Farming as Restoration

A long time ago, when I got started in this game, there was some idea that "conservation" and "agriculture" were mutually exclusive. But that all changed with the development of "Permaculture" starting in the late 70s, which theorized a productive mixed system that balanced the ecosystemic benefits (such as ecosystem services) with production for human use. I had a theory, and very soon began putting it into practice with my wife and I can tell you now, 14 years later - I am more convinced than ever that ecologically-minded productive mixed agriculture systems are promising, profitable and probably our hope for human kind's next great golden age.

And this is something that I practice nearly every day, often together with my wife.

One thing that I heard, and have definitely proved to myself on the ground, is how important pruning is to ecosystem management. Its one of the principle tools we can use, and it is extremely powerful. It turns out that not only does above ground pruning trigger underground root-pruning, which the plants do naturally to keep their "biological pump" balanced; but additionally (and possibly because or related to this underground activity), it also stimulates growth hormones in the soil and lets more light in.

And light is important. Each plant/crop requires different amounts of light, but most cash crops are suited to full sun, since still the "best practice" in human society remains monoculture (no shade). This is even the case with coffee, which IS a shade crop, but has been hybridized to develop "sun-resistant" varieties suited for modern monoculture. One day we might plant more shade-loving coffee, but for the moment the "wild" species of coffee on our farm remain types that enjoy mostly-full sunlight and production starts to suffer under partial or heavier shade.

Which of course means that pruning surrounding plants will give a double boost to the coffee! Both from more light and underground growth hormones.

While cleaning up and pruning this lot of coffee, and as I was continuing to feed much of the biomass into our on-contour biomass bunds; we engaged in an activity called "plateo", which my brother-in-law does with a hoe. Cleaning up around the base of the coffee plants (this lot is resprouted coffee, called "soca" locally, to which we then applied our homemade fertilizer, made from a dried mix of chicken manure and rice husks together with some dolomite calcium and lots of wood ash.

To my eyes the coffee plants are really liking the treatment, and they have big beautiful green waxy leaves.

We use this same fertilizer mix on most of our crops too, whether fruit trees and bushes, bananas/plantains or row crops, a number of which can be seen in the picture below.

On the lowest rung there is a row of turnips, but we recently planted two new rows of lemongrass with pronto alivio cuttings, which has gone well for us in the past. I have been waiting patiently for mr. pineapple to hurry up and ripen, but in the end we just gave it the time and space it needs and split the lemongrass row in two. After the pineapple ripens and we harvest it, I will transplant the mother plant as well as cut out as many as 3 new pineapple starts. The more we grow pineapple, the more pineapple we can grow!

Little by little and day by day, our system is improving, alongside our own knowledge, understanding and systematization that we are building. Knowing is not enough, you must also "do", and in this case doing is "work" with "tools". But its not all bad, we grow a lot of different colors and types of flowers as well, and some days its not the crops that make me smile, but the birds, the bees and bugs, and the flowers - the colors!

How many colors can you count in the photo below?

We are living participants in active ecosystems - we are members, keystone species even, of "the circle of life". The quality of those ecosystem services depends largely on us humans, and our understanding of how complex and dynamic elements work together.

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