About adaptation, mitigation, floods and the need for information
[i-Punjab farmer on dam]
Climate change adaptation and mitigation in agriculture is more than merely “the need for better seeds”. It needs a way to exchange information so we can re-apply proven solutions rather than re-inventing the wheel every single time….
In a wide, slow gesture, Gurbachan Singh shows me a panorama of lush fields. It is as if he hand touches the abundant, young wheat sprouts from afar. They are bright green, showing a promise for a plentiful harvest. Wide fields are bordered with tall poplar trees whose leafs softly whisper in the light wind, chasing away the early morning mist.
“All of this”, says Gurbachan, “All of this was gone. Flooded. As far as you can see. All of it. People had fled to higher grounds, but the twenty-four hours notice we had before the flood, was not sufficient to evacuate all live stock. Most buffalo and cows drowned. The harvest was lost.”
We are standing near the village of Bhoda in Punjab, North West India. From a large dike, made of sandbags, probably five metres (15 ft) high, we see the river, flowing slowly beneath us. It is hard to imagine that in July last year, this small stream had swollen with a mighty force, digging a hole in the dike, half a mile long. (...)
Read my full post on the CCAFS blog
Musing on India - Part 4:
Faces of Punjab
Here are some people we met in Punjab, each with their own story on how they were coping with the changing climate:
[i-faces of Punjab India]
Gurbachan Singh is the village chief of Bhoda, a town which was flooded in the middle of last year. He told us the story of how they got 24 hours notice a flood was coming in, how they evacuated the villagers and constructed an emergency dam with sand bags.
[i-faces of Punjab India]
Mohamed is a dairy farmer who migrated from the north. Last year, his house and that of his neighbours got flooded, and they moved to a new location. He told us of his difficulties to find feed for his animals.
[i-faces of Punjab India]
Dilbar Singh (R) and his neighbour Paramjit Singh (L) explained how new hybrid seeds helped them to cope with the changing rainy season. Paramjit was planting poplar trees so he could harvest the timber as an extra income.
[i-faces of Punjab India]
Dr. R.P.Singh works at the Punjab Agricultural University where they have an active breeding programme, selecting varieties of wheat which need less water, yield more and can grow over a shorter period.
More precious than gold:
Preserving biodiversity at the genebank
[i-ICRISAT genebank]
“Germplasm collection”, “allele diversity”, “Crop registers”, might sound like mystic academic terms to you. Likewise for me, I could hardly link them into the discussion about climate change and food security…. Until I visited the genebank on the ICRISAT campus near Hyderabad in India.
The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) is a non-profit organization conducting agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. ICRISAT is part of a consortium of similar agricultural research centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).
…and they have a bank. Not to store money or gold, but to safeguard something much more precious: the genetic material – or “germplasm”- of 119,000 “accessions” -or varieties- of sorghum, pearl millet and six other types of small millets, chickpea, pigeonpea and groundnut, collected from 144 countries.
“Genetic diversity is key to the future”
Over thousands of years, different food crops have evolved into zillions of different varieties, either grown as a cultivated crop, or flourishing in the wild. Each variety differs from the next in the way it naturally adapted its genetic code to the environment it grows in: how it deals with drought or a high soil salinity, how it built up resistance to certain pests. Many differ in their yield, size, leaves or roots.
[i-crop_bushel]But, as Bob Dylan sung: “Times are a-changing”. Farmers now often concentrate on monocultures, or grow only a selection of high yielding crops. Commercial companies have been “successful” in promoting certain varieties, which farmers adopted quickly, and –thanks to globalization- were spread widely. Understandably so, as “the world needs to produce more food”. However, all of this became nefast for the bio-diversity: Today, the rate in which traditional seed varieties disappear, is higher than ever.
This stands in stark contrast with the demand for more and specialized seed varieties, adapted to the ever changing weather patterns. If the genetic biodiversity disappears, where will we find the seed varieties helping farmers to cope with future environmental changes?
Unless if we safeguard our existing seed varieties for the wide range of crops the world grows, we will no longer have the genetic material to re-generate seeds adapted to the future climate changes.
And that is where genebanks come in. Genebanks like the one I was standing in this morning, at ICRISAT.
Read my full post on the CCAFS blog.
Farmers adapting to climate change:
Naakpi Kuunwena from Ghana
[i-Vegetable farm in Ghana]
His name is written “Naakpi” and pronounced “Naakwi”, that we understood fast. But it took us much longer to comprehend why Naakpi looked so tired, and walked around with a back bent as if he had a burden too heavy for one man to carry.
We understood even less as we walked through an opening in the earth wall surrounding his farm and stepped onto his vegetable field: This one hectare plot was the largest, greenest and best maintained vegetable field we had seen so far. The cabbage, beans, tomato, peppers all stood in straight lines. A perfectly geometric maze of five inch wide irrigation canals divided the field into small sub-plots devour of any weeds.
All of us stood in awe. The sight of green that lush came as a surprise. So far, during our West-Africa trip for the Adaptation and Mitigation Knowledge Network (AMKN), we had been interviewing farmers harvesting at this time, one to two months into the dry season. Here, in Lawra – Northeast Ghana, it had been no different. But Naakpi still had a green plot. Why then did it not make him a happy man?
“This is by far the nicest plot I have seen so far, Naakpi”, I said, and congratulated him. He looked at me with sad eyes and shrugged: “Give it one more month, and I will loose it all”, he said. He told us the story. (...)
Read my full post on the CCAFS blog...
Farmers adapting to climate change:
Joel Yiri from Ghana
[i-Ghana farmer]
After his first two sentences, I knew Joel Yiri from Jirapa was the man I was looking for. I had asked Peter Kuupenne, an extension officer from Ghana’s Ministry of Food and Agriculture, to meet “a creative farmer”. And that is what I found: Joel was a man with a vision.
As we shook hands, and sat down in front of Joel’s house, he introduced himself in perfect English. I asked him how come, and if maybe he had been a teacher. But he shook his head: “You know, over here, you are born as a farmer’s son, so that’s what you do for your life: you farm. Just as your father and your father’s father. But that also includes the core challenge: with the current climate change, we can’t farm anymore like they did. We need to adapt our methods. Our fathers had fertile grounds. The rains were plentiful, and for generations they used the same tools, the same seeds and the same technologies. Our generation needs to change.” (...)
Read my full post on the CCAFS blog...
Farmers adapting to climate change:
Helene Nana from Burkina Faso
[i-Helene Nana on her vegetable farm in Burkina Faso]
“Twenty years ago, famine reigned our area”, says Helene. “The men went off to Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Togo and all countries around us. They farmed other people’s lands. But we, the women, we could not move. We had to raise the children. And it was hard.”
“You know, for a farmer, the crop is everything. As the weather changed, as the erosion took our soil away, we were left with infertile land. Whatever small crops we could still harvest, was not enough for our kids. They got sick, many died. Those were very hard times.”
Adama, the chairman from the farmers’ union, had told us how the village succeeded in constructing a dam. “That was good as a drinking hole for the cattle”, Helene explains, “but I realized we could do more with it, and thought about growing vegetables during the dry season. We never did that, I had no experience, but I wanted to give it a try. If you don’t try, you won’t learn, in my opinion.” (...)
Read my full post on the CCAFS blog...
Farmers adapting to climate change:
Ganame Ousseni from Burkina Faso
[i-Burkina Faso farmer]
“You have no idea”, says Ganame Ousseni, a cattle farmer in Ninigui in the North of Burkina Faso, “You can not imagine. When I was a small boy, the grass was this high”, and he holds his arm above his head. “We used to hunt wild animals here. We had loads of cattle too.”
But now it is gone. The forest and the grazing grounds. The whole area is barren with a compacted crust as top soil. “What were we to do?”, Ousseni shakes his head, “We had to stay here to mind the crops, so we gave our cattle to nomads passing through. They herded them for us, taking the cows to the grazing grounds hundreds of miles away, all the way up to Mali. At the end of the dry season, when the cattle came back from the migration, we saw we lost more cattle each year. Some were stolen along the way, or were eaten by wild animals. Our herd disseminated.” (...)
Read my full post on the CCAFS blog...
Farmers adapting to climate change:
Ganame Adama from Burkina Faso
[i-farmer in Burkina Faso]
“My grandparents grew crops without any fertilizer, and had no problems. But with the 20 hectares I inherited, the yield was not enough to even feed my own family”, sighs Ganame Adama. “The forest was gone; the fertile soil was taken away by the waters gushing over the land during the rainy season. A hard crust was everything we were left with. We had to find ways to use that water.”
The people from Ninigui, in Burkina Faso’s north, looked for advise from other farmers who lived through similar challenges. They learned how to build small dams, called ‘diguettes’, ‘digues’ or ‘digues filtrantes’ to break the water flow and block the fertile ground from running off: Using a simple long tube, filled with water, they mark ‘contour lines’ with sticks: areas on their flat plots which are at an equal height. Then they stack rocks, only half a foot high, following those contour lines.
“These dams break the flow of the water as it gushes off the plains. While the rain water slowly seeps through one dam, the soil carried by the water, sinks to the bottom, forming strips of fertile land. The water leaking through one dam is stopped again by the dam on the next contour line, about twenty meters further down the slow slope. And again on the next, and again. Each time, a fertile strip of land forms between the lined-up rocks”, explains Adama. (...)
Read my full post on the CCAFS blog...
Farmers adapting to climate change: Emily Marigu from Kenya
[i-Farmer in Kenya]
Anyone doubting the effect of climate change, and how farmers can adapt continuously to changing weather patterns, should talk to Emily Marigu Ireri.
We met Emily, near Meru, eastern Kenya, where she farms a five acres plot, 1,500 meters high on the steep slopes of Mount Kenya.
She describes how, in recent years, the rains are more erratic. At the beginning of the rainy season, often it would only rain for a few days, and then stop, sometimes for weeks. “Often seeds would start to sprout during those first rains, but then they would dry up”, Emily explains. She takes us to the bottom of the valley just below her fields. “By this time of the year, this small stream would normally be a river, but now, it hardly irrigates the fields around it. A few miles from here, the river is dead, water is just absorbed by the soil.”
“But it is not only the erratic rains that makes the life of farmers difficult“, Emily explains. “Here, so close to Mount Kenya, we also used to get misty drizzle in May and June. From the time of my father’s fathers, we used that moisture for a crop in the middle of the year. Now that drizzle does not come anymore. I don’t know why, but nowadays, we can only get one harvest a year, in the rainy season. Now is the time for the rain to come." (...)
Read the full post on the CCAFS blog...
An update from the African dust tracks
[i-Mali village chief]
Mali village chief
We did not have too much connectivity during this trip, so could not post regular updates. I will catch up during next week.
During this trip, we interviewed 17 farmers and people who assisted farmers to adapt to climate changes.
After over 2,000 km, half of it off road, I am writing this from Ouagadougou while we are waiting for the flight back to Europe.
Next week we will start editing the videos.
I still wanted to share some pictures from this trip.
[i-Mali nomad with his cattle]
A nomad in Mali with his cattle
[i-Cattle keeper in Ghana]
Yousif in Ghana spoke about the difficulties to find grazing grounds for his cattle
[i-Jumuo and his fruit trees in Ghana]
Jumuo in Ghana described the way the shortened rains had insects attack his fruit trees up to the level they would no longer bear any fruits.
[i-Naakpi and his vegetable garden in Ghana]
While Naakpi stood in front of his large green vegetable field, he told us how most of it would be lost, as the rains had stopped, and the water level was too low to continue irrigating the crop.
Interviews with farmers in Kenya:
the positive vibes
[i-Peter interviewing farmers in Kenya]
I am back in Belgium for a few days to work on the post-production of the video interviews we shot in Kenya two weeks ago.
We had a team of three: Bart -the cameraman who also does the video post production-, Jan -the radio reporter from the VRT who did a series on climate change and myself. Plus a local NGO contact and two drivers.
The goal of the interviews, which will also be done in West-Africa and several Asian countries, is to take a snapshot how the farmers in different countries experience the changing weather patterns, and how they adapt to them, or even mitigate the climate changes they anticipate.
[i-Peter interviewing farmers in Kenya]
Every farmer we spoke to highlighted their dependency on the rains, and the more erratic rain patterns nowadays. They also battled with high prices for the seeds and fertilizers which, paired with a lower price for their produce, resulted in a deflated income.
A combination of past inefficient farming techniques and the introduction of foreign seeds and aggressive pesticides often depleted the soil and caused the introduction of new pests which needed even more chemicals.
It was interesting talking to the older farmers, and their stories how things gradually changed. "Twenty years ago", said sixty years old Andrew, who also used to be a teacher, "Twenty years ago, we planted seeds without fertilizers. We had no pesticides. And yet, we had a high yield. We could use the seeds from our harvest for the next year's crop. Water was available everywhere. Forests were dense and plentyfil. But now, you will not yield any crop without pesticides and artificial fertilizers. We have to use hybrid seeds which are more drought resistant. The seeds from the hybrid plants themselves are worthless, so we have to buy new ones every year."
But he said so in a "tone of fact", not as a complaint. It was a statement.
And still they all cope: Some change the crops they grow or the type of seeds they use. Others resort to small-scale irrigation, mulching -covering the seedlings with clover-, or conservation farming... They brought up creative ideas on how to avoid erosion, conserve the manure from running off the fields and collectively advocated on planting more trees both for the fruits, the timber, and... the carbon credits.
[i-Cameraman Bart]
Each interview lasted about three hours during which we took ample time to get the farmers at ease, even though each of them was quite outspoken and not camera-shy at all. Each had a story to tell. Not only about their farming, but also about their families, how the men went off to work in the cities, and the women are left to the farming. How all too often, the grandparents are left with their orphaned grandchildren, as if a whole productive generation was decimated.
[i-Jan Gerits in Kenya]
Still, each and everyone of them smiled. There was more laughter than complaints in the air. Each had taken an active role in determining their destiny, even though they had far less control over "life" than anyone in more developed countries...
I left one week of Kenya feeling respectful for each of the people we met, whose lives briefly crossed mine. And at this moment, I am trying to put that respect into the videos we are producing.
Ruth, Cheleste, Emily, Edward, Julia, Anastacia, Margaret,.. you will soon get copies of the pictures and the finished videos. As promised!
PS: Some of the output of these interviews is reflected in short blogposts. The first one is already out on the CCAFS blog.
First two pictures courtesy Jan Gerits.
The Majestic Plastic Bag
[Loband: Object Removed -]
We featured several good and bad examples of advocacy for nonprofit causes. Here is a type we have not featured before: "The Majestic Plastic Bag" is a "mockumentary": it uses the format of a documentary, in a sarcastic jacket, to drive home a strong message.
The video is made by Heal the Bay, a nonprofit environmental organization dedicated to making Southern California coastal waters and watersheds safe, healthy and clean. They use research, education, community action and advocacy to pursue their mission.
Turning plastic garbage into oil
[Loband: Object Removed -]
Discovered via Our World 2.0
Vogue turns oil spill into fashion
[i-Vogue turns oil spill into fashion]
Vogue Italy's August edition frontcovers models in the midst of an oil spill. A shoot by Stephen Meisel, a photographer now infamous for his fashion shoot amongst soldiers in Iraq back in 2007.
In case you are interested:
Kristen McMenamy (...) keeps her skin golden thanks to Self Tan Face Bronzing Gel Tint (to wear alone or with foundation): it takes care of the skin, while giving it a hint of color. Carbon, anthracite, and all of the earthy shades "dress" her eyes: Quick Eyes Cream Shadow, cocoa shimmer, a long-lasting cream eye shadow, worn with brown High Impact Mascara, and her lips feature a nude look. All by Clinique. Tulle dress with beaded embroidery, Ralph Lauren Collection. Rubber necklace, My Sister's Art. Hair by Orlando Pita for Orlo Salon. Make-up Pat McGrath. Fashion editor Karl Templer. Set design by Mary Howard.
And I guess "Oil courtesy BP?" Read the full post...
Picture of the day: And this is how your animals will look like
[i-Brown Pelican in heavy oil in Gulf of Mexico]
A Brown Pelican sits in heavy oil on the beach at East Grand Terre Island along the Louisiana coast.
Picture courtesy Periodismo Humano, AP Photo/Charlie Riedel. Discovered via The Horizon
Picture of the day: And this is how your oceans will look like
[i-gulf oil spill]
"Delicate patterns in the sea breaking on Orange Beach, Alabama".
More than 90 miles from the BP oil spill. (Hires)
Check the latest articles on the Gulf Oil Spill (or read the latest via RSS)
Picture courtesy Guardian UK, Dave Martin/AP. Discovered via @mparent77772 and The Horizon.
Living in Italy #17: Letter to the owner of the Italian Trash Company
[i-Italian trash on the streets]
When I landed in Rome, finally home after five months, there were three things I noticed on the way back from the airport:
- A beautiful sunset, the kind you only see in Italy;
- I had no mobile phone signal most of the way;
- Trash piled up everywhere next to the waste bins.
First, let me get this clear: I love living in Italy. But I never got my head around the fact why garbage is such a problem here. I mean, I don't live in a slum area, but in a village close to the capital, known as a weekend resort for the rich and famous - how much I fall out of that category. Still, trash piles up as if we lived in a slum...
And it is not as if people don't mind: People stopped I was walking around to take pictures of the three trash bins around my house. They looked at me, and at the rubble, only to sigh "A disgrace, isn't it?". One elder woman says: "Yes, young man, take pictures, document it, and do something about this scandal!".
So I will. Problem is, where to start? Luckily, one of the trash skips had a man's picture on it:
[i-Italian trash]
With my limited Italian, I understand this Mister Armeni must be the proud owner of the trash company called "Forza Italia". I guess the mother company is called "Il Popolo della Liberta - Berlusconi". Probably "Berlusconi" must be the overall umbrella of all Italian trash companies, then. At least that was the old lady's claim: "Berlusconi: Rifiuti! Rigiuti!"
As this Mister Armeni kindly displayed his picture on his company's trash cans, I gather he was asking for feedback. So I wrote him a letter:
To:
Mister Armeni
Owner
Regional Trash company "Forze Ragione Regione"
Member of National Trash company "Forza Italia"
Dear Mister Armeni,
Thank you for soliciting feedback on the services of your trash company. I would like to tell you how much I appreciate you must be owning a lot of wastage, and as part of the national trash conglomerate "Forza Italia", I am sure it must be a real challenge to daily hide garbage from the public eye.
Still, I would like to tell you that despite your best efforts, garbage seems to pile up more and more since you took over the company.
I hope you will soon deal with the situation, or speed up selling out your company to the well-known South Italian alliance specializing in the disposal of (radio active) trash (in the Mediterranean). I heard that company is already part of the National Trash company "Forza Italia" anyways...
Looking forward to see progress in your national programme "Trash Italy Fast"!
Kindly,
Peter
Post Scriptum: I googled the chairman of the Italian Trash company, and found this video, in which he explained his views on emancipation:
[Loband: Object Removed -]
Read the full post...
A hole in my bucket, eh city...
[i-Guatemala sinkhole]
The Guatemala City "sinkhole", about 60 feet (18 meters) wide and 300 feet (100 meters) deep, swallowed a three story building in an almost perfect cylindrical hole. A burst sewer pipe or storm drain probably hollowed out the underground cavity that allowed an underground cavity to form.
The hole appears to have been caused by the deluge from tropical storm Agatha blocking sewerage pipes. Spill water gushed away the underground. Guatemala city is built in a region where the first few hundred meters of ground are mostly made up of a material called pumice fill, deposited during past volcanic eruptions. And just like loose gravel can be washed away by water, so was the underground in this spot. (Full)
With thanks to Juan for the tip.
Picture courtesy Paulo Raquec, National Geographic.
Beauty in a volcanic disruption - eh - eruption
While Eyjafjallajokull, goes into a 3rd cycle of European flight interruptions, one can not deny the beauty of it all:
[Loband: Object Removed -]
"Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull - May 1st and 2nd, 2010" is a time-lapse video by Sean Stiegemeier.
Discovered via The Huffington Post and Humanitarian News.
How fast are we depleting the earth's minerals?
link[i-link]
Click on the image for the full resolution picture
This week, loads of activities popped up around Earth Day, a global event reminding us of the fragility of our planet, and the responsibilities each of us have. Of course we can't miss out on this, here on The Road.
Back in 2007, the New Scientist published an interesting article predicting how long the earth's minerals will last if we continue to consume them at the current level, or if we start to consume them at HALF the level the US currently does.
A pity I only discover the article now, but reading through it, I don't hesitate referring to it. A heads-up to all of us, care-takers of this planet, home for our children and the children of our children.
Without better recycling policies and techniques, it looks like we will run out of silver in 29 years (or 9 years if we start consuming at half the rate of the US). Tin has 40 years left (or 17 at the US' rate). Zinc, 46 years (34 at US rates)... Click on the image above to see the full overview. Each of the bars shows the current rate of consumption in a light colour, and the "US rate" in a darker colour.
Apart from the fact that the earth reserves will run out within a foreseeable time, I see the stimulus for recycling material more in the fact that we have to stop eating, breathing and drinking poison. If we see how little we recycle in the world, and how much of those products get dumped or burned, I can not but think how much of that is dispersed in the air, slips into our drinking water, or gets into the soil used to grow our food.
When I arrived here in the Dominican, one of the first things I wanted to do in the office, is set up recycling bins for plastics, glass and paper. Guess what. In the whole country, apparently there are no facilities where consumers can deposit their recycled material. Beh... And we don't have to look that far. I wrote before about the lack of recycling in Italy while I lived there. And that is Europe, for God's sake.
Even at home in Belgium: when we moved into our house on the countryside, we found that for years, the previous owner had dumped waste - including a huge pile of expired medicines - in the garden. I dug out two containers of waste from that garden, which also has the well: A pipe, going 5 meters into the ground, pumping drinking water for the house. And then we are surprised people get cancer. Beh.
Think people: one way or the other, you are eating, drinking and breathing your waste! So recycle. Refuse that plastic bag at the supermarket. Look for products with a recyclable packaging.
OK, I am getting off my soapbox now!
New Scientist article discovered via The Density of Unresolved Ideas.
Illustration courtesy New Scientist.