Pen the goats, let the cows back on the land…
Another interesting article from the Chiefio in the same vein as the above video
Leucaena leucocephala Posted on 12 March 2013 by E.M.Smith
chiefio.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/leucaena-leucocephala-collection-of-links/Back in the ’70s or so I saw an article. I’ve forgotten where and I’ve forgotten “about whom”. (Frankly, I don’t think I ever caught the name. It was an Indian (as in India) name, and they tend to ‘runtogetherforme’ into some long hypnotic rampathrathimatripiaticrythm kind of thing that just doesn’t “click”, nor “stick” for me.) I think the article might have been in Mother Earth News, or perhaps something more technical. Again, “Title” is not one of the things I used to notice.
The basic thrust of the article was about a place in India where there was a lot of “Desertification” happening. They had photographs of a Dr. Rmamumblemumblemumble who had ‘fixed it’. What “stuck in my brain” were the method, and a strong visual of the location. They had “before” and “after” pictures of the same location with The Good Doctor seated in the same place. Just “night and day”.
Every so often I try doing a bit of a search to see if I can find that original “connection”, but it doesn’t show up. Buried under too much recent stuff, I fear. But “someday” I’d like to give proper attribution to Dr. WhoDunIt for his work.
The SystemThe agronomy system is simple, and very strait forward. By present methods and understandings, nearly quaint. At the time it was more of a ‘big deal’.
The First Photo: Seated in the foreground is The Doctor with nothing but nearly barren red dirt behind him shading into a rutted red dirt hillside as the backdrop. Perhaps 10 hectares (25 acres) of area? A few tufts of scrub, maybe the size of a gallon of milk, with yards ( meters ) between them. LOTS of bare red dirt. Dry. Uninviting. Somewhere in the back / side IIRC was a small child herding one scrawny goat.
The problem starkly visible. Nothing much for the goat to eat, so little for the child to get from the goat.
The Second Photo: Taken about 15 years later. The Doctor seated in what looks like a rain forest. Trees making a canopy overhead. Can’t hardly see the hill in the background, but bits of distant green are there, too. Lush, green, edible foliage.
It is the same spot, and the same camera perspective.
What changed? Simple, really.
Before, the goats ran free and ate and and all things that tried to grow. Nothing got very far. Women would spend hours / day walking the hills looking for wood to use in cooking. Children were poorly fed, and both women and children had a variety of eye and lung ailments from being inside poor huts while cooking over dung (there being not much wood…).
Several negative feedback loops were at work here. The System reversed them into positive feedback loops.
Burning dung means it is not available to fertilize the ground. Nitrogen compounds burned up, instead of turned to fertilizers. Smoky fires causing blindness and pneumonia (among other things). Goats mowing down any ambitious plant before it could grow to size, leaving the ground bare to overheat and dry out. No water from the ground to transpire into the air, so even less rain. All leading to less food, worse health, more intensive grazing of goats, and ever more desperation trying to find fuel wood.
The Doctor started with the goats. Pen the goats.
Now plants could grow without destruction. This can then shade the dirt so rains soak in rather than evaporate. The wet cycle starts toward the positive.
Goat Poo is collected and, instead of burning it, fermented in an anaerobic digester (made of local materials – bricks in a hole in the ground, IIRC) and the resultant methane gas piped to the huts to a “stove”. The stove was made of dried mud. Little more than shaped mud where the methane from fermentation, “Gobar Gas”, was mixed with air in a very low pressure ‘jet’ and burned under a pot, that sat in a hole in the dried mud. There was a “clay” (dried mud) chimney that took the exhaust gasses out of the hut. The stove was maybe the size of a can of stew and the chimney about the diameter of your wrist.
Now the “sludge” from the fermenter is GREAT fertilizer. It gets spread on a garden area. Any excess gets spread on the “field” (still a bit like a desert). From the garden, the family gets consistent food that can be dried and used in off seasons, or eaten fresh. Everyone is having much better health.
Now, in that open desert area, a special tree was planted. Leucaena leucocephala. A “bean tree” from Mexico. It is a Mimosoideae:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MimosoideaeThe same sub-family or tribe (depending on which classification system you use) has many similar members. Acacia, for one. Since “back then” several other members of this tribe have also been drafted for this duty…
This plant, Leucaena, is rather “special” in several ways. First off, it grows incredibly fast. Second, is a nitrogen fixer. Third, it’s from a warm place where it can grow in areas with a lot of water, or not all that much. Finally, the pods and leaves are (marginally) edible. There is a toxic amino acid in the seeds that can cause “issues” for some animals. In Mexico, very young pods and shoots are cooked (which breaks down some of the toxins) and eaten. More importantly, as long as you give them time to have their gut flora adapt (i.e. don’t just swap feed suddenly. That’s a “no-no” for many ruminants as their gut flora need time to adapt to changes of feed. This occasionally causes problems in rabbits, for example, which is why folks are advised not to rapidly change what they feed their bunny.) goats can eat the leaves.
Oh, and they “coppice” well. That means if you chop of the main trunk, it resprouts many more trunks from that stump. Nice “poles”.
Now we just “tie it together”. The children, instead of chasing goats, collect small twigs and leaves and take them to the goats in the pens. (Dad can cut larger limbs). The larger limbs provide fuel wood. Except… we are using Gobar gas, remember? Initially there may not be enough, so some wood may be used as the goat herd builds up; but eventually that wood becomes a salable product. It can also be used in ‘light manufactures’, so folks can start businesses making things of it.
As the tree fixes nitrogen, soil improves. More grasses can grow under the trees. As the “fermented poo” makes for a great garden, and the goats are getting ever more ‘bean tree leaves’ and grasses, the village develops a surplus of vegetables, meat, and milk. As the women are no longer hunting for fuel, they turn these materials into more salable products. Cheeses, soaps, and fresh produce. Even jerky and fresh meat. A cycle of prosperity where before had been only desperation.
But it’s not done yet…
The canopy of the ‘been tree’ shades the ground. Rains that fall do not evaporate. They act as a wind break. The soils do not blow away. The roots hold hillsides in place. Erosion is halted. Now the rains don’t run off, they soak in. Evapotranspiration from the trees leads to even more rains (water cycling). The “desert” turns first to “savanna” and eventually to “tropical forest” or “agroforest”.
At that point, the cycle is complete. A desert eroding to barren rocky dry wasteland reverts to lush forest and grasslands. Poverty becomes prosperity. It really can be that simple.
The Downsides
Everything has downsides. The “trick” is to choose the solutions where the downsides are not much bother. For Leucaena the major downside is just that it grows too well. It can become something of an ‘invasive weed’. (Hawaii has many such foreign invaders, but this is one of them…)
Frankly, when dealing with a choice of “invasive forest that builds the land” vs “eroding desert”, I’ll take “invasive plant” and work to stay ahead of it.
The plant IS marginally toxic to some kinds of animals. You can’t just feed this stuff to cows, sheep, and pigs.
It is a tropical plant, so fine even into ‘sub-tropical’ places like California (where it does grow at present), but not for places that are very cold.
Yet the same “system” can work with other plants.
That is why, in the years since the ’70s, many folks have worked out other Agronomy Systems with other “bean trees” and other ruminants. (And even some non-legume trees).
Now, some 40 years later, some folks “talk dirt” about Leucaena due to the ‘invasive weed’ aspect. Forgetting that it was and is a miracle tree given where we were 40 years ago. So in some parts of India, it is the cause for complaints as the skinny volunteers growing under larger established trees in parks ‘blow over’ in major storms. But think just a minute. They HAVE parks that HAVE large trees now…
Yet, too, “times change”. We now have a much larger catalog of trees and agronomy systems to choose from. In many places, some other combination will be much better and “miracle tree” isn’t an accurate description there, now, for this tree. In my opinion, that is a statement of success, not “problem”.
So, with all that in mind, I’m going to accumulate some “links” here to various Leucaena pages that I’ve run into.
Perhaps some day I’ll even find a copy of those two photos and find the name of Dr. Who-Ha to give proper homage.
But, for now, the links. In no particular order and no particular structure.......
Read on here
chiefio.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/leucaena-leucocephala-collection-of-links/ for more fascinating insights, comments and links.
