Hello friends, family and followers! January is sure going fast, can you believe that already 6% of 2022 has came and went?
I have been practicing permaculture for at least 9 years now, and 9 years at least since I went to get my PDC in Costa Rica. Its eight years on the farm and the good stuff really only starts when I get on the blockchain.
But recently, people have been asking me for my advice. Hey, what native trees should I not cut down when I am preparing my fields for shade grown coffee?
But to give advice effectively, you have to go.
This friend had visited our farm several times, getting ideas for his project. He is working on his grandfathers farm, which had been abandoned for almost 20 years. Of course this is peppered with family history, and I enjoy listening to the history of the region as well.
Here is his son, teething on a 'hueso de cola', which is the bone of cow tail that has given the flavor to our delicious sancocho lunch.
This family of 5 moved to this farm when the pandemic started, and over the last two years, have determined that this is the life that they want their children to grow up in.
The question is, how to build a viable life in el campo?
So thats one of the things I have been discussing with my friend. I told him I would try to tell him everything I've learned in the last 8 years so he can start learning things to teach me.
My theory is that we need one million campesinos experimenting. But they all need to know some basics in order to have the chance at a possible valid experiment.
First of all, this farm is far away. Like, I suffered to get there. We did get lost only once, and lets just say I am so happy that our Nissan Patrol is such a beast. By the end of the 1 hour drive we have gone from pavement to dirt path with all the forms of gravel road in between.
Then we park the car and walk 25 minutes.
It really is glorious, and my suffering ends as soon as we park the car. This is a different lifestyle, still some old school generation but occupied more and more by a new generation of scrappers and entrepreneurs, looking for a new model and smart enough to see where the old models are broken.
The old models lead to 30 year emptying of these places.
But the reversazo has begun.
My wife is a great team mate. She actually grew up nearby, and recognized the school house when we passed it. She used to make paths through these mountains to walk to school with her siblings and cousins.
I mostly spent my time talking with 'the guys', my friend and his brother. I tried to listen more than talk, and make sure I supplied the most essential knowledge for their current situation. I wasn't exactly sure what that would be until I saw what they had done and were doing.
They already mixing systems, and grow food way better than I do. In fact, I did indeed learn a few things by visiting him!
But they didnt ask me to come talk about food. They wanted to know about native trees, something I am happy to say that my time studying has paid dividends on.
I will summarize my points here:
Trees are good
This is so basic as to be obvious, but trees have beneficially effects - they play an important role in many dimensions.
People tend to plant high value trees like lumber, but they are also starting to recognize the importance of secondary trees, I usually refer to them as native trees (arboles nativos).
Coffee growers are seeing the writing on the wall and are being encouraged to have at least 12 species of plants associated with their coffee. This is easy to do if you include these natives.
Manage native trees with two techniques: Pruning and Coppicing
Here in Colombia, native trees 'reforest' themselves quickly, and after a few years, once productive farms are 'monte', basically fledgling forests.
Forests naturally go through succession as higher value trees come up through the understory and verticality increases during this process as each generation penetrates through and wins over a previous.
When cleaning land for agriculture, we can preserve the verticality and let on more light by debranching, pruning the tree but leaving it at the same height.
For low value shrubs and scrub, we can coppice, which means to cut off the top. I generally do this just above my head, so that the sprouts go up above me and other human's head space.
These two techniques allow us to keep more trees and let in more light to our agriculture spaces.
A whole different article can and probably should be written about all the good things these additional trees are doing. From regulating soil humidity, temperature regulation, processing biomass, to oxygenating the soil, to allowing birds to come in and add their beneficial effects. And more!
I also was able to give one other piece of advice about coffee. This is also about the global fertilizer crisis.
But I think I will have to save it for another article. I'm out of pictures! 