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Re: living mulch + what kind of agriculture for tomorrow? (fwd)





---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 17:40:03 GMT
From: Geraldo Defune <pah_gd@wye.ac.uk>
To: LARRY BREECH <dablbb@sunlink.net>
Cc: sustag@beta.tricity.wsu.edu
Subject: Re:  living mulch + what kind of agriculture for tomorrow? (fwd)

Dear Larry,

I'm a Brazilian farmer and agronomist with 15 years of successful
experience in organic farming, presently doing my PhD in Allelopathy
& Biodynamics.

I include below a msg that was a general reply about agricultural
techniques for the future, but gives an example of minimum
cultivation, or living mulch.

We call "minimum cultivation" the use of winter legumes like vetch in
close rotation with summer crops like maize. It is a very popular &
successful technique in southern Brazil, in a sub-tropical climate
that allows the legumes to grow during the winter, seeding & drying
out in summer without competing with the summer crops.

For the decreased yieId problem you mention, I assume you either
are in a temperate/colder region that does not allow the vetch to
grow early enough, or you're not drilling it early enough in the
autumn.

Anyway, mowing it down during the maize's early stages (before 7-10
leaves) should allow the corn to take off and overcome competition by
shading, as it does with grass weeds under mechanical cultivation.

I repeat the relevant example here if you're not interested in the
whole msg:

To give a practical example, take Maize/Corn soil and weed management:

1. Reduccionist Approach & Product/Input Technology = monocrop
buying hybrid seed, herbicides (even in a biotech package), and
fertilizer. Total dependence on seed/agrochemical companies & maize
market.

2. Systems Approach and Process Technology - maize integrated in
rotations and farm system with livestock. Use of winter green-manure
(after, e.g., rock-phosphate, if needed) Winter-Vetch (V.sativa) to
suppress weeds. No tilling/minimal cultivation by just drilling maize
in furrows amidst the vetch, that could have been already been cut a
couple of times for forage. Vetch dries out, covering soil, drops seed
and returns voluntarily next winter.

Maize can also be intercropped v. succesfully with beans and pumpkins
(Cucurbita spp) or with a summer green manure like Mucuna that repels
almost 100% the weevils. Crop residues can be grazed.

The farmer can select his own high-yield varieties, ADAPTED to his
farm system. Less external dependence and market risks (more than one
produce).

I hope it can help you!

God blees and keep the good work!

Geraldo DEFFUNE

G.Deffune@wye.ac.uk or pah_gd@microlab1.wye.ac.uk
Wye College - University of London
Sustainable Agriculture Research Group
Wye, Ashford, Kent TN25 5AH, England, U.K.
Tel.:(44-1233)813260, Fax: (44-1233)812855
WEB http://www.wye.ac.uk/agriculture/sargintro.html
PhD Student sponsored by CNPq - The Brazilian Research Council

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 13:13:52 GMT
From: Geraldo_Deffune <pah_gd@wye.ac.uk>
To: sustag@beta.tricity.wsu.edu
Cc: g.deffune@wye.ac.uk, bonny@grignon.inra.fr
Subject: Re: what kind of agriculture for tomorrow? (fwd)

Dear Sylvie & sustag-l-mates,

Although your questions are of a very broad nature, leaving more room for
doxological opinions than for epistemological/cientific answers, they are
surely v.important and fascinating - I've been asking more or less the same
to myself through all my professional life, so thank you for "materializing
them", virtually...

Answering individual questions:

>I would like to discuss with people interested in this topic:
>WHAT KIND OF AGRICULTURE FOR TOMORROW (in developped countries,
>for the year  2000, 2010, 2020 or 2050)?

Surely we'll have to find "softer impact" technologies, that can
be both ecologically & economically sustainable and healthy in
biological and social terms, i.e., just, non-pollutting &
democratically efficient.

1/ which farm structures?
(what % of farmers in working population? which size for farms?
which importance of part-time farming? etc.)

It's very hard to think about active farming pops. higher than
10-15% in developped and 20-30% in developping countries, even
if a true descentralization of investment in the rural areas is
achieved. But this can be improved by better market/environmental
integration between consumers living in the countryside and farmers.

Farm-size is a very regional issue, also depending on the land use/
produce (e.g., escargots or champignons only need a few sheds). The
same in fact, applies to the whole question and is very dangerous to
generalize on these matters.


2/ what will farmers be producing (in a broad sense including
provision of services such as care of the countryside, etc.)?

Association between food/raw materials, energy and leisure/
eco-tourism is a good strategy. Integration between complementary
exploitations that benefit recycling of both materials and resources
in general (water, energy, labour) must be a top objective to
maximize economicity.


3/ what kind of techniques (including new technologies,
biotechnology) will be used?

A clear shift to Systems Approach (combining holistic and analytical methods)
and Process Technology (knowing how to do, recycling, integrating) as opposed
to Reduccionist Approach & Product/Input Technology (buying inputs) is needed
and is coming through both farmer and consumer education/awareness.

This shift includes priority for biologically based technology, making more
use of secondary methabolite interactions (allelopathy, hormesis, hormonal
effects, pheromones, kairomones, etc) and Organic methods (as regarding farm,
plants and animals like organisms that they indeed are) rather than the
conventional chemical paradigm.

To give a practical example, take Maize/Corn soil and weed management:

1. Reduccionist Approach & Product/Input Technology = monocrop
buying hybrid seed, herbicides (even in a biotech package), and fertilizer.
Total dependence on seed/agrochemical companies & maize market.

2. Systems Approach and Process Technology - maize integrated in rotations
and farm system with livestock. Use of winter green-manure (after, e.g.,
rock-phosphate, if needed) Winter-Vetch (V.sativa) to suppress weeds. No
tilling/minimal cultivation by just drilling maize in furrows amidst the
vetch, that could have been already been cut a couple of times for forage.
Vetch dries out, covering soil, drops seed and returns voluntarily next
winter.

Maize can also be intercropped v. succesfully with beans and pumpkins
(Cucurbita spp) or with a summer green manure like Mucuna that repels
almost 100% the weevils. Crop residues can be grazed.

The farmer can select his own high-yield varieties, ADAPTED to his farm
system. Less external dependence and market risks (more than one produce).


Biotechnology in a more holistic sense of managing and balancing
biological processes with the support of knowledge obtained from
genetic engineering research.

4/ which characteristics and orientations for agriculture?

A more socially and ecologically concious and integrated agriculture, as
suggested above, taking into account the real global costs and the long-
term viability and improvement of methods and resources.
                   -----------

Our friend, Dr. Ioannis Ispikoudis, of the Univ. of Tessaloniki, Greece
has suggested a cientific greek terminology, "AIFORIA" for real sustainable
systems that imply in evolutionary improvement of the environments support
capacity - this must be our orientation!

5/ which level of yield for crops, for example for wheat?

Between 4 and 5 tons/ha, for both wheat and the maize system mentioned;
around 40 T/ha for potatoes and 30-50 T/ha for most "bulky" vegetables
(carrots, cabbages).

>....and other points that seem important to you.

Lots of, but no thanks - I haven't got the time now...

>There are at less 2 ways to consider this issue:
>+1/ desirable evolution: what kind of agriculture seems desirable?
>To whom? What are the conditions and obstacles for an evolution
>towards this direction? What are the different points of view?..
 >+2/ the likely evolution under different scenarios.


Last but not least, I greatly respect and even encourage points of
view, different from mine, that can teach me more!

"Bons baisers, Sylvie" and a friendly Merry Xmas hug to all!



Geraldo DEFFUNE

Wye College - University of London
Sustainable Agriculture Research Group
Wye, Ashford, Kent TN25 5AH
Tel.:(01233)812401 Ext. 271
Fax: (01233)812855  Inglaterra
E-mail: G.Deffune@wye.ac.uk

Home address:
The Bungalow, Amage Rd.
Wye Ashford Kent TN25 5DF
Tel: 01233 813260

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sylvie BONNY, researcher
INRA-ESR
F-78850 GRIGNON
FRANCE
Tel: (33.1) 30 81 53 34
Fax: (33.1) 30 81 53 68
E-mail: bonny@grignon.inra.fr




----- End Included Message -----



Article 6143 of misc.rural:
Newsgroups: misc.rural
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From: ln21531@sander.lockheed.com (Jan Marshall)
Subject: Local produce
Message-ID: <ln21531.146@sander.lockheed.com>
Sender: news@Rapnet.Sanders.Lockheed.Com (USENET News System)
Organization: Lockheed Sanders, Inc.
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 10:34:34 GMT
Lines: 22

Fortunately, where I live (Southern New Hampshire), the big food chains like 
Market Basket and Alexanders' Shop & Save can't wait to flood their produce 
sections with local vegetables and fruits.  

Yes, we have to buy "gigantic pale tomatoes" and other washed out, tasteless 
stuff during the non-growing seasons, but we all know that as soon as things 
come into season, the stores will give us the best of the regions.

I find myself embarrased to say that I do buy in the big stores rather than 
go to all the farmstands, but I know that the farmstands have already sold 
bigtime to the big stores and are not losing money over my laziness.

I am pleased that the time honored farms in the area have stayed in booming 
business for so long and if it came down to needing one-on-one support, I 
would absolutely make the effort to go out of my way to give them my 
business.

It IS the farmers though, that have kept the farms going for so long.  The 
families that started them 100-200 years ago are still the ones that own 
them.

Jan