prosperando y formando semilla. Algunos residentes y gobiernos locales han comenzado a llegar a Proinpa, para pedir plantines para plantar, lo que indica un renovado interés en estas plantas nativas.
El siguiente paso en la creación de una nueva agricultura regenerativa era introducir un cultivo de rotación en el sistema de la quinua. Pero en el Altiplano sur no se ha cultivado ningún otro cultivo, aparte de la quinua (y un pariente semi-silvestre, la qañawa). En este clima, era imposible incluso cultivar papas y otras raÃces y tubérculos nativos.
Las ONGs sugirieron a los agricultores que rotaran la quinoa con un cultivo de leguminosas, como arvejas o habas, pero estas plantas morÃan siempre.
Bonifacio y sus colegas se dieron cuenta de que serÃa necesario tener un nuevo cultivo de leguminosas, pero que tendrÃa que ser una planta silvestre y nativa. Empezaron a experimentar con lupinos nativos. El lupino domesticado es el tarwi, una leguminosa, produce semillas en vainas que permanecen cerradas incluso después de que la planta madure. Cuando los antiguos agricultores domesticaron el lupino, seleccionaron las vainas que permanecÃan cerradas, para que los granos no se perdieran en el campo. Pero las vainas de las leguminosas silvestres se rompen, esparciendo sus semillas por el suelo.
Se intentaron varios métodos para recuperar la semilla de lupinos silvestre, incluido tamizando la arena. Los investigadores descubrieron que la semilla era viable antes de estar completamente seca, antes de que la vaina reventara. Una vez seca, la semilla entraba en un periodo de dormancia de cuatro años.
En los primeros ensayos con agricultores, los lupinos silvestres han funcionado bien como cultivo intermedio de la quinoa. Las llamas los comen y las leguminosas mejoran el suelo. Cuando se cosecha la quinoa en marzo, abril y mayo, el lupino permanece como cultivo de cobertura, alcanzando la madurez al año siguiente y protegiendo el suelo.
El boom de la quinoa fue una tragedia. Un ecosistema único estuvo a punto de desaparecer en cuatro años. El mercado puede ofrecer incentivos perversos para destruir un paisaje. La investigación con barreras vivas nativas y cultivos de cobertura también va acompañada de estudios de cactus locales y del fitomejoramiento de variedades de quinua bien adaptadas al Altiplano sur. Esto promete ser la base de una agricultura regenerativa, que respete las plantas locales, incluidos los animales que se alimentan de ellas, como la llama domesticada y la vicuña silvestre, y al mismo tiempo proporcionando un medio de vida a la gente nativa.
Lectura adicional
Bonifacio, Alejandro, Genaro Aroni, Milton Villca & Jeffery W. Bentley 2022 Recovering from quinoa: regenerative agricultural research in Bolivia. Journal of Crop Improvement, DOI: 10.1080/15427528.2022.2135155
Previamente en el blog de Agro-Insight
Destruyendo el altiplano sur con quinua
Videos sobre el tema
Barreras vivas para proteger el suelo
La avispa que protege nuestros cultivos
Agradecimiento
El Dr. Alejandro Bonifacio trabaja para la Fundación Proinpa. Este trabajo se hizo con el generoso apoyo del Programa Colaborativo de Investigación de Cultivos (CCRP) de la Fundación McKnight.
Gabe Brown describes himself as a city boy from Bismarck, North Dakota, whose only dream was to be a farmer. As a young couple, Gabe and his wife, Shelly, bought her parent’s farm. Gabe followed in his father-in-law’s footsteps, with regular plowing and lots of chemical fertilizer. For four years in a row the family lost their crop to the weather: hail, and drought and once all their calves died in a blizzard. Gabe and Shelly both had to take full-time jobs to pay for the farm that they worked on weekends. After four years of failure, by 1998, Gabe planted his corn with very little chemical fertilizer, simply because he was out of money.
Gabe was surprised at how high the yields were. In the four years of crop failure, the soil had been improved by not being plowed, by having the covering of plants remain on the surface of the earth.
An avid learner and experimenter, Gabe attended talks, listened to other innovative farmers and to agricultural scientists. He tried planting mixes of many different plants as cover crops, always combining legumes and grasses. He learned to rotate the cattle in pastures, using electric fences.
Gabe’s cattle graze for a few days or sometimes for just a few hours on one small paddock, before being moved to another. Gabe estimates that the cows eat 25% of the plants and trample the rest. In recent years, Gabe and his son, Paul, have begun grazing sheep, pigs and chickens in the fields after the cattle have left the paddock.
The livestock defecate into the field, manuring it, and the plants respond to the impact of the animals by exuding metabolites (products used by, or made by an organism: usually a small molecule, such as alcohol, amino acids or vitamins). The metabolites from plants enrich the soil. Gabe’s system avoids the need to spread manure, or to cut fodder for the animals, cutting costs for fuel and labor, to save on transportation expenses. The soils on neighboring farms are yellow and lifeless. After some 20 years of practicing regenerative agriculture, Gabe compares the soil on Brown’s Ranch (as he calls his farm) to a crumbly, chocolate cake, and it is full of earthworms and other life.
Gabe openly questions the model taught to US farmers, that they should produce more to “feed the worldâ€. The world already produces enough food to feed 10 billion people, but 30% of it is wasted and many people do not receive enough food because of social and political problems, not agronomic ones.
Gabe doesn’t claim to produce more per acre of land than conventional farmers, but his diverse farm of 5,000 acres (2,000 hectares) yields meat, maize, vegetables, eggs and honey, and more profits than the farms around him. The Browns have earned a local reputation as producers of quality food, which they sell directly to consumers at top prices, at a farm shop on Brown’s Ranch.
American youth are getting out of agriculture, because it doesn’t pay. Avoiding chemicals saves the Browns so much money that Gabe’s son, Paul, is happy to take over the farm, innovating along the way. He invented a mobile chicken coop for free-range hens, for example.
Farmers should be able to make a living while improving the soil that supports the farm. Brown’s Ranch is a large, commercial farm, that earns an income for the family that runs it. This farm is proof of concept: agroecology is not hippie science. Regenerative agriculture can be used to grow high-quality food on a commercial scale, at a profit.
Further reading
Brown, Gabe 2018 Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture. White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing.
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