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Different ways to learn November 21st, 2021 by

Vea la versión en español a continuación

In June I wrote a story about a virtual meeting with some farmers in Iquicachi, on the shores of Lake Titicaca (Zoom to Titicaca), where they discussed how to manage what was (for them) a new pest: the potato tuber moth. Later, several people wrote to me to say that they hoped these farmers could solve their problem. So I’m writing an update.

I went to Lake Titicaca on 16 November to meet the farmers in person, and they’re doing well.

The agronomists they work with taught them to use ground chalk from a building supply shop to coat the seed potatoes. The chalk discourages the tiny larva of the moth from burrowing into the potato. This and some other techniques are helping to keep the tuber moth down.

At our recent meeting, I was impressed (as I often am) how scientists and farmers have different ways of seeing the world. There’s nothing mystical about his. It’s because they use different methods of observation.

An entomologist sees an insect by killing some specimens and looking at them under the microscope. It is an excellent way to see the details of nature that cannot be readily seen with the naked eye. For example, one of the three species of tuber moths has triangular markings on its wings.

But the farmers of Titicaca were less interested in comparing each species of moth, and more intent on comparing them to another pest, one they have had for ages: the Andean potato weevil.

These Yapuchiris (expert farmers) and their neighbors noticed that the moths’ larvae are much smaller than the worms that hatch from weevil eggs. Second, the weevil only eats a part of the tuber, while the larvae of the moth “have no respect for the potato†and destroy the whole thing. Third, the weevil can’t fly, but the moth “flies in jumps†(it takes short flights).

In all fairness, entomologists have also noticed these behaviors, and the Yapuchiris have recently observed that one species of moth is darker than the other. But the farmers emphasize behavior more, and have their own rhetoric for discussing it (e.g. as jumping). Note that this is not ancestral knowledge, because this pest is new on the Altiplano. These Yapuchiris only noticed the moth 10 years ago, and they have been observing it since then. The farmers learn about insects while farming and processing food. They watch while they work. They don’t set up lab experiments.

The Yapuchiris have strengthened their observations by interacting with agronomists. In this case the extensionists explained that the moths are the adults of the worms, so the farmers then began to pay more attention to the moths.

These improved observations have paid off.

While I was in Iquicachi, one of the Yapuchiris, Martín Condori, suggested that since the tuber moth does not fly very far, it could be kept out of potatoes by planting a row of broad beans or lupin beans between every three rows of potatoes. It’s a new idea, that only occurred to don Martín while we were meeting.

His fellow Yapuchiri, Paulino Pari, immediately warmed to don Martín’s suggestion for an intercropping experiment. Don Paulino said that a row of lupin beans might help to stop the moth from spreading into the potatoes, because the lupin plants are toxic to the moths.

This is the value of farmer-scientist collaboration. The farmers learn that the worms in their potatoes have hatched from the eggs laid by moths. Farmers then pay more attention to the moths, and create new ideas for keeping the moths out of the potato field.

Intercropping may or may not help to manage the moth, but it is an idea that farmers and agronomists can try together.

Years ago in Honduras, Keith Andrews, an entomologist, first told me that farmers identify insects more by their behavior and ecology than by their morphology. I’ve spent many years noticing that he was right.

Acknowledgements

A special thanks to Ing. Roly Cota, who works at PROSUCO, for taking me to Iquicachi and introducing me to the Yapuchiris, so we could validate three new fact sheets for farmers on the potato tuber moth. Our work was supported by the  Collaborative Crop Research Program (CCRP) of the McKnight Foundation.

Photo credit

Photo courtesy of Roly Cota.

Further reading

There is some excellent research on the potato tuber moth. For example, see this paper and references cited.

Olivier Dangles, Mario Herrera, Charlotte Mazoyer and Jean-François Silvain 2013 Temperature-dependent shifts in herbivore performance and interactions drive nonlinear changes in crop damages. Global Change Biology 19, 1056–1063, doi: 10.1111/gcb.12104.

Scientific names

There are two native tuber moths in Bolivia: Symmetrischema tangolias, and Phthorimaea operculella. There is also a Guatemalan tuber moth, Tecia solanivora, but it has not been reported in Bolivia. All three of these moths belong to the Gelechiidae family. They are about a centimeter long, about as long as your smallest fingernail. Many Gelechiidae attack stored cereal products, and so you may have been alarmed to find them in your cupboard.

Video on the fascinating lupin bean

Growing lupin without disease

APRENDIENDO CON OTROS OJOS

Por Jeff Bentley, 21 de noviembre del 2021

En junio escribí un relato sobre una reunión virtual con los agricultores de Iquicachi, a orillas del lago Titicaca (Zoom al Titicaca), en la que se discutía cómo gestionar lo que era (para ellos) una nueva plaga: la polilla de la papa. Más tarde, varias personas me escribieron para decirme que esperaban que estos agricultores pudieran resolver su problema. Así que escribo una actualización.

El 16 de noviembre fui al Lago Titicaca para conocer a los agricultores en persona, y están bien.

Los agrónomos con los que trabajan les enseñaron a usar tiza molida de una tienda de materiales de construcción para recubrir la papa semilla. La tiza no deja que la pequeña larva de la polilla penetre a la papa. Esta y otras técnicas están ayudando a reducir la polilla de la papa.

En esta última reunión, me impresionó (como en muchas veces) cómo los científicos y los agricultores tienen formas diferentes de ver el mundo. No tiene nada de místico. Es porque usan distinto métodos de observación.

Un entomólogo observa un insecto al matar algunos ejemplares y mirándolos al microscopio. Es una forma excelente de ver los detalles que no se pueden ver fácilmente a simple vista. Por ejemplo, una de las tres especies de polillas de la papa tiene marcas triangulares en las alas.

Pero los campesinos del Titicaca estaban menos interesados en comparar cada especie de polilla, y más en compararlas con otra plaga, una que tienen desde hace mucho tiempo: el gorgojo de los Andes.

Estos Yapuchiris (agricultores expertos) y sus vecinos se dieron cuenta de que las larvas de las polillas son mucho más pequeñas que los gusanos que nacen de los huevos del gorgojo. En segundo lugar, el gorgojo sólo se come una parte del tubérculo, mientras que las larvas de la polilla “no respetan la papa” y la destruyen completamente. En tercer lugar, el gorgojo no puede volar, pero la polilla “vuela a saltos” (have vuelos cortos).

En realidad, los entomólogos también se han dado cuenta de estos comportamientos, y los Yapuchiris han observado recientemente que una especie de polilla es más oscura que la otra. Pero los campesinos enfatizan más el comportamiento, y tienen su propia retórica para discutirlo (los saltos, por ejemplo). Fíjese que no se trata de un conocimiento ancestral, porque esta plaga es nueva en el Altiplano. Estos Yapuchiris sólo se dieron cuenta de la polilla hace 10 años, y desde entonces la observan. Los campesinos aprenden sobre los insectos mientras cultivan y procesan los alimentos. Observan mientras trabajan. No hacen experimentos de laboratorio.

Los Yapuchiris han reforzado sus observaciones interactuando con los agrónomos. En este caso, los extensionistas les explicaron que las polillas son los adultos de los gusanos, por lo que los agricultores comenzaron a prestar más atención a las polillas.

Estas observaciones mejoradas han dado sus frutos.

Durante mi visita a Iquicachi, uno de los Yapuchiris, Martín Condori, sugirió que, como la polilla de la papa no vuela muy lejos, se podría sembrar un surco de tarwi (lupino) entre cada tres surcos de papa, para que no entre la polilla. Es una idea nueva, que sólo se le ocurrió a don Martín mientras nos reuníamos.

Otro Yapuchiri, don Paulino Pari, aceptó inmediatamente la sugerencia de don Martín de hacer un experimento de cultivo intercalado. Don Paulino dijo que un surco de tarwi podría ser una barrera para la polilla, porque las plantas de tarwi son tóxicas para las polillas.

Este es el valor de la colaboración entre agricultores y científicos. Los agricultores se enteran de que los gusanos de sus papas han nacido de los huevos puestos por las polillas. Los agricultores prestan entonces más atención a las polillas y crean nuevas ideas para mantener las polillas fuera del campo de papas.

Los cultivos intercalados pueden ayudar o no a controlar la polilla, pero es una idea que los agricultores y los agrónomos pueden probar juntos.

Hace años, en Honduras, Keith Andrews, un entomólogo, me explicó por primera vez que los agricultores identifican a los insectos más por su comportamiento y ecología que por su morfología. Llevo muchos años comprobando que tenía razón.

Agradecimientos

Muchas gracias al Ing. Roly Cota, quien trabaja en PROSUCO, por llevarme a Iquicachi y convocar una reunión con los Yapuchiris, donde pudimos validad tres nuevas hojas volantes para agricultores sobre la polilla de la papa. Nuestro trabajo ha sido auspiciado por el Programa Colaborativo de Investigación sobre Cultivos (CCRP) de la Fundación McKnight.

Foto

Foto cortesía de Roly Cota.

Lectura adicional

Hay varios excelentes trabajos de investigación sobre la polilla de la papa. Por ejemplo, vea este artículo y los otros en las referencias citadas.

Olivier Dangles, Mario Herrera, Charlotte Mazoyer and Jean-François Silvain 2013 Temperature-dependent shifts in herbivore performance and interactions drive nonlinear changes in crop damages. Global Change Biology 19, 1056–1063, doi: 10.1111/gcb.12104.

Nombres científicos

Hay dos polillas de la papa nativas en Bolivia: Symmetrischema tangolias, y Phthorimaea operculella. Además, hay una polilla guatemalteca de la papa, Tecia solanivora, pero no ha sido reportada en Bolivia. Las tres polillas pertenecen a la familia Gelechiidae. Miden más o menos un centímetro, más o menos lo largo de su uña meñique. Muchos Gelechiidae atacan cereales almacenados, y es posible que le hayan sorprendido en su dispensa.

Video sobre el fascinante tarwi

Producir tarwi sin enfermedad

El mismo video, en el idioma aymara

Experiments with trees October 24th, 2021 by

Vea la versión en español a continuación

Farmers find their peers exceptionally convincing, and good extensionists know this.

My wife, Ana, and I joined a farmer exchange visit this past 22 September. It was a chance for smallholders to see what their peers are doing on their farms. We went with about 20 farmers from around Tiquipaya, a small town in the valley of Cochabamba, Bolivia. Except for two older men and two children, the group was made up only of women, organized by María Omonte (agronomist) and Mariana Alem (biologist), both of Agrecol Andes.

Half an hour after our chartered, Bluebird bus left the town square of Tiquipaya we were climbing up a gravel road in first gear. The farmers stopped chatting among themselves, and began looking out the window, at the arid hillsides and a panoramic view of the city of Cochabamba, on the far end of the valley. The passengers’ sudden interest in the scenery made it clear that even this close to home, this was their first trip to these steep hillsides above the community of Chocaya.

When the bus stopped, we were met by Serafín Vidal, an agronomist, also with Agrecol Andes. Serafín took the group to see an agroforestry site, an orchard belonging to a farmer who Serafín advises. The farmer wasn’t there, but Serafín explained that in this system, 200 apple trees are planted in lines with 200 forest trees, like chacatea (blue sorrel) and aliso (alder), mostly native species. The idea is to mimic the forest, which builds its own soil, with no plowing, no pesticides (not even organic ones), and no fertilizer, not even manure or compost.

“Don’t bury anything†Serafín said, “not even leaves. They decompose too quickly if you bury them. Just prune the forest trees and line up their branches in between the apples and the other trees.â€

The farmers were quiet, too quiet. They seemed unconvinced by this radical idea. Finally, one farmer was bold enough to give a counter-example. He said that far away, in the lowlands of La Paz Department, farmers dig a trench and fill it with logs and branches. They bury it and plant coca, a shrub with marketable leaves. Because of the buried logs, the land stays fertile for so long that even the grandchildren of the original farmer will not need to fertilize their soil.

“Coca,†Serafín murmured, and then he paused. Growing the coca shrub is not like planting apples, but a talented, veteran extensionist like Serafín often prefers a demonstration to an argument. He dug his hand into the soil between the trees, under the leafy mulch. “This used to be poor, red soil. But see how the soil between the trees has become so soft that I can dig it up with my hand, and it’s rich and black, even though it has not been plowed.†Serafín spread out a couple of dozen small bags of seed of different plants: maize, beans, vegetables … all crops that you can plant in between the rows of trees, like the plants that grow on the forest floor.

The audience was respectfully silent, and still unconvinced, but Serafín had another trick up his sleeve. He handed the floor over to a local farmer, Franz Dávalos, who led us uphill to his own agroforestry plot, with alder, and the native qhewiña (Polylepsis spp.), a tree with papery, reddish bark and twisted branches.

The group was mostly bilingual in Spanish and in Quechua, the local language, and had been switching back and forth between both languages.  But now Franz began to speak only in Quechua. The simple act of speaking in the local language can let the audience feel that the speaker is confiding in them, and Franz soon had them laughing as he explained how his neighbors grew flowers, like chrysanthemum, to cut for the urban market. In the dry season they irrigate with sprinklers. The neighbors were baffled that Franz didn’t irrigate during the two driest winter months, June and July. He didn’t want to fool the apple trees into flowering too early. It meant that for a couple of months, his patch looked dry and bare. But now his three-year-old apple trees were blooming and looking healthy, as were his other trees, bushes, aromatic plants, tomatoes and beans.

The visiting farmers were from the floor of the valley, practically in sight of this rocky hillside, but it might as well have been a different country. The flat fields of the valley bottom have flood irrigation and deep soil, but exhausted by centuries of constant cultivation.

One of the visitors explained that she was a vegetable farmer and that “we have already made big changes. I apply chicken manure to my soil and I have to spray something (like a homemade sulfur-lime mix) because the aphids just won’t leave us alone.â€

In other words, these people from the valley bottom were commercial, family farmers, far into their transition to agroecology, based on natural pesticides and organic fertilizers to restore the degraded soil. And they had to build up the soil quickly, because they were growing vegetables year-round. They couldn’t just give up applying organic fertilizer and wait for years until trees improved the soil.

Franz understood completely. He said that he also sprayed sulfur-lime but then he said “just try it. Try agroforestry on a small area, even if you just start with one tree.â€

It was a cheerful group that boarded the bus to go down the mountain. They liked Franz’s suggestion of experimenting on a small scale, even with such a startling new idea as agroforestry.

Paleontologist Richard Fortey says that scientists are usually so reluctant to accept the ideas of younger colleagues that “science advances, one funeral at a time.†(Fortey was quoting Max Planck). Smallholders are a little more open to new ideas. As farmers continue to contribute to agroecology, they will discuss and experiment. It is not reasonable to expect all of them to accept the same practices, especially when they are working in different places, with different crops and soils.

But a word from an innovative farmer can help to make even radical ideas seem worth testing.

Related Agro-Insight blogs

Apple futures (where we’ve met Ing. Serafín Vidal before)

Farming with trees

Training trees

Related videos

SLM03 Grevillea agroforestry

SLM08 Parkland agroforestry

SLM10 Managed regeneration

EXPERIMENTOS CON ÃRBOLES

Por Jeff Bentley, el 24 de octubre del 2021

Lo que más convence a los agricultores, es otro agricultor, y los buenos extensionistas lo saben.

Con mi esposa, Ana, participamos el pasado 22 de septiembre en una visita de intercambio de agricultores, una oportunidad para que vean lo que hacen sus compañeros en sus terrenos. Fuimos con unos 20 agricultores de los alrededores de Tiquipaya, una pequeña ciudad del valle de Cochabamba, Bolivia. Con la excepción de dos hombres mayores y dos niños, el grupo estaba formado sólo por mujeres, organizado por María Omonte (agrónoma) y Mariana Alem (bióloga), ambas de Agrecol Andes.

Media hora después de que nuestro viejo bus saliera de la plaza del pueblo de Tiquipaya, estábamos subiendo a 10 km la hora por un camino ripiado, pero bien inclinado. Las compañeras dejaron de charlar entre ellas y empezaron a mirar por las ventanas a las áridas laderas y una vista panorámica de la ciudad de Cochabamba, en el otro extremo del valle. El repentino interés de los pasajeros por el paisaje dejaba claro que, incluso tan cerca de casa, era la primera vez que viajaban a estas inclinadas laderas de Chocaya Alta.

Cuando el micro se detuvo, nos recibió Serafín Vidal, ingeniero agrónomo, también de Agrecol Andes. Serafín llevó al grupo a ver un sitio agroforestal, un huerto que pertenece a un agricultor al que asesora. El agricultor no estaba allí, pero Serafín explicó que en este sistema se plantan 200 manzanos en línea con 200 árboles forestales, como la chacatea y el aliso, con énfasis en especies nativas. La idea es imitar al bosque, que construye su propio suelo, sin arar, sin fumigar (ni siquiera con plaguicidas orgánicos) y sin estiércol.

“No entierren nada”, dice Serafín, “ni siquiera las hojas. Se descomponen demasiado rápido si las entierran. Sólo poden los árboles del bosque y alineen sus ramas entre los manzanos y los otros árboles”.

La gente estaba callada, demasiado callada. Parecían no estar convencidos de esta idea radical. Finalmente, un agricultor se atrevió a dar un contraejemplo. Dijo que muy lejos, en Los Yungas de La Paz, los cocaleros cavan una zanja y la llenan con troncos y ramas. Lo entierran y plantan coca, un arbusto comercial. Gracias a los troncos enterrados, la tierra se mantiene fértil durante tanto tiempo que incluso los nietos del agricultor original no necesitarán fertilizar su suelo.

“Coca”, murmuró Serafín, y pausó. Cultivar arbustos de coca no es como plantar manzanos, pero un veterano y talentoso extensionista como Serafín suele preferir una demostración a una discusión. Metió la mano en la tierra entre los árboles, bajo el grueso mulch, el mantillo, el sach’a wanu. “Antes, esto era un suelo pobre y rojo. Pero miren cómo el suelo entre los árboles se ha vuelto tan blando que puedo cavarlo con la mano, y es rico y negro, aunque no haya sido arado”. Serafín extendió unas 20 bolsitas de semillas de diferentes plantas: maíz, frijol, hortalizas … todos los cultivos que se pueden sembrar entre las hileras de los árboles, tal como las plantas que crecen en el piso del bosque.

El público guardaba un respetuoso silencio, y todavía no estaba convencido, pero Serafín tenía otro as en la manga. Cedió la palabra a un agricultor de la zona, Franz Dávalos, que nos condujo cuesta arriba hasta su propio sistema agroforestal, con alisos y la nativa qhewiña (Polylepsis spp.), un árbol de corteza rojiza, como papel, con ramas retorcidas.

La mayoría del grupo era bilingüe en español y en quechua, el idioma local, y había alternado entre ambas lenguas.  Pero ahora Franz empezó a hablar sólo en quechua. El simple hecho de hablar en el idioma local puede dar confianza al público, y rápidamente Franz los hacía reír mientras explicaba cómo sus vecinos cultivaban flores, como el crisantemo, para vender como flor cortada al mercado urbano. En la época seca riegan por aspersión. Los vecinos se preguntaban porque Franz no regaba durante los dos meses más secos del invierno, junio y julio. Es que él no quería que los manzanos florezcan demasiado temprano. Por eso, durante un par de meses, su parcela parecía seca y desnuda. Pero ahora sus manzanos de tres años florecían y estaban obviamente sanos, al igual que sus otros árboles, arbustos, y otras plantas como aromáticas, tomates y frijoles.

Las agricultoras visitantes eran del fondo del valle, prácticamente a la vista de esta ladera rocosa, pero bien podría haber sido otro país. Las chacras planas del fondo del valle tienen riego por inundación y un suelo profundo, pero agotado por siglos de cultivo constante.

Una de las visitantes explicó que ella era agricultora de hortalizas y que “ya hemos hecho muchos cambios. Aplico gallinaza a mi suelo y tengo que fumigar algo (como sulfocálcico) porque los pulgones no nos dejan en paz”.

En otras palabras, estas personas del piso del valle eran agricultores comerciales y familiares, que estaban en plena transición hacia la agroecología, basada en plaguicidas naturales y fertilizantes orgánicos, para restaurar el suelo degradado. Y tenían que recuperar el suelo rápidamente, porque cultivaban verduras todo el año. No podían dejar de aplicar abono orgánico y esperar años hasta que los árboles mejoraran el suelo.

Franz lo entendía perfectamente. Dijo que él también fumigaba sulfocálcico, pero luego dijo “pruébenlo. Prueben la agroforestería en una pequeña superficie, aun si empiezan con un solo árbol”.

Fue un grupo alegre el que subió al micro para bajar del cerro. Les gustó la sugerencia de Franz de experimentar a pequeña escala, incluso con una idea tan nueva y sorprendente como la agroforestería.

El paleontólogo Richard Fortey dice que los científicos suelen ser tan reacios a aceptar las ideas de los colegas más jóvenes que “la ciencia avanza, un funeral a la vez”. (Fortey citaba a Max Planck). En cambio, los agricultores familiares están un poco más abiertos a las nuevas ideas. A medida que los agricultores sigan contribuyendo a la agroecología y la agroforestería, discutirán y experimentarán. No es razonable esperar que todos ellos acepten las mismas prácticas, sobre todo cuando trabajan en lugares diferentes, con cultivos y suelos distintos.

Pero una palabra de un agricultor innovador puede ayudar a que incluso las ideas radicales parezcan dignas de ser probadas.

Blogs previos de Agro-Insight blogs

Manzanos del futuro (donde ya conocimos al Ing. Serafín Vidal)

La agricultura con árboles

Training trees

Videos sobre la agroforestería

SLM 03 Agroforestería con grevillea

SLM08 Agroforestería del bosque ralo

SLM10 Regeneración manejada

A Greener Revolution in Africa May 2nd, 2021 by

After settling in the USA in the 1990s, Isaac Zama would visit his native Cameroon almost every year, until war broke out in late 2016, and it became too dangerous to go home. About that same time a new satellite TV company, the Southern Cameroons Broadcasting Corporation (SCBC), was formed to broadcast news and information in English. (Cameroon was formed from a French colony and part of a British one in 1961).

In 2018, Isaac approached SCBC to start a TV program on agriculture to help Southern Cameroonians who could no longer work as a result of the war, and the thousands of refugees who sought refuge in Nigeria. The broadcasters readily agreed. With his PhD in agriculture and rural development from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his roots in a Cameroonian village, Isaac was well placed to find content that farmers back home would appreciate. “I did some research on the Internet, and I found Access Agriculture,†said Isaac. “I liked it so much that I watched every single video.â€

Isaac soon started a TV program, Amba Farmers’ Voice, which began to air every Sunday at 4 PM, Cameroon time. It is rebroadcast several times a week to give more people a chance to watch the program. With frequent power cuts many are not able to tune in on Sundays.

The program is broadcast live from Isaac’s studio in Virginia. He starts with a basic introduction in West African Pidgin. “If I’m going to show a video on rabbits, I start by explaining what a is rabbit,†Isaac explains. “And that we can learn from farmers in Kenya how to build a rabbit house, and to care for these animals.†After playing an Access Agriculture video on the topic (in English), Isaac comments on it in Pidgin, for the older, rural viewers who may not speak English. His remarks are carefully scripted, and based on background reading and research.

The show lasts an hour or more and allows Isaac to play several videos. Amba Farmers’ Voice has its own Facebook and YouTube pages. While his program is on the air, Isaac checks out the Facebook page to get an idea of how many people are watching. A popular topic like caring for rabbits may have 1,000 viewers just on Facebook. But most people watch the satellite broadcast. SCBC estimates that two to three million people watch Amba Farmers’ Voice in Cameroon, but many others also watch it in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and even in some Francophone countries, like Benin and Gabon.

Some farmers reciprocate, sending Isaac pictures and videos that they have shot themselves, showing off their own experiments, adapting the ideas from the videos to conditions in Cameroon. Isaac heard from one group of “mothers in the village†who showed how they were using urine to fertilize their corn, after watching an Access Agriculture video from Uganda.

People in refugee camps watched the video on sack mounds, showing how to grow vegetables in a large, soil-filled bag. But gunny sacks were scarce in the refugee camp, so people improvised, filling plastic bags with earth and growing tomatoes in them, so they could grow some food within the confines of the camp.

Isaac mentioned that people were installing drip irrigation after seeing the video from Benin about it.

“That can be expensive,†I said. “People have to buy materials.â€

“Not really,†Isaac answered. Gardeners take used drink bottles from garbage dumps, fill them with water, poke holes in the cap, and leave them to drip slowly on their plants.

After seeing the video from Benin on feeding giant African snails (for high-quality meat), one young man in the Southern Cameroons got used tires and stacked one on top of the other to make the snail pen. It’s an innovation he came up with after watching the Access Agriculture video. He puts two tires in a stack, puts the snails in the bottom, and feeds them banana peels and other fruit and vegetable waste. Isaac tells his audience “We don’t need to buy anything. Just open your eyes and adapt. See what you can find to use.â€

Solar dryers were another topic that people adapted from the videos. To save money, they made the dryers from bamboo, instead of wood, and shared one between several families. As a further adaptation, people are drying grass in the solar dryer. Access Agriculture has four videos on using solar dryers to preserve high value produce like pineapples, mangoes and chillies, but none show grass drying. Isaac explains that you sprinkle a little salt on the grass as you dry it. Then, in the dry season you put the grass in water and it turns fresh again. Now he is encouraging youth to form groups so they can dry grass to store, to sell to farmers when forage is scarce.

I was delighted to see so many local experiments, just from people who watch videos on television, with no extension support.

All of this interaction, between Isaac Zama and his compatriots, the teaching, feedback and organisation, is all happening on TV and online. He hasn’t been to Cameroon since he started his program.  Isaac’s interaction with his audience amazes me. It’s a testimony to his talent, but also to the improved connectivity in rural Africa.

“People think that Africans don’t have cell phones,†Isaac says, “but 30% of the older farmers in villages have android phones. Their adult children, living in cities or abroad, buy phones for their parents so they can stay in touch and so they can see each other on WhatsApp.†Isaac adds that what farmers need now is an app so they can watch agricultural videos cheaper.

Dr. Isaac Zama wants to encourage other stations to broadcast farmer learning videos: “Those videos from Access Agriculture will revolutionize agriculture in Africa in two or three years, if our national leaders would just broadcast them on TV. The farmers would do it themselves, just from the information they can see on the videos.†Isaac is willing to collaborate with other TV stations across the world, to share his experience or to broadcast Amba Farmers Voice, but particularly with broadcasters in Africa who are interested in agricultural development

Related Agro-Insight blogs

To drip or not to drip

Drip irrigation saves water in South Sudan

Cell phones for smallholders

A connecting business

Staying grounded while on the air in Ghana

Watch the Access Agriculture videos mentioned in this story

How to build a rabbit house

Human urine as fertilizer

Using sack mounds to grow vegetables

Drip irrigation for tomato

Feeding snails

Solar drying pineapples, Making mango crisps, Solar drying of kale leaves and Solar drying of chillies

 

An exit strategy April 4th, 2021 by

Vea la versión en español a continuación

Development projects often die when the money runs out. Many of these efforts often have no exit strategy in mind, but that’s changing, as I saw on a recent visit to Villa Taquiña, on the mountain slopes above Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Once an independent peasant community, Villa Taquiña has now largely been swallowed by the city of Cochabamba, but until recently, many farmers still managed to grow small plots of cut flowers.

When I lived in Villa Taquiña, years ago, if I caught the bus before dawn I would share the ride with older women taking huge bundles of carnations, gladiolas, and chrysanthemums to sell in the central market. But on my recent visit a local farmer, doña Nelly, explained that when Covid put a stop to big weddings and funerals, it wiped out the demand for cut flowers. Adaptable as ever, the smallholders turned to fresh vegetables, but there was a catch. The flowers had been grown with lots of pesticides. Now the farmers hoped to produce in a more environmentally friendly way, “so we can leave something for our children and grandchildren,†doña Nelly explained.

Two agronomists, Ing. Alberto Cárdenas and Ing. Alexander Espinoza, from Fundación Agrecol Andes, are helping a dozen farm families transition to agroecology. The farmers plant broccoli, cabbage and other vegetables with seeds they buy at the shop. The seeds come dusted in pink fungicide, but the farmers harvest seeds from some of the plants they grow, and are now producing 80% of their own seed. If they need a fungicide, they can make sulfur-lime or Bordeaux mix, which are accepted by most organic agricultural programs. The farmers also plant basil, quilquiña and other aromatic plants among their vegetables to discourage insect pests. Many different plants are grown together; this is called intercropping and it also keeps the pests away. The farmers are also bringing their soils back to life by incorporating compost.

Although the plots are tiny (some farmers have as little as 700 square meters) with hard work even a small piece of land can produce a lot of vegetables. Then the problem becomes where to sell it. Folks could take their produce to the big market in the city, but they would have to compete with conventionally-grown vegetables brought in by the truck load. Alberto and Alex have organized the farmers to work together. They often meet at doña Nelly’s house to package the produce with attractive labels. Besides saving on the costs of agrochemicals, these organic farmers have a close link with consumers, so they listen to what their clients want, and try to offer them a rich diversity of vegetables.

Belonging to a group also helps the farmers to reach customers who appreciate organic produce. In Bolivia the niches for organic food are still in their infancy, so producers and consumers need a little help finding each other. Alberto and Alex have organized the farmers with their consumers. Every week a group of consumers (including my family) gets a WhatsApp message with this week’s menu of what is on offer. We order what we want, everything from crisp vegetables to a perfect whole wheat flour to the best cactus fruit I’ve ever had. Two days later Alberto and Alex cheerfully arrive at our door with the produce.

Unfortunately, this is not sustainable marketing. Vegetable growers can’t always depend on the good graces of a project to sell their produce for them, but Alberto and Alex have an exit strategy.  They are organizing volunteer farmers and consumers to meet occasionally and inspect the farms, to guarantee that they are agroecologically sound. It is called the “participatory guarantee system,†(SPG) a kind of people’s organic certification. With time, Alberto hopes to make the marketing profitable enough that someone, perhaps the farmers themselves, will take it over as a private enterprise.  To that end, the farmers are organizing themselves into a legally-recognized association. Letting the farmers and the consumers get to know each other is also an innovation to make sure that we keep buying and selling.

I visit Villa Taquiña with two-dozen mask-wearing consumers, who were delighted to meet some of the farmers who grow the food we eat. One of those farmers, Elsa Bustamante, has an exit strategy of her own. She is feeding guinea pigs on the vegetable waste from her small plot, and she plans to start a restaurant featuring organic vegetables and homegrown guinea pigs. “You will all be my customers,†Elsa tells us. And then she serves up golden brown quarters of fried guinea pig on a bed of rice, potatoes and salad. The consumers love it.

Related Agro-Insight blog stories

The next generation of farmers

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Further reading

Bentley, Jeffery W. 2015 “Flowers Watered with Beer.â€Â Agriculture for Development 26:20-22.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Nelly Camacho, Elsa Bustamante, and her brother Pastor for letting us into their homes and their fields. Doña Nelly is the representative of the SPG Cercado. (Cercado is a province in the Department of Cochabamba. Cercado has only one municipality, which is also called Cochabamba, and it is the Department’s capital). The SPG Cercado is backed up by Law 3525, “Regulation and promotion of ecological production of agriculture, livestock and non-timber forest products†and by the National Technical Norm (NTN) which supports the participatory guarantee systems (SPG) which is used to accredit urban, peri-urban and rural groups of ecological farmers. The SPG Cercado works via an MOU with the municipal government of Cochabamba and the Fundación Agrecol Andes, with funding from the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation. Ing. Alberto Cárdenas and Ing. Alexander Espinoza work for the Fundación Agrecol Andes, in Cochabamba. A big thanks to them for organizing this visit, and thanks as well to Alberto for his comments on an earlier version of this story.

Scientific name

Quilquiña (Porophyllum ruderale) is a pungent herb used for making salsas.

Videos on the agroecological way to produce vegetables

Using sack mounds to grow vegetables

Managing black rot in cabbage

Managing vegetable nematodes

Insect nets in seedbeds

ESTRATEGIA DE SALIDA

Jeff Bentley, 4 de abril del 2021

Los proyectos de desarrollo suelen morir cuando se acaba el dinero. A muchos de estos esfuerzos les falta una estrategia de salida, pero eso está cambiando, como vi hace poco en una visita a Villa Taquiña, al pie de la cordillera andina, en Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Villa Taquiña, que era una comunidad agrícola independiente, hoy en día ha sido prácticamente tragada por la ciudad de Cochabamba, pero hasta hace poco, muchos agricultores cultivaban pequeñas parcelas de flores cortadas para vender.

Cuando yo vivía en Villa Taquiña, hace algunos años, si salía antes del amanecer compartía el micro (bus) con mujeres mayores de edad que llevaban enormes bultos de claveles, gladiolos y crisantemos para vender en el mercado central. Pero en mi última visita, una agricultora local, doña Nelly Camacho, me explicó que cuando el Covid acabó con las bodas y los funerales bien asistidos, dio fin a la demanda de flores cortadas. Tan bien adaptables como siempre, los pequeños agricultores empezaron a producir verduras frescas, pero había un problemita. Las flores se cultivaban con muchos plaguicidas. Ahora los agricultores esperan producir de forma más ecológica, “porque queremos dejar algo para nuestros hijos, y nietos”, explica doña Nelly.

Los ingenieros agrónomos Alberto Cárdenas y Alexander Espinoza, de la Fundación Agrecol Andes, les están ayudando a una decena de familias en la transición a la agroecología. Los agricultores siembran brócoli, repollo lechugas, vainas y otras hortalizas con semillas que compran en la agropecuaria. Las semillas vienen recubiertas con un fungicida rosado, pero los agricultores guardan algunas de las semillas de las plantas que cultivan, y ahora están produciendo el 80% de sus propias semillas. Si necesitan un fungicida, pueden hacer sulfocálcico o caldo bordelés, que son aceptados por la mayoría de los programas de agricultura orgánica. Los agricultores también siembran albahaca, quilquiña y otras plantas aromáticas entre sus hortalizas para ahuyentar a las plagas insectiles. Cultivan una mezcla de muchas plantas diferentes; esto se llama policultivo y también evita tener plagas. Además, los agricultores están recuperando sus suelos, incorporando compost.

A pesar de que las parcelas que quedan son pequeñas (alguna gente cultiva sólo 700 metros cuadrados), con trabajo se puede producir muchas verduras. Luego viene el problema de dónde venderlas. Los agricultores podrían llevar sus productos al gran mercado, la Cancha de Cochabamba, pero tendrían que competir con las camionadas de hortalizas convencionales. Alberto y Alex han organizado a los agricultores para que trabajen juntos. A menudo se reúnen en la casa de doña Nelly para embolsar los productos con etiquetas atractivas. Además de ahorrarse los costos de los agroquímicos, estos agricultores orgánicos tienen un estrecho vínculo con los consumidores, y saben lo que sus clientes quieren y tratan de ofrecerles una rica diversidad de verduras.

Pertenecer a un grupo también ayuda a los agricultores a encontrar los clientes que aprecian los productos orgánicos. En Bolivia, los nichos de los alimentos orgánicos todavía están en pañales, entonces los productores y consumidores necesitan un poco de ayuda para encontrarse. Alberto y Alex han organizado a los agricultores con sus consumidores. Cada semana, un grupo de consumidores (incluyendo a mi familia) recibe un mensaje de WhatsApp con la oferta semanal. Pedimos lo que queremos, desde verduras súper frescas, una perfecta harina integral, y la mejor tuna que jamás he probado. Dos días después, Alberto y Alex puntualmente nos dejan una “bolsa saludable†(Bolsaludabe) de productos en la puerta.

Lastimosamente, este tipo de comercialización no es sostenible. Los horticultores no siempre pueden depender de la buena voluntad de un proyecto para vender sus productos, pero Alberto y Alex tienen una estrategia de salida. Están organizando a agricultores y consumidores voluntarios para que se reúnan de vez en cuando e inspeccionen las parcelas, a fin de garantizar que son agroecológicas de verdad. Se llama “sistema participativo de garantías†(SPG), y es una especie de certificación orgánica popular. Con el tiempo, Alberto espera que la comercialización sea lo suficientemente rentable como para que alguien, tal vez los mismos productores, se haga cargo de vender la producción de manera particular. Para hacer eso, los productores se están organizando en una asociación con personería jurídica. El hacer que los agricultores y los consumidores nos conozcamos es también una innovación para asegurar que sigamos comprando y vendiendo.

En mi visita a Villa Taquiña éramos dos docenas de consumidores con barbijos, que estábamos encantados de conocer a algunos de los agricultores que producen los alimentos que comemos. Una de esas agricultoras, Elsa Bustamante, tiene su propia estrategia de salida. Ella está alimentando a cuys con los residuos vegetales de su pequeña parcela, y planifica abrir un restaurante con verduras ecológicas y cuys producidos en casa. “Todos ustedes serán mis clientes”, nos dice Elsa. Y luego sirve cuartos de cuy fritos y dorados y aún calientes sobre un lecho de arroz, papas y ensalada. A los consumidores les encanta.

Artículos relacionados del blog de Agro-Insight

The next generation of farmers

En el frutillar de nuevo

Lectura adicional

Bentley, Jeffery W. 2015 “Flowers Watered with Beer.†Agriculture for Development 26:20-22.

Agradecimientos

Gracias a Nelly Camacho, Elsa Bustamante, y su hermano Pastor por recibirnos en sus hogares y sus parcelas. Doña Nelly es la representante del SPG Cercado. (Cercado es una provincia del Departamento de Cochabamba. Cercado tiene un solo municipio, que también se llama Cochabamba, el cual es la capital del Departamento). El SPG Cercado es respaldado por la Ley 3525, “Regulación y promoción de la producción agropecuaria y forestal no maderable ecológica†y por la Norma Técnica Nacional (NTN) que apoya a los sistemas participativos de garantía (SPG) a través de la cual se acredita grupos de productores ecológicos a nivel urbano, periurbano y rural. El SPG Cercado trabaja a través de un convenio entre el gobierno municipal de Cochabamba y la Fundación Agrecol Andes, con financiamiento de la Cooperación Italiana. Los Ing. Alberto Cárdenas y Alexander Espinoza trabajan para la Fundación Agrecol Andes, en Cochabamba. Gracias a ellos por organizar el viaje, y gracias a Alberto por sus comentarios sobre una versión anterior de este blog.

Vocabulario

El cuy es el conejillo de las Indias.

La quilquiña es una hierba con un fuerte olor usada para hacer salsas, Porophyllum ruderale.

Videos sobre la forma agroecológica de producir hortalizas

Producir hortalizas en maceta de saco

Managing black rot in cabbage

El manejo de nematodos en hortalizas

Insect nets in seedbeds

Redes contra insectos en almácigo

Living Soil: A film review December 20th, 2020 by

Written with Paul Van Mele

In the opening scenes of the film, “Living Soil,†we see the Dust Bowl: the devastated farmland of the 1930s in the southern plains of the USA. Thirty to fifty years of plowing had destroyed the soil, and in times of drought, it drifted like snow.

As the rest of this one-hour film shows, there is now some room for optimism. Nebraska farmer Keith Berns starts by telling us that most people don’t understand the soil, not even farmers. But this is changing as more and more farmers, large and small, organic and conventional, begin to pay attention to soil health, and to the beneficial microbes that add fertility to the soil. Plants produce carbon, and exchange it with fungi and bacteria for nutrients.

Mimo Davis and Miranda Duschack have a one-acre city farm in Saint Louis, Missouri. The plot used to be covered in houses, and it was a jumble of brick and clay when the urban farmers took it over. They trucked in soil, but it was of poor fertility, so they rebuilt it with compost, and cover crops, like daikon radishes. Now they are successful farmer-florists—growing flowers without pesticides so that when customers bury their noses in the bouquet, it will be as healthy as can be.

A few scientists also appear in the film. Kristin Veum, USDA soil scientist, says that soil organisms are important because they build the soil back up. Most people know that legumes fix nitrogen, but few know that it’s the microbes in association with the plants’ roots that actually fix the nitrogen from the air.

Indiana farmer Dan DeSutter explains that mulch is important not just to retain moisture, but also to keep the soil cool in the summer. This helps the living organisms in the soil to stay more active. Just like people, good microbes prefer a temperature of 20 to 25 degrees Celsius. When it gets either too hot or too cold, the micro-organisms become less active. Cover crops are also important, explains DeSutter, “Nature abhors a mono-crop.†DeSutter plants cover crops with a mix of three to 13 different plants and this not only improves the soil, but keeps his cash crops healthier.

Nebraska’s Keith Berns plants a commercial sunflower crop in a mulch of triticale straw, with a cover crop of Austrian winter pea, cowpeas, buckwheat, flax, squash and other plants growing beneath the sunflowers. This diversity then adds 15 or 20 bushels per acre of yield (1 to 1.35 tons per hectare) to the following maize crop. Three rotations per year (triticale, sunflower and maize), with cover crops, build the soil up, while a simple maize – soy bean rotation depletes it.

Adding carbon to the soil is crucial, says DeSutter, because carbon is the basis of life in the soil. In Indiana, half of this soil carbon has been lost in just 150 to 200 years of farming, and only 50 years of intensive agriculture. No-till farming reduces fertilizer and herbicide costs, increases yield and the soil improves: a win-win-win. This also reduces pollution from agrochemical runoff.

As Keith Berns explains, the Holy Grail of soil health has been no-till without herbicides. It’s difficult to do, because you have to kill the cover crop to plant your next crop. One option is to flatten the cover crop with rollers, and another solution is to graze livestock on the cover crop, although he admits that it’s “really hard†to get this combination just right.

USDA soil health expert Barry Fisher, says “Never have I seen among farmers such a broad quest for knowledge as I’m seeing now.†The farmers are willing to share their best-kept secrets with each other, which you wouldn’t see in many other businesses.

Many of these farmers are experimenting largely on their own, but a little State support can make a huge difference. In the 1990s in Maryland, the Chesapeake Bay had an outbreak of Pfiesteria, a disease that was killing the shellfish. Scientists traced the problem to phosphorous, from chemical fertilizer runoff. Maryland’s State Government began to subsidize and promote cover crops, which farmers widely adopted. After 20 years, as Chesapeake Bay waterman James “Ooker†Eskridge explains, the bay is doing better. The sea grass is coming back. The blue crab population is doing well, the oysters are back and the bay looks healthier than it has in years.

Innovative farmers, who network and encourage each other, are revolutionizing American farming. As of 2017, US farmers had adopted cover crops and other soil health measures on at least 17 million acres (6.9 million hectares), a dramatic increase over ten years earlier, but still less than 10% of the country’s farmland. Fortunately, triggered by increased consumer awareness, these beneficial practices are catching on, which is important, because healthier soil removes carbon from the atmosphere, reduces agrochemical use, retains moisture to produce a crop in dry years, and grows more food. The way forward is clear. Measures like targeted subsidies to help farmers buy seed of cover crops have been instrumental to help spread agroecological practices. Experimenting farmers must be supported with more public research and with policies that promote healthy practices like mulching, compost, crop rotation and cover crops.

Watch the film

Living Soil directed by Chelsea Wright, Soil Health Institute

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