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0 pointsestsauver5y ago0 comments

Many of our farmers do sustain themselves (and often their families) on an acre or less in Kenya, so I would suggest that you contact your local agricultural extension school for some suggestions. :)

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6 comments · 3 top-level

smadge5y ago· 2 in thread

Your criticism of this study is that is is conducted on too small of plots (6 experiment groups on 12 acres = 2 acres per group) to be scaled up to real farms. However the real farms to which you sell synthetic fertilizer or fertilizer financial products in Subsaharan Africa are of similar sizes?

estsauverOP5y ago

No, my criticism is it’s a very small sample size to get this result, is clearly run by an organization that has a specific mission and is trying to find results for that, and to point out that while interesting, this research has different results than the rest of the ag research world.

chordalkeyboard5y ago

Basically all research is motivated to some extent, people do not choose hypotheses randomly, but on the basis of their own subjective perceptions of the state of knowledge of the field. The “rest of the ag research world” is not uniform and neither are they uniformly in disagreement with the research presented here. Finally, this is a relatively large sample size for prospective research. Many of the studies that purportedly demonstrate different outcomes are retrospective and unable to control for confounders.

rch5y ago· 1 in thread

The library system is helpful as well. In Colorado (and elsewhere, as I understand it) some libraries have seed banks, classes on pollinators and nutrition, and potentially community gardens.

Melting_Harps5y ago

> The library system is helpful as well. In Colorado (and elsewhere, as I understand it) some libraries have seed banks, classes on pollinators and nutrition, and potentially community gardens.

I'm in Boulder county, and many offer(ed) those programs and seed banks but access to Community Gardens has always been limited here. The wait lists can be pretty long and during the pandemic and shortages people ran to local farms and bought out their CSA memberships and meat pre-sales (happening now actually for most livestock) in record timing.

California has it, too. UC Davis is quite involved in Biodynamics in the region and offers classes for winemaking using the practices. These fires have really put a strain on the local economy and programs so I'm not sure what it will look like after this, but I hope it prevails.

With that said, the results of this study are not really that surprising to me and follow my own observations: I did a Biodynamic horticulture apprenticeship in Europe and managed a Biodynamic farm in Maui.

The issue is with the subsidies that distort the prices and perverts the incentives to keep farmers dependent on such a vile system, and this is all over the Western world, and much of the East, in my experience. We should be encouraging our youth that are aware of the climate change they will face to get involved in restorative Ag and offering them low to no interest loans on land and equipment while systematically removing the subsidies for corn, soy and other non profitable crops that heavily rely on dangerous external inputs which only consolidates the Industry more in the hands of large chemical corps.

If I'm honest people should see the transition to organic/ biodynamic Ag as one of not just viable Soil Biology and ethics but also of Climate Science, Carbon sequestration from Ag can make significant in-roads in reducing the atmospheric carbon. Hemp is an incredibly amazing crop at capturing carbon from the atmosphere and building top soil, it sheds most of its foliage throughout the season and create a high canopy to reduce water requirements after 7-10 weeks after germination depending on regions and cultivar. It is a heavy feeder and will require crop rotation, but as seen with the green-rush of CBD products, these have massive Value added Market potential.

While I studied the significance of other plants throughout my apprenticeship none captured my attention as much as hemp and I mainly went to Europe as hemp was legal in the EU and many products were being made from it while it was still illegal in the US at the time (2011-2014).

With that said, I really hope COVID disrupted the paradigm we had been operating for so long and makes people look at these problems with solutions that some of us had been involved in and advocating for nearly decades now.

bregma5y ago

I have a considerably shorter growing season in Canada than those fortunate enough to live in Kenya.

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