OK. As we look at the alarming crisis that BP and the oil industry has brought us to, as we evaluate the amount of military spending we are pouring into the middle east for no evident return (and as we consistently apologize for killing innocent civilians with airborne missiles), as we observe politicians and lobbyists letting payoffs and focused fundraising deny the needs of voters in favor of the needs of corporations, as we see the Supreme Court gradually eliminate generations of civil rights achievements, we are getting more and more convinced that making a change in America... indeed in the whole world... is getting less and less possible.
Cross posted from Border Jumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.
In 1999, when he purchased his first treadle pump, Robert Mwanza, a farmer in Lusaka, Zambia, was struggling to make ends meet and without reliable access to water. As his country dealt with drought and economic weakness, Robert lacked the necessary resources to irrigate his farm and “couldn’t grow enough to eat, let alone sell.”
Access to water is a luxury that many rural households, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, do not have. Farmers must often travel long distances to collect water from streams or public wells, making it impossible to irrigate crops or have enough water for cooking and bathing.
But affordable technologies such as the treadle pump (a foot-powered pump that sits on top of a well and irrigates small plots of land), the rope pump (a manually powered alternative to the treadle pump), and a variety of water storage systems (made of plastic and used as sources for sprinkler or drip irrigation systems) are changing all of that. The systems are developed and supported by International Development Enterprises (IDE), an organization working to improve the livelihoods of farmers in 13 countries in Asia and Africa through improved agriculture technology and market access. (See also: Harnessing Too Much of a Good Thing, Addressing Soil Erosion to Improve Production, Income, and Nutrition, and Persistently Innovative: One Farmer Teaches by Example.)
IDE is making irrigation more efficient by combining technology specially designed to address the needs of small-scale farmers with on-the-ground support staff to provide training and education. This allows farmers to expand their farms, feed their families, and earn a profit from selling surplus crops.
After just two years of improved irrigation provided by a treadle pump, Robert Mwanza grew more than enough vegetables to feed his wife and eight children. He also earned enough money to purchase an additional pump, doubling the amount of land he could irrigate. He recruited his brother, Andrew Mwanza, to work the additional pump, and in three years, with the help of IDE field staff, Robert began to sell his produce to Agriflora, a company that exports high-quality vegetables to Europe. Now the two brothers are growing enough vegetables to afford a motorized petrol pump for $750, further reducing the labor required to increase production.
To read more about the importance of getting water to crops, as well as other examples of innovations that help farmers do this, see: Water Harvesting, Weathering the Famine, and Persistently Innovative: One Farmer Teaches by Example.
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Mokolodi Wildlife Reserve used to be known more for raising livestock than protecting wildlife. But after years of ranching degraded the land, the owner decided to devote the area to protecting elephants, giraffes, impala, kudu, crocodiles, hippos, ostrich, warthogs, and various other animals and birds. But the reserve hasn’t stopped raising food.
In addition to teaching students and the community about conserving and protecting wildlife and the environment, they’re also educating students about permaculture. By growing indigenous vegetables, recycling water for irrigation, and using organic fertilizers—including elephant dung—the Reserve’s Education Center is demonstrating how to grow nutritious food with very little water or chemical inputs. (See Malawi’s Real “Miracle” and Emphasizing Malawi’s Indigenous Vegetables as Crops.)
I met with Tuelo Lekgowe and his wife, Moho Sehtomo, who are managing the permaculture garden at Mokolodi. Tuelo explained that the organically grown spinach, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, green peppers, garlic, basil, parsley, coriander and other crops raised at the garden are used to feed the school groups who come regularly to learn about not only animals, but also sustainable agriculture. Tuelo and Moho use the garden as a classroom, teaching students about composting, intercropping, water harvesting, and organic agriculture practices. The garden also supplies food for the Education Center and Mokolodi's restaurant, feeding the hundreds of students and tourists who visit the non-profit reserve each week.
The Mokolodi Reserve is another example of how agriculture and wildlife conservation can go hand-in hand.
This morning on NPR there was a story on fracking (hydraulic fracturing, in which water and chemicals are pumped into the ground at extremely high pressures to force natural gas to the surface), interviewing one Texan, Steve Harris, who believes the practice contaminated his drinking water. Fracking is completely exempted from federal regulation due to a loophole inserted in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
Steve Harris believes that pressure also ruined his well. He lives on 14 acres south of Dallas. Shortly after a driller fracked a nearby well, he and his neighbors noticed a change in water pressure.
"When you'd flush the toilet - in the back where the bowl is - water would shoot out the top of the bowl," says Harris.
When he took a shower, there was a foul odor, and the water left rashes on his grandson's skin. His horses stopped drinking from their trough, and there was an oily film on top of the water.
This diary is related to my diary from yesterday, "Remember That Swine Flu Panic?" It, too, is from the current issue of Random Lengths News, but more significantly, it's also about seeing a problem--in this case a large and growing gap between water needs and availability--in an interconnected systemic fashion. It's a brief review and discussion of the documentary, " The American Southwest: Are We Running Dry?", by Jim Thebaut. Read it on the flip.
Using farmland to grow crops to make ethanol is no panacea. One of many reasons is that it can require a lot of water.
Ethanol stirs fear of water shortage:
The mass quantity of water needed for Iowa's booming ethanol industry - billions of gallons each year - has raised concerns among state officials who say laws may be needed to prevent a water shortage in the state.
Needlenose: It can be hard to remember in an abundant modern city, far from the extraction or production of the resources consumed in it, that supplies are finite. It might strike home a bit more to know that we're even using up the supplies that make our electronic things work, let alone our agricultural resources. I have a whole new level of belief in the need to recycle old computers:
... For example, if we continue to consume the following minerals at current rates, we'll exhaust:
* iridium (LCDs) - 13 years
* hafnium (computer chips) - 20 years
* silver (catalytic converters) - 29 years
* tin (cans, solder) - 40 years
* uranium (power) - 59 years ...
The Farm Bill contains Enron levels of corruption and rural Americans know it. It'd be a huge political coup for the candidate willing to try and get it into the conversation. Subsidies, as the diarist notes, are a symptom of the problems and not the cause.
