Imagine our food world transformed: healthy people, healthy planet, justice for workers – and a future for life. I’m not exaggerating the importance of a better food system in helping assure a livable planet – and fortunately the answers are already well known. Last month a new United Nations report, “Agroecology and the Right to Food,” showed that sustainable farming can raise productivity, rehabilitate degraded land, and give work to poor populations.
Here’s a neat tactic the report mentions. It’s called “push-pull” and deals with parasitic weeds in Kenya. Instead of dousing the weeds in chemicals, the farmer plants insect-repellent crops between rows of corn, and separately plants plots of Napier grass, which excretes a sticky gum that “both attracts and traps pests.” Amazing results followed: according to the report, “The push-pull strategy doubles maize [corn] yields and milk production while at the same time improves the soil.” Don’t you love low-tech solutions? They combine simplicity with age-old wisdom and the ways nature works anyway.
The U.N. report went on to say that agroecology reduces farmers’ use of pesticides, which are costly to them and harmful to the environment. I guess the only losers here are the chemical companies. Another neat story: In Burkina Faso (western Africa country), simple techniques have enabled people to purchase degraded land and reclaim it for farming.
You can learn more from the experts right here in the Bay Area. Roots of Change, a San Francisco non-profit working to transform our food system, is sponsoring a wonderful conference in Santa Cruz, July 10-23, offered by UC Santa Cruz’s Agroecology Research Group. To learn more about the course, contact Heather Putnam at shortcourse2011@canunite.org
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