Perhaps there are a lot of people out there with useless, empty swimming pools? If so, here’s even more encouragement to get busy and do something with it! This family has, apparently, become self-sufficient in food production in record time – just by making clever use of their disused swimming pool.

A taste (excuse the pun) of some of the info available at their site:

The GP combines:

• solar power – harnessing and storing the sun’s energy
• water conservation – using less water and recycling waste water
• poultry farming – raising chickens
• aquaculture – raising tilapia fish
• hydroponic gardening – growing fruits, veggies, & herbs without soil
• organic horticulture – using natural methods to control garden pests
• aquaponics – the symbiotic cultivation of produce and fish in a recirculating hydroponic environment.
• biofiltration – natural water filtration method using biochemistry and duckweed

I totally love the idea of a closed loop food production system. Who wouldn’t? My only concern is over the hydroponic aspect – where plants are taking up nutrients too readily, as they’re in water soluble form. You could describe plants as being something of a ‘high tech’ pump. When given the opportunity, they’ll take and take until they can take no more. In the soil, this ‘taking’ is regulated by soil micro-organisms which effectively feed plant roots balanced quantities of the nutrients they require, in slow release, measured quantities. But in water, with no soil or microorganisms present, nutrient intake is not moderated. As I wrote in Soil – Our Financial Institution, excessive soluble nitrogen intake, in particular, can be hazardous to our health – even carcinogenic:

This natural process of micro-organisms feeding plants is significant, and highly complex. Through the work of these creatures a plant receives what we might call a ‘balanced diet’. To illustrate: What do you think a small boy would do if you gave him an enormous bar of chocolate to eat? Chances are good he’d keep eating it until it made him sick (even if half of it is still left on his face!). Children are unable to gauge an appropriate quantity, and will quickly scoff all they can fit in. The result? Even if he doesn’t make himself ill, your child goes on a physical and emotional roller-coaster ride until the refined sugar-induced energy dissipates. A wise parent might instead supply an appropriately sized portion of ’sugar’ in its natural state – bound up with fibrous dry matter in the form of whole fruit.

Modern agri-businesses do similar with their water-soluble fertilisers – they set a ‘meal’ before the plant that can be immediately absorbed by plant roots, essentially by-passing the balanced slow-release feeding by micro-organisms. Just like a child, this affects a plant’s health.

For example:

Pesticide residues are not the only problem arising from modern agricultural techniques. Increasingly, nitrate levels in vegetables are causing concern, although most attention so far has been focused on nitrates in water supplies…. About 70% of average daily nitrate intake comes from vegetables, compared with only 20% from drinking water. Nitrates are taken up very readily by crops, and if they are not utilised immediately in the formation of protein, they are stored in the cells in their original form. There is then the risk that when nitrates are ingested or cooked, they convert to nitrites which can potentially combine with amines to form carcinogenic nitrosamines. – Organic Farming, Nicholas Lampkin p.565.

Perhaps an even better way to describe hydroponics than the chocolate bar analogy would be to say that it’s like taking food directly into your veins, in liquefied form via hypodermic needle – bypassing the digestive processes of the stomach. The soil could be likened to the stomach in this sense – it digests and distributes food to plants.

There’s a knock-on impact, or consequence, of this form of feeding. As my Soil article continues to share, plants fed highly soluble nutrients grow fast and look great, but can be chemically imbalanced, and thus unhealthy – and unhealthy plants attract ‘pests’ and disease. Insects and fungal disease are attracted to such plants, particularly since, in addition, the environment they’re grown in tends to be excessively moist and anaerobic. Hydroponic systems often collapse because of this. Cleanliness/sanitation and isolation have been very important in keeping hydroponic systems functional, and newer hydroponic systems have begun to incorporate root sanitising systems utilising ultraviolet light or other.

Early hydroponic operations were devastated by pest problems. White flies, leaf miners, pin worms, nematodes, Cladosporium leaf mold and viruses, as well as root diseases such as Pythium root rot and bacterial wilt, were common. Today, unlike 20 years ago, the drain solution is often sterilized (Runia, 1995). The options are heat treatment, ozone and ultraviolet radiation. – University of Arizona

I’d love to hear thoughts from you guys – particularly aquaponic savvy people who understand the thoughts I’m expressing here. Ideally we’d design such a system as above, but somehow design it so soil and microrganisms can still play their role, and ensure the plants we’re getting from the system are not only inexpensive, plentiful and low-to-no input, but healthy too!

Resources:

• Aquaponics Made Easy DVD

Conventional greenhouse growers spend immense amounts of money and oil or natural gas to heat the greenhouses during winter whereas in Jerome’s greenhouses the heating is powered with a couple of 90 Watt fans – equivalent to the old light bulbs. They run his Subterranean Heating and Cooling System, SHCS, aka "climate battery" which utilises the excess heat produced in the greenhouse in the middle of the day and during summertime when air temperature exceeds ground temperature and stores it underground by a ventilation system. Conventional systems vent the air outside losing it as a potential heating resource. This way he is able to grow everything from winter greens to bananas and papayas and figs with minimal energy inputs at his site. "This fig is twenty years old now. We’re eating fresh fruit from it four months a year" he explains in the mediterranean greenhouse which is attached to the main house (picture inset).

There are four greenhouses at the site, which demonstrate three different climatic zones – warm temperate, mediterranean and subtropical. Two of them are integrated directly into the living spaces which adds another beneficial quality to them – the heating season of the houses is reduced by several months every year. The biggest one, named Phoenix, is a 26×72 foot (8 x 22m) free standing unit and a subtropical food forest demonstration site.

The greenhouses are planned using integrated permaculture design, taking into account location and aspect, making the best use of the site’s sloping terrain, and including plenty of thermal mass and rainwater harvesting features. Phoenix is also building its own soil since the raised beds are simultaneously vermicomposting factories, where autumn leaves, coffee grounds from the local café and rabbit beddings from the yard turn into a fertile growing medium for the plants with very little human labor required.

The Subterranean Heating and Cooling System is a result of research and development done at CRMPI based on Jerome’s greenhouse work and John Cruickshank’s additional technology. Some of John’s work can be seen on SunnyJohn.com, where the SHCS is explained. John has also worked with Michael Thompson and Jerome from EcoSystems Design to refine this technology.

So how does it all work? Under the soil layer there are several layers of plastic pipes buried into the ground, where air circulates from the greenhouse, controlled by a thermostat. In the hot season the fans draw warm air into the ground where the heat (and extra moisture, which helps control the negatives of an overly humid environment) is collected into the soil, and the cooled air is returned into the greenhouse. In the winter, when needed at nighttime, a different thermostat turns on the same fans, pulling the cooler air down into the warmer soil, warming the air and thus warming the greenhouse. The soil temperature stays constantly at +20°C which helps the plants tolerate potential frosts in the coldest winter nights when the temperature outside can drop all the way to -32°C. When there isn’t enough heat stored in the climate battery, Jerome and the interns heat up the sauna attached onto the north wall of Phoenix, and while maintaining their own health this way, the greenhouse plants are nurtured with warmth as well.

We visited CRMPI in May for a solar greenhouse design workshop and did some volunteer work for Jerome. It was indeed a unique feeling to curl up in a hammock after a lunch that we had harvested just earlier, and have a little nap on a chilly and rainy May afternoon listening to the drops hit the roof and watch the tomatoes ripen.

The consultation on its own, however, is deserving of a post. It was highly interesting for many reasons that I shall outline here.

Permaculture designer/teacher, Geoff Lawton, looks at water pumped from
an aquifer under Jordan’s famous Wadi Rum desert region.
All photographs © copyright Craig Mackintosh

Background

The Wadi Rum desert in the south of Jordan happens to be the site of Jordan’s largest mixed farm – Rum Farm. It might, for good reason, seem odd that this beautiful but largely abiotic location would host a large scale farm, let alone Jordan’s largest, but it begins to make sense when you learn that under the Wadi Rum desert (and stretching under the border mountains and well into Saudi Arabia) is a large aquifer. In fact, much of this desert nation’s water supply is dependent on this single water source.

Captured from a bus window, while crossing the no-man’s land between
Jordan and Israel/Palestine, the once-mighty Jordan river is today just
a murky trickle (see bottom centre of image) that wouldn’t
flow at all today if it wasn’t for the pollution poured into it….
It is estimated that the Jordan River will dry up completely
by the end of 2011.

In what is now potentially the most water starved nation on the planet, to say this aquifer is a precious resource is like saying an atomic bomb is a ‘little noisy’. It’s a major understatement. This water is blue gold, and it’s being pumped at a furious pace.

As most of our readers will know, using reductionist, industrial agricultural ’systems’, as opposed to intelligent, bio-diverse permaculture design symbioses, means huge amounts of water gets polluted and wasted. Soils with poor soil structure lack the spongy characteristic that holds and filters the water they receive. Here in the desert, where evaporation is many times greater than precipitation, the wastage is multiplied manifold. Turned and churned soils hasten that evaporation process, and plantings of monocrop species without taller support species to provide shade from sun and shelter from drying winds do likewise. Salinity increases, and food production becomes a finite endeavour based on costly and finite artificial inputs.

The Wadi Rum desert

Running large scale monocrop farming anywhere should be seen as madness. Here it’s insane. Yet, a large part of Jordan’s food supply is produced at this farm – before being trucked north hundreds of kilometres through the desert to the capital of Amman and other centres in refrigerated trucks.

Head south across the border, into Saudi Arabia, and the situation is the same.

Centre pivot farming in Saudi Arabia

The precariousness of this situation is not completely lost on Jordanians, however, and thus Geoff finds himself being invited to consult on transition possibilities.

We meet in Amman to talk with Rum Farm and Astra Farm managers.
From left: Sijal Majali (Rum Farm Managing Director), Sirin Al Masri
(daughter of Mr. Sabih Taher Darwish Al-Masri) and Kamil Sadeddin
(Astra Farm Managing Director, Saudi Arabia).

Transitioning one of the world’s largest mix farms – Astra Farm, Saudi Arabia

Rum Farm is owned by Astra Farms, who have what is possibly one of the largest mixed farms in the world, in the Tabuk region in the north of Saudi Arabia. To give you an idea of scale, they have 3,000 workers, producing 10,000 tons of grapes per year, 22 million quail per year, and the list goes on with dozens of other crops.

Saudi Arabia is under intense agricultural pressure. Although similar can be said about many regions in the world, I would describe the Middle East, in particular, as being a powder keg of unrest, just waiting to blow. As we head deeper into a perpetual recession, where oil revenues will become volatile and ultimately dry up along with Saudi’s remaining reserves, it will become increasingly expensive to import food. Yet Saudi Arabia recently announced that it would phase out all domestic wheat production in favour of importing, and has been buying up land in other countries in an attempt to ease a growing water crisis. Reducing water and energy consumption while maintaining, no, increasing, food production is of paramount concern and will be the nation’s ultimate challenge.

The good news is that Kamil Sadeddin, Managing Director of Astra Farms, told us that since a 2004 consultation with Geoff they have been progressively transitioning their 3,200 hectare farm to organic production. Today, Kamil says, a full 25% of Astra Farms is chemical free – and they’re producing over 700 tons of compost per month!

Now eyes are on Jordan to begin a similar transition.

Making a start – Rum Farm, Jordan

An almost 180 degree view of just a portion of Rum Farm’s 2000 hectares of
mixed crops. Click picture for larger view.

Astra Farm’s little brother is mere kilometres from the Wadi Rum tourist township – where thousands flock for tours of some of the most beautiful desert landscapes in the world.

Rum’s Managing Director, Sijal Majali, took Geoff and I on a tour of the property. After climbing into his air-conditioned Toyota Landcruiser, and transfering his Glock from his shoulder harness to the glove box for even greater comfort, he settled down to tell us more about the farm as we drove across some of its 2,000 hectare expanse.

Most of the workers are Egyptian, some Syrian, he said, as we passed dozens of labourers working in dusty, shadeless conditions. He went on to explain that the farm employs between 300-600 workers seasonally – who produce 1,800 tons of grapes, 20,000 tons of potatoes, 10,000 tons of onions, and thousands more tons of apricots, nectarines, peaches, pears, tomatoes, figs, olives, corn, lettuce, oranges, mandarin, grapefruit, cabbage, broccoli, squash, loquat, dates and more…. Some of these crops are entirely for export (like grapes), and some almost entirely for domestic consumption (like potatoes).

The farm even has its own internal, armed police station – to maintain order amongst the migrant worker community.

Tomatoes

Cool storage and packing facilities

As we drove my thoughts wandered to the future – projecting how Jordan would fare if this aquifer were to dry up, or if the economy collapsed over massive fuel price hikes. (Jordan doesn’t have its own oil reserves.) These large scale, centralised farms – based on massive inputs and mass-transit – would falter, with ominous consequences for the nation’s burgeoning population.

I considered how the Permaculture ideal is small scale, family managed, biodiverse land holdings – not big farms like this. And I thought about, as I often do, the need to move society towards such an ideal, to get more people onto the land. I thought about land redistribution and the corresponding need to educate those people in sustainable, permaculture systems.

Grapes

Sitting in this big, flashy Landcruiser – complete with water bottles chilling in the built-in refrigerator between the seats – I had to ask myself "where does consulting for such a behemoth farm fit into this picture?"

But, I already knew the answer.

After watching contemporary business-as-usual attitudes to critical, converging problems – seeing the complacent, ponderous and reactive nature of governments and the aggressive, resource-consuming, true-cost-externalising, extractive behaviour of industry – I knew that the work that needs to be done will never happen in time. Thus finding methods to transition large systems like this is not only essential to maintaining some order, and, ultimately, peace, but it can also serve as an excellent opportunity to get permaculture concepts onto board room tables, onto fields, and into the minds of farm managers and labourers. As resources diminish and climate change exacerbates stress on our arable land base, regardless of what industrial or political shifts occur it is essential we get more agricultural workers familiarised with permaculture systems, and how to replicate them.

Showcasing these systems at some of the world’s largest agricultural sites has to be a good thing.

The consultation

Geoff talks to Sijal Majali (Rum Farm Managing Director), standing on
the five hectare section that permaculture will transform.

Geoff was given five initial hectares to design. It will be a pioneer section prior to subsequent, larger transitions on the farm. During the consultation process, I have to say I was impressed with Geoff’s boldness. Rather than compromise and water down permaculture principles through an assumption these agribusinessmen would go at it only half-heartedly, Geoff expected much, and got it.

As Geoff explained his plans, Sijal began to emanate palpable excitement.

Geoff described a biodiverse plant procession starting with leguminous and other support species, interspersed with crop sections, to create a biodiverse system of alternating crop/tree corridors – with a trellised swale running through each food forest section. He spoke of the necessary orientation of the system so the trees and bushes will protect crops from the harsh prevailing winds and afternoon sun. He described how the support species will ultimately give way to a succession of protective and productive food forest bushes and trees, which will themselves be crowned with a date palm overstory.

Alternating food forest/crop corridor profile
The crop is sheltered from sun and prevailing wind

Such a design as this allows natural soil creation processes to blossom. Leaf litter from the food forest and crop residues can combine to create humus rich soils – which in turn gives health and vitality to plants, making them less attractive to ‘pests’, and enabling the soil to hold much higher moisture levels. The plant biodiversity allows beneficial workers (insects) to take up residence and keep any of their kind from becoming ‘pests‘. Their human counterpart, the farm labourers, will also benefit from a much improved and shaded environment.

A grid of swales will be fed from a tree-shaded pond (deep and narrow to reduce evaporation) that is fed from the aquifer. This pond will overflow into the swales and can be diverted through simple gates. The swale ends will have a swivel flush pipe so swales can be drained during flood events, or to pass water on to the next section.

Drip lines for initial food forest establishment and for ongoing maintenance of the crop rows will be supplied from computer controlled solar-powered, batteryless pumps.

Aerial view of food forest section
A river trellised swale runs through it…

Salad and other annuals and perennials can be positioned in the crop sections according to their respective shade needs and sun tolerance – with respect to the sun’s aspect over the fields.

Detail of the three lines of food forest trees on each side of swales

Beginning with a high proportion of ‘non productive’ support species, soil, water and humidity conditions will arise to nurse food crops into vitality – allowing these to establish and grow until the proportion of non-food plants can shrink to virtually nil.

Rum Farm is now beginning initial stages of implementation – planning earthworks according to Geoff’s procedure manual. In the meantime, crop residues will no longer get burned. All green matter and shreddable carbonaceous material will be composted.

My primary purpose for writing this post is to encourage permaculturists everywhere to be bold and achieve much. The world needs you like never before. Fill farmers with an holistic vision and they’ll be unstoppable. With enough permaculturists out there consulting like this, we could see the kind of ecological magic that can turn sand into food transition us into a healthier, more stable future.

A different future awaits?

Further Reading:

• Report on our Iranian Consultancy Trip of December 2008
• Greening the Desert

Sometimes you end up wishing you had a resource at hand to make it easier to apply Permaculture principles. This was the case for myself when it came time to start thinking about beneficial groupings of plants and those groupings that do not go well together.

This is what I often find lacking with the current publications on offer from PRI and from those in the community. There is a lot of good knowledge locked up that could benefit so many of us in applying permaculture principles.

A simple A3 or A4 information sheet or booklet of a small number of pages is easy to mentally digest and take in and very handy to have as a reference, either printed out and hung up on the wall or on the computer when we sit down and start thinking about designing our gardens or food systems.

That is why I was so happy to learn about the IDEP Foundation, a non-profit non-government organisation in Indonesia. IDEP maintains a host of produced small documents on permaculture from free training guides and tools to teach the very basic of permaculture principles to students to information on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), gardening, composting, waste management, health and nutrition, seed saving, seed propagating, and community based disaster management. Best of all, they offer their materials free of charge to the wider community in English and Indonesian languages.

I would like to call out special attention to the A3 poster on companion planting. This chart is just fantastic. It communicates so much, so easily and is a tool of great benefit to many.

More important we should make more of these brochures even more expanded in coverage by adding listing items for E (edible) N (nitrogen fixing) and G (green manure). We can break these down by climate zones so that anyone who needs help getting started can find the lists of plant resources to get them started on the right footing in their move to a more sustainable and permanent way of living.

In September 2007 I met a group of motivated, hardcore volunteer gardeners. When I say hardcore, some of these guys where involved with the guerrilla gardeners. They turn unused trashy areas and transform them into edible, self-sustaining gardens.

It started like this….

Some groups even go to extremes like dressing up in council uniforms or go out in the middle of the night and load their vans armed with fruit tree seedlings, compost and shovels.

Why are they doing this you might be questioning? Let’s go on a journey back to your childhood…. Do you remember the days of discovering and climbing a mulberry tree and climbing up to pick the abundance of fresh fruit and eating them with your friends – coming home covered head to toe in purple stains? These are the kind of memories that bring me the most joy from my childhood.

Now I see why these guerrilla gardeners volunteer their time for future generations. Imagine a future with fruit trees lining the streets! These people inspired me so I enquired to our landlord about the old unused car park down the back of our shop, Threeworlds, and proposed a community garden. They said YES! So there was born Urban Eden, right here in Mermaid Beach, Gold Coast, Queensland.

It’s been three years in the making….

This old trashy car park was covered in graffiti, piles of smashed beer bottles and weeds. There was even a guy living in a van out there! So we called local businesses who then donated materials such as soil, seedlings and a shade cloth. We even got a water tank donated and installed!

Together with local artists and donated paint we transformed the graffiti covered wall into an eye pleasing delight!

The word spread like wildfire, so we organised a working bee day to create garden beds, an area for workshops, music, fire twirling and other fun life-inspiring activities.

Not long after the Gold Coast Bulletin, Channel 9 and the ABC Radio somehow found out about the project. They were amazed to hear that the garden was made from recycled and donated materials.

In a year and a half the papaya trees had at least 30 fruits on them and we had basil, passionfruit and chillies coming out of our ears!

In June 2008 we held Eco Inspiration Week in the garden, organised by local wonder woman Kandy McCouat. It was a week full of activities, workshops, art and music. It was a huge success with over 100 people attending on the garden open day. Even the Burleigh Heads counsellor, Greg Betts showed up and donated local bush tucker plants.

Late February 2009 saw the introduction of the beautiful worm farm that was proudly donated by a demolished hotel down the road in Burleigh Heads. The worm farm is a productive way to transform veggie scraps from the kitchen into healthy, nutrient rich soil that looks like chocolate mud cake – the plants love it!

Today, Urban Eden is flourishing with people and plants and hosts the Threeworlds Organic Café – adjacent to the garden. The café started on a ‘pay as you feel’ basis in 2008. Yes, that means you could pay what you thought the meal was worth… just put the money in a box. I bet you’re thinking, that’s the craziest idea ever! Did it work? In all honesty it did work, but left people a little confused and baffled. Most people felt guilty so they put extra money in the box. From a business perspective it served as a great way to get the word out there – people where talking everywhere about the restaurant and how it works on a pay as you feel basis.

In September 2009 we came up with a ‘brainwave’. We put prices on the food!

Today Threeworlds is flourishing with heaps of workshops like laughter yoga, full moon bonfires and storytelling, organic gardening and Permaculture workshops, cooking classes, worm farming – not to mention the African drumming, fire twirling, didgeridoo, juggling and meditation classes that we hold every week. We also have concerts and live music in the garden. Next month we host open week – it’s jam packed full of these activities, free of charge, or if anyone is interested in coming on a tour on the Bongo Bus through the streets of Surfers Paradise… here we come playing our drums just for fun!

The spirit of Threeworlds is about community, bringing people together through teaching awareness and having fun. I look forward to seeing you all here!

It’s been about a year now since I had the pleasure of Craig at my house to do the story on the Natural Swimming Pool conversion I am attempting. It was an interesting year for me on the home garden front and the personal front with lots of new surprises and projects. I thought I would do a follow up because we had a lot of enquiries about the pool after the story.

I am lucky to have a wonderful partner Vanessa who, because of her Permaculture training with Bill (PDC) and Geoff (PDC & Internship) and also at Northey Street Farm, is able to accept why I would want to have a go at producing food in our own home and also why I was getting rid of a swimming pool in favour of a pond and some fish.

Project one was establishing the front yard. We had some large fig trees which decided they would burst through our mains water line and storm water pipes. Not only is water a precious resource on the Gold Coast, it’s an expensive one as well.

I am a pretty cheap and lazy bastard, so the thought of an excess water bill and wasted resources spurred me into some considerable action. Not wanting to repeat the exercise again I have now placed all the water lines above ground giving the new generation of trees, free and unlimited access to the ground they live in. Rather than let the storm water run off the property, I divert it into my pool and various tanks around the house and also into swales. You will notice in the photo that I do have a storm water pipe leading to the front – this is law on the Gold Coast – however I never glued the top part which rests in a swale, so the water fills up the swale instead which overflows into the next swale.

A special thanks to Brendon of Dempsey Bobcats on the Gold Coast who kindly helped with the fig stumps I had been removing manually. Brendon was a skilful operator who took a keen interest in what we were doing. Best of all however he did it for an extremely reasonable price. In a stroke of pure fortune, he was working next door pulling up a driveway, so I sent the wife over to do the negotiation. It is a little known economic fact that Brazilian women are able to cut the price of goods and services drastically just by smiling.

The front yard slopes down quite a bit as you can see, and so this was a bit of a challenge. I had just finished reading a little booklet produced by an NGO in Thailand. The booklets basic premise was about upland agriculture using Cajanus cajan and other assorted NFL trees. The booklet was aimed at swidden farmers, who often get a bad rap, without good reason.

The information appealed to me because I often entertain day dreams of being a subsistence farmer whilst driving to work. I thought I would give the system they were describing a shot. The system involves placing NFT trees at intervals of about 3-5 meters down the slope on contour as terracing and then planting a staple crop between the terraces.

The aim of this was to provide these usually poor farmers with a mulch system that would be ‘in situ’ through chop and drop, and of course add stability to the slope and the soil as well as nitrogen fixation, which would bring extra productivity to the life of the farmers, giving them better yields and saving them a few bucks on synthetic fertilizers that just end up polluting river systems.

I took it a step further and chucked in a couple of swales and a bit of diversity, and then we soaked the whole lot in some compost tea made from worm castings. I paper mulched the most recalcitrant sections, because I don’t like to bend over unless I am picking up money.

I used a mixture of pigeon pea and crotalaria (mulch) for the terraces, some sunflowers for bee fodder (and colour, soil stabilization, presents for my wife), comfrey (chicken food, compost activator, liquid fertilizer), Canna edulis (chicken/human food, mulch), Mexican Salvia (colour, food), wing beans (food), vetiver grass (mulch, erosion control), lemon grass (mulch, food), yams, taro, yakon, assorted green manures for the swales, cosmos (colour, nematode control), mandarin, dragon fruit, black sugar cane and sweet potato with some melons for a ground cover. There are also some ceylon and brazilian spinach. The staple was cassava – a personal favourite of mine and a winner with my wife. "Happy wife, happy life", some wise man once said.

The flowers had another purpose too – if you are going to embark on this type of process you can draw a lot of attention from neighbours. It’s best if you want to win the hearts and minds of the general public to make your garden as pretty as possible in the beginning. It gets them softened up for when the thing goes rampant and you start to reclaim the foot path.

We planted out the front yard in September 2009. So far we have had good success. My melons, however, never really developed into anything worth while and the comfrey that I placed too close to the hot footpath suffered a good deal in the heat of the Queensland summer.

We had a Permablitz, organized by the wonderful Leah Galvin who is an ex intern of Geoff’s and the Panya project in Thailand. Leah is a dynamic force on the Gold Coast Permaculture scene and within its community gardens. That was in March, with lots of chop and drop, and some revamping of the back yard as well. It was a good deal. I made some food and supplied beer and some clever mates of mine did the talking (thanks Dave Spicer, Nick Huggins and Geoff from Belgium). We had a good crowd so it meant that I could concentrate on drinking and avoiding the hard work. A Galah turned up for afternoon tea and the other volunteers brought extra snacks and supplies. We had a good lot of new people and a good lot of conversation. Permablitz is a powerful way to interact with the general public in a fun and collective way. It provides educational and networking opportunities and also a great social time.

Last week I harvested the first of my cassava (July 2010). The plant harvested was a smaller variety and had about 5 kilos of roots. Cassava is without a doubt one of the most useful and resilient plants in the world. I have some other varieties that I have been developing over the last couple of seasons and when they have finished setting their seed, I will harvest and weigh them. I believe that I will have well over 80 kilos of roots – more than enough. They make all manner of derivative flours, tapioca and substitute for a potato very easily. As a source of low GI carbohydrates they are unmatched. I tried a new guild of wing bean, cassava and brazilian spinach and it has performed very favourably.

The smaller variety of Cassava was provided to me by Gardeners who have a large community garden at the Griffith University Logan campus and were recently featured on Costa’s Garden Odyssey. I was invited there a while back to give some workshops and take part in the steering committee and was privileged to see one of the most productive community gardens in Australia. It’s well worth looking at. You might be able, if you are in the area, to procure some interesting exotic vegetables at a very reasonable price, and also pick up some great African recipes.

January 2010

What about the pool you say? It’s coming along nicely and I will finish the rest of this story in a few days with some new pictures and the other things that it has taught me.

Some of the key successes from this project have not been related to yield or earth repair or water saving. The real gains have been a greater contact with my friends and neighbours through footpath discussion and sharing of plants and produce. We’ve gained an increased sense of community in tandem with a massive increase in biodiversity on what was once a sterile landscape. It also created a place for me just to get lost in general day dreams. To me, a half hour day dream in the garden is the equivalent to a good dose of Valium.

I also learned how lucky I am to live in a place with relative food security, that I don’t live on the edge of a food precipice, that I don’t rely on my land and nature’s whims to support my family, that I have the pleasure, as an affluent westerner, to choose what I will and won’t eat, that subsistence farmers all over the world are the ones who will bear the brunt of climate change. Small holders and subsistence farmers need our support, by consuming less and doing more in support of their struggles.

Bill Mollison said at the end of the first International Permaculture Consultant’s conference in 1984:

… what we are doing on the ground is increasing fantastically, and it’s because most people involved in permaculture are doing something on the ground,… that’s what is doing it…. Keep it on the ground. – International Permaculture Journal issue 17, 1984 page 2.

First Week

I’ve just finished my first week working as the farm cook for the Permaculture Research Institute at Zaytuna Farm and already it’s been an amazing experience. To be able to cook at this wonderful and dynamic farm is a delight for all the gastronomical senses. If fresh, seasonal, local, delicious and nutritious ingredients are what good food is all about then consider this….

Breakfast

We eat a humble porridge with fresh milk straight from the farm dairy, in beautiful surroundings to the sound of clucking chickens and honking geese. The sunrise is simply awesome. And if that’s not a good enough way to start your day, we throw in a fruit salad made up of passion fruit, yakon – a tuber that tastes like nashi pear – and the loveliest, juiciest lemons you’ve ever seen, all of them growing in abundance right now and all within a pretty little stroll out into the garden. If that’s still not good enough for you, how about some just-picked-out-of-the-garden lemongrass & mint tea made with clean refreshing harvested rain water? Pretty good place to start your day I reckon.

Lemon tree

Unless perhaps you happen to be three certain chickens condemned to the pot when it was suggested that we have chicken soup for dinner. Then it’s a neck slicing for you and away with your blood. This is knowing where your meat comes from. This is plunging the animal into a bucket of boiling water and pluck, pluck, pluck. It takes time…. It takes work.… It requires some understanding.…

Perma-chooks

And nothing is to be wasted. The guts will go to the compost. The heads go to the dog. I make sure to leave the feet on for a certain Mexican student (who licks his lips in anticipation of being able to suck the cartilage off those clawy things).

The Mexican can keep the feet. I open the birds from the rear and pull out their guts, picking out the liver, kidneys, heart and gizzard. I contemplate making a pate with these fleshy rubies of delight, so that everyone can have a taste, but then I go into cahoots with a certain Brazilian student and we horde the lot in one quick and ridiculously tasty fry up with splashes of olive oil, garlic, parsley, lemon juice. Simple. Delicious. I could eat this every morning.

Lunch

With a happy belly I throw the chickens into a pot and start on lunch. What do you get for lunch at Zaytuna farm in the middle of July? You get sweet potatoes that is what, and potatoes too. Big ones, little ones, funny ones.… There’s an endless bounty of them down in the crop garden just waiting to be dug out. I walk there thinking about gnocchi but doubt I’ll get them done in time. I look around for inspiration for another dish and it comes in the form of a monster crop of Ethiopian cabbage. Something I’d never heard of before I came here, let alone cooked. I get excited about trying out a new ingredient and forget all about the gnocchi. I still dig out a basketful of potatoes though. Potatoes and cabbage go well together and who am I to argue.

The Farmer and the Cook harvest potatoes

Ethiopian cabbage Brassia R. Br. Orchidaceae

Now Ethiopian cabbage isn’t like any cabbage I’ve ever tasted. And after cooking and eating it, I don’t think of it as cabbage at all. It tastes more like an Asian green. Think bok choy or choy sum. Green crunchy stalks and giant leaves that beg to be wok fried with garlic and chili. I do exactly that.

I treat the potatoes simply. Scrubbing them clean, then boiling them whole till they start to burst. Over-cooked you might say and you’d be right, but trust me – this works. Smash each one flat onto an oiled tray, drizzle more oil on top, salt, pepper, dot with butter, then bake in a hot oven till they go all crispy and golden on the outside and soft and creamy on the inside… like a lazy man’s hash brown.

Now putting it all together. All you need is a tangy dressing and some fresh garnish. Take one part lemon juice, one part oil. Salt. Sugar. Throw in some turmeric, fennel seed, cumin seed, mustard seed, a chunk of that fresh galangal you picked out of the food forest yesterday, maybe a stick of cinnamon and a few peppercorns. That’s your dressing – a rich yellow liquor that speaks of the East. You’ll just need to strain out all the bits after a gentle simmer on the stove to let the flavors mingle. Now go to the kitchen garden and pick some fresh coriander. (Stop to eat the flowers. I like the chive ones best.) Then it’s just a matter of bringing all your elements together into one big hot salad. Potatoes, Ethiopian cabbage, dressing, sprigs of coriander. The memory of chive flowers on your tongue. Yum.

Coriander

Dinner

Chicken soup with freshly baked bread. How can you go wrong with birds this healthy and fresh? I have two bowls and go to bed dreaming of the marmalade I want to make with all those kumquats in the corner of the kitchen garden. And then there’s the lemons in the goose run. So many of them! And every single one of them tastes exactly as a lemon should taste. I want to preserve them as the Moroccans do, with salt and some aromatics. There’s a big sack of salt in the dry store and a bay leaf tree growing right next to the lemons.

Life is good.

Life here is better.

The perma-meal: Crushed turmeric potato and Ethiopian cabbage hot salad

This video can be downloaded in high resolution from Vimeo (see ‘About this video’ section on lower right side’).

I hope you’ll enjoy this clip. More, I hope it encourages you to dare to be different, and dare to have your work noticed. The garden we profile in the video above, as you’ll discover after watching it, has just won a national competition held by the Jordanian Department of Education – for schools who incorporate environmental projects into their curriculum. This means that thousands of schools, in what is arguably the most water-stressed country on the planet, now have the possibility to learn from this humble example of permaculture in action – and get inspired to do similar.

Special thanks to Lesley Byrne for her enthusiastic support, and to Nadia Lawton for her vision and determination to help her own people – and in so doing setting such an excellent example for us all.

by Christine Jones, PhD

The number of farmers in Australia has fallen 30 per cent in the last 20 years, with more than 10,000 farming families leaving the agricultural sector in the last five years alone. This decline is ongoing. There is also a reluctance on the part of young people to return to the land, indicative of the poor image and low income-earning potential of current farming practices.

Agricultural debt in Australia has increased from just over $10 billion in 1994 to close to $60 billion in 2009 (Fig.1). The increased debt is not linked to interest rates, which have generally declined over the same period (Burgess 2010).

Fig. 1. Increase in agricultural debt (AUD millions)
1994-2009 vs interest rates (%pa)

The financial viability of the agricultural sector, as well as the health and social wellbeing of individuals, families and businesses in both rural and urban communities, is inexorably linked to the functioning of the land.

There is widespread agreement that the integrity and function of soils, vegetation and waterways in many parts of the Australian landscape have become seriously impaired, resulting in reduced resilience in the face of increasingly challenging climate variability.

Agriculture is the sector most strongly impacted by these changes. It is also the sector with the greatest potential for fundamental redesign.

The most meaningful indicator for the health of the land, and the long-term wealth of a nation, is whether soil is being formed or lost. If soil is being lost, so too is the economic and ecological foundation on which production and conservation are based.

The soil carbon sink

In July 2009, the Portuguese government introduced an AUD$13.8 million soil carbon offsets scheme based on dryland pasture improvement, compliant with Article 3.4 of the Kyoto Protocol.

The scheme will pay an estimated 400 participating farmers to establish biodiverse perennial mixed grass/legume pastures (upwards of 20 species) to improve soil carbon, soil water holding capacity and livestock productivity in an area of approximately 42,000 hectares (Watson, 2010).

The Portuguese scheme has been designed to comply with Kyoto’s strict criteria of additionality and permanence. Coordinator of Project Extensity and Terraprima project leader, Professor Tiago Domingos, has calculated that the area of agricultural land in Portugal amenable to soil carbon offsets could collectively sequester more than the current Portuguese national emissions deficit under existing Kyoto arrangements (Watson 2010).

The mediterranean-type climate of central and southern Portugal is very similar to that in many parts of south-eastern, southern and south-western Australia. The Portuguese Terraprima data illustrated in Fig.2 show that under sown perennial pasture, soil organic matter increased to a level of 3% over 10 years, from a starting point of 0.87%.

Fig. 2. Accumulation of soil organic matter (SOM), shown as percentage
by weight, in soils under three pasture types:
SG = sown perennial pasture;
FNG = fertilised annual pasture;
NG = unfertilised annual pasture
(from Watson 2010).

The Portuguese soil carbon offsets project aims to sequester 0.91 million tonnes of CO2 from 2010 to 2012 (Watson 2010). This equates to the sequestration of 10.85t CO2/ha/yr.

In addition to the carbon payments they receive, participating Portuguese farmers are reported as “enjoying the environmental spin-offs of greater biodiversity, higher soil fertility, higher water infiltration rates, less erosion, less desertification, fewer fires, less floods, improvement in water quality, less dependence on concentrated feed for their herds in protracted dry periods and better milk and meat quality” (Watson 2010).

US study on soil carbon sequestration rates under perennial grassland

Recent research by United States Department of Agriculture (Liebig et al. 2008) investigated soil carbon sequestration under a perennial native grass, switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) grown for the production of cellulosic ethanol.

Despite the annual removal of aboveground biomass, low to medium rainfall and a relatively short growing season, the USDA-ARS research, averaged across 10 sites, recorded average soil carbon sequestration rates of 4t CO2/ha/yr in the 0-30 cm soil profile and 10.6t CO2/ha/yr in the 0-120 cm profile (Liebig et al 2008).

The best performing site was at Bristol, where soil carbon levels increased by 21.67 tonnes in the 0-30 cm soil profile over a 5 year period. A soil carbon increase of 21.67t C/ha equates to the sequestration of 80t CO2/ha.

At the three sites where carbon was measured to 120 cm, the USDA research found relatively high sequestration rates below 30 cm. The sequestration rate was higher for the 30-60 cm increment than for the 0-30 cm increment (18.2t CO2/ha vs 16.5t CO2/ha, respectively). A possible interpretation is that the deeper the sequestration, the greater the likelihood that the carbon be protected from oxidative and/or microbial decomposition.

There were virtually no ‘biomass inputs’ to soil in these trials, as all aboveground material was removed for ethanol production. This suggests the liquid carbon pathway (Jones 2008) as the primary mechanism for soil building.

Carbon trading in the real world

The recent demise of the Federal Government’s proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme provides an opportunity to reflect on the true meaning of a carbon-based economy.

For some time, analysts have tipped carbon to become the world’s most traded commodity. The reality is that it has been the world’s most traded commodity for millennia.

A great variety of life forms require liquid carbon – referred to in the scientific literature as ‘dissolved organic carbon’ (DOC) – for their growth and reproduction. The growth of trees, crops and pastures, for example, requires the transport of dissolved carbon via sap within the plant; animal growth is dependant on the digestion of carbon containing foods and the transport of dissolved carbon to cells via the blood; the formation of topsoil is dependent on photosynthesis and the transport of dissolved carbon, via a microbial bridge, from plants to soil.

Carbon is the currency for most transactions within and between living things. Nowhere is this more evident than in the soil. Here, carbon is king. Mycorrhizal fungi, which are totally dependant on dissolved organic carbon from green plants, trade carbon with colonies of bacteria located at their hyphal tips in exchange for macro-nutrients such as phosphorus, organic nitrogen and calcium, trace elements such as zinc, boron and copper, and plant growth stimulating substances (Killham 1994, Leake et al. 2004).

By means of an extraordinary physiological process known as ‘bidirectional flow’ nutrients are transported to roots at the same time as dissolved organic carbon moves through fungal hyphae in the opposite direction (Killham 1994, Leake et al. 2004). Indeed, mycorrhizal roots are significant sinks for carbon, transferring as much as 15 times more carbon to soil as adjacent non-mycorrhizal roots (Killham 1994).

Impoverishment of agricultural soils

Mycorrhizal fungi and associative bacteria are very strongly inhibited by excessive soil disturbance and the high levels of water-soluble phosphorus and nitrogen commonly used in modern agriculture (Killham 1994, Leake et al. 2004). Where soils have been subjected to cultivation and/or the application of MAP, DAP, superphosphate, urea or anhydrous ammonia, the suppressed mycorrhizal colonisation of plant roots significantly reduces carbon flow. The structural degradation of agricultural soils, accompanied by mineral depletion in food, has largely been the result of the inhibition of this natural carbon pathway.

When carbon supply is limited by the loss of the primary pathway for sequestration, the physical, chemical and biological functions normally performed by healthy soil are markedly reduced.

Historical levels of soil carbon

Noted Polish explorer and geologist, Sir Paul Edmund [Count] Strzelecki, travelled widely through the colonies of south-eastern Australia during the period 1839 to 1843, collecting minerals, visiting farms and analysing soils. One of the questions Strzelecki posed was, what factors determine soil productivity? He collected 41 soil samples from farmed paddocks of either high or low productivity. The analyses revealed that the most important determinant of soil productivity was the level of soil carbon (measured as organic matter in Strzelecki’s day).

Of the 41 samples analysed, Strzelecki (1845) found …

The top 10 soils in the high productivity group had organic matter levels ranging from 11% to 37.75% (average 20%). The lowest ranking 10 soils in the low productivity group had organic matter levels ranging from 2.2% to 5.0% (average 3.72%)

The soils with the highest organic matter levels also had the highest moisture holding capacity, with an 18-fold difference in capacity to hold moisture between the lowest and the highest (Strzelecki 1845).

Strzelecki’s data indicate that organic matter levels in the early settlement period were around five to ten times higher than in many soils today. The soil test data from Strzelecki is consistent with the writings of first settlers, who described soils in the early settlement period as soft, spongy and absorbent. The 1840s journal of George Augustus Robinson, for example, contains numerous references to the extremely fertile and productive soils encountered by pastoralists in the mid-1800s (Presland 1970).

Soil carbon and soil moisture

In addition to enhancing nutrient availability, carbon performs many other functions in soil, including the maintenance of soil porosity, aeration and water-holding capacity.

Glenn Morris (Morris 2004) extensively researched the water holding capacity of humus (an extremely stable form of soil carbon) and concluded that within the soil matrix, one part of soil humus could, on average, retain a minimum of four parts of soil water.

From this relationship it can be calculated that an increase of 16.8 litres (almost two buckets) of extra plant available water could be stored per square metre in the top 30 cm (12”) of soil with a bulk density of 1.4 g/cm3, for every 1% increase (in absolute terms) in the level of soil organic carbon. This equates to 168,000 litres of water that could be stored per hectare, in addition to the water-holding capacity of the soil itself (Jones 2006).

The flip side is that the same amount of water-holding capacity will be lost when soil carbon levels fall. Low soil moisture and low levels of soil organic carbon go hand in hand.

Soil organic carbon levels in many areas have fallen by at least 3% (in absolute terms) since the time of European settlement, This reduction in soil carbon content represents the LOSS of the ability of soil to store around 504,000 litres of water per hectare.

Mycorrhizas and water

It is well known that mycorrhizal fungi access and transport nutrients in exchange for carbon from the host plant (Killham 1994, Leake et al. 2004). What is less well known is that in seasonally dry, variable, or unpredictable environments (that is, most of Australia), mycorrhizal fungi play an extremely important role in plant-water dynamics.

Mycorrhizal fungi can supply moisture to plants in dry environments by exploring micropores not accessible to plant roots. They can also improve hydraulic conductivity by bridging macropores in dry soils of low water-holding capacity (such as sands). In these situations, external wicking along the hyphae is of greater importance than cytoplasmic flow (Allen 2007). Mycorrhizal fungi can also increase drought resistance by stimulating an increase in the number and depth of plant roots.

Soil carbon and soil nitrogen

Aside from water, nitrogen is frequently the most limiting factor to crop and pasture production. It is one of the great ironies of agriculture that the atmosphere is around 78% nitrogen, but not one single molecule is directly available to plants. There are approximately 78,000 tonnes of nitrogen gas sitting above every hectare of land. Apart from small accessions via lightning, this nitrogen cannot be accessed without a microbial bridge.

Nitrogen-fixing bacteria – be they free-living in the rhizosphere, confined to nodules on plant roots, or existing as endophytes in leaves or stems – derive most of their energy from liquid carbon fixed during photosynthesis.

Adding water-soluble nitrogen in the form of urea, anhydrous ammonia or nitrate destabilises the plant-soil ecosystem by reducing the activity of mycorrhizal fungi and free living N-fixing bacteria (Killham 1994). The presence of high levels of water-soluble nitrogen in soil sends a signal to plants to reduce the supply of liquid carbon to microbial symbionts, effectively inhibiting the microbial associations that would otherwise supply atmospheric nitrogen for free.

This contradicts the widely promoted belief that nitrogenous fertiliser needs to be added in order for stable soil carbon to form. Indeed, the opposite is true (Khan et al. 2007, Larson 2007, Mulvaney et al. 2009).

Soil test data show that as soil carbon levels increase in microbially active soils, availabilities of P, K, S, Ca, Zn and B commonly increase, while levels of nitrate nitrogen are often reduced.

If plants are mycorrhizal, they don’t require nitrogen in a mineralised form, that is, in the form of nitrate or ammonium. In order to transport mineralised nitrogen, mycorrhizal fungi have to convert it to glutamate, which represents an energy cost. For this reason, nitrogen is preferentially transported in an organic form, generally as amino acids such as glycine and glutamine (Leake et al. 2004).

Utilisation of organic nitrogen by mycorrhizal fungi closes the nitrogen loop and prevents soil acidity, as well as preventing volatilisation of nitrogen to the atmosphere and leaching to aquifers, rivers and streams. Changes to soil chemistry and nitrogen dynamics in microbially balanced soils also reduce the abundance of ‘weedy’ species such as annual ryegrass, capeweed, mustard weed and thistles. The germination of these species is stimulated by the ready availability of nitrate nitrogen.

Soil as a methane sink

Wetlands, rivers, oceans, lakes, plants, decaying vegetation (especially in moist environments such as rainforests) – and a wide variety of creatures great and small – from termites to whales, have been producing methane for millions of years. The rumen, for example, evolved as an efficient way of digesting plant material around 90 million years ago.

Ruminants including buffalo, goats, wild sheep, camels, giraffes, reindeer, caribou, antelopes and bison existed in greater numbers prior to the Industrial Revolution than are present today.

There would have been an overwhelming accumulation of methane in the atmosphere had not sources and sinks been able to cancel each other over past millennia.

Although most methane is inactivated by the hydroxyl (OH) free radical in the atmosphere (Quirk 2010), another source of inactivation is oxidisation in biologically active soils. Aerobic soils are net sinks for methane, due to the presence of methanotrophic bacteria, which utilise methane as their sole energy source (Dunfield 2007). Methanotrophs have the opposite function to methanogens, which bind free hydrogen atoms to carbon to reduce acidosis in the rumen.

Recent research undertaken by Professor Mark Adams, Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at Sydney University, found that one hectare of pasture land could oxidise as much methane as emitted by 162 head of cattle in an entire year (Cawood 2009). The highest methane oxidation rate recorded in soil to date has been 137mg/m2/day (Dunfield 2007) which, over one hectare, equates to the absorption of the methane produced by approximately 1000 head of cattle.

In Australia, it has been widely promoted that livestock are a significant contributor to atmospheric methane and that global methane levels are rising. However, there is no evidence to suggest that methane emissions from ruminant sources are increasing. Indeed, it would seem there has been no clear trend to changes in global methane levels, from any source, over recent decades.

The increase in global methane levels from 1930 to 1970 was due to emissions from the production, transmission and distribution of natural gas (Quirk 2010). There was a tenfold increase in the use of natural gas through the 1960s and 1970s. The source of many of the natural gas emissions, such as leakages from the Trans-Siberian pipeline, have since been rectified (Quirk 2010). Measurements over the last 25 years show concentrations of atmospheric methane are merely exhibiting natural variation, with no significant trends in any direction (Fig.3).

Fig. 3. Variations in annual changes in atmospheric methane concentrations
from 1983 to 2009, from Dlugokencky et al. (2009).
Measurements are in parts per billion per year.

There is therefore no scientific basis for selectively targeting ruminants for a ‘methane tax’, or worse, interfering with this natural process. Farming in ways that enhance, rather than inhibit, soil biological activity, would improve the capacity of agricultural soil to act as a methane sink, helping balance the greenhouse equation. The issue with today’s industrialised approach to agriculture is that methanotrophic bacteria are chemically sensitive. Their activities are reduced by nitrogenous fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides, acidification and excessive soil disturbance (Dunfield 2007).

Soil carbon and human health

The nutritional status of soils, plants, animals and people has fallen dramatically in the last 50 years, due to losses in soil carbon, the key driver for soil nutrient cycles. Soil health and human health are more deeply connected than many people realise. Food is often viewed in terms of quantity available, hence ‘food scarcity’ is not seen as an issue in Australia. However, food produced from depleted soils does not contain the essential trace minerals required for the effective functioning of our immune systems.

Routine premature deaths from degenerative conditions such as cardiovascular disease and cancer have become prominent when they were once relatively uncommon. The cancer rate, for example, has increased from approximately 1 in 100, fifty years ago, to almost 1 in 2 today. The effectiveness of the human immune system has been compromised by increased exposure to more and more chemicals coupled with insufficient mineral density in food.

The low nutritional status of many basic food items is highlighted in data from the UK Ministry of Health. Depletion in the level of minerals in vegetables for the period 1940-1991, for example, shows copper levels reduced by 76%, calcium by 46%, iron by 27%, magnesium by 24% and potassium by 16%. Deficiencies in plants translate through to deficiencies in animals. A piece of steak now contains only half the amount of iron that it would have contained 50 years ago.

Vitamin and mineral deficiencies in food indicate that the symbiotic relationship between plants and soil microbes, whereby minerals are exchanged for liquid carbon, has been disrupted.

The best national health policy would be a national soils policy. But we don’t have one.

Our hospitals are over-filled and our health system is struggling to cope with illnesses that are highly correlated to the lack of essential vitamins, minerals and trace elements in our diet. The availability of these nutrients is determined to a large extent by the integrity of the soil food-web and the microbe bridge, which in turn are dependent on active soil sequestration of dissolved organic carbon.

Food labelling and a ‘Soil Integrity Index’

Food choices can have very significant effects on the kind of food produced and how it is produced. Currently, it is not possible for consumers to choose foods high in minerals, grown on healthy soils, as there is no labelling for food quality.

It is proposed that a ‘Soil Integrity Index’ with index parameters of

1. level of microbial diversity
2. soil carbon content and
3. soil water holding capacity

be used as the basis for a food labelling system.

The labels would need to be simple, with perhaps a star system (as in one, two or three stars). If a food labelling mechanism was in place, Australia’s largely city-based population could use food choices to improve not only the health of their families, but also the function and resilience of agricultural soils, thereby actively participating and supporting biology friendly farming.

The future landscape

The challenge for the future prosperity of Australian agriculture is to convert soil from its current status as a net source of carbon, to a revitalised state as a net carbon sink.

Agricultural research tends to focus on conventionally managed crop and pasture lands where intensive use of agrochemicals has dramatically reduced the number and diversity of soil flora and fauna, including beneficial microbes such as mycorrhizal fungi. As a result, the potential contribution of microbial symbionts to agricultural productivity has been greatly underestimated (Allen 2007).

Building soil carbon does not require adding biomass to soil. While crop stubbles and mulch are important for protecting soil from wind and water erosion and buffering temperature extremes, their contribution to soil carbon is limited by eventual decomposition to CO2.

The first step to restoring soil function is ‘do no harm’. A simple change from high-analysis N and/or P fertilisers to biological products such as worm leachate (vermiliquid), compost extract, seaweed extract and/or fish emulsion, applied as a seed dressing and/or a post-emergent foliar spray, will support microbial diversity, increase plant photosynthetic rate, increase the flow of liquid carbon to soil and enhance humification.

As the soil chemistry adjusts and nitrogen is converted to an organic form (freely available to mycorrhizal fungi but not to annual weeds) the incidence of pests, weeds and diseases that are stimulated by low levels of microbial diversity and high rates of water soluble nitrogen, will decline. As a result, there will be less reliance on the use of pesticides and herbicides that reduce the ability of soil to act as a sink for carbon, nitrogen, methane and moisture.

Changing the face of agriculture

Since 1960, global food production has doubled. At the same time, the soil resource on which food production is based has become seriously degraded.

The impoverishment of agricultural soils through depleted levels of biological activity and reduced carbon flow poses a greater threat to human existence than climate change.

In many regions of Australia, the effects of lower than average rainfall over the past decade have been compounded by loss of soil resilience and reduced moisture-holding capacity (Fig.4).

Fig. 4. Cropping over an old fence-line clearly demonstrates the extent to
which soil has been depleted by conventional farming practices. Paddocks
on either side of the fence have a history of high nitrogenapplication
(Photo Richard May).

It has been calculated that in the next 50 years, the planet will need to produce as much food as it has in the entire history of humankind. The way we produce that food will require a radical departure from business as usual.

At the beginning of this paper it was noted that the level of agricultural debt in Australia had increased almost 6-fold over the last 15 years. The amount of money invested by the farming community on non-biological inputs increases every year. Many of these products inhibit microbial diversity, preventing natural carbon flow to soils. Cessation of carbon flow reduces soil integrity, the mineral density in food and human health. It also prevents the processes of humification and topsoil formation from operating to any significant extent. The end result is even greater expenditure on agrochemicals in attempts to control the pest, weed, disease and fertility problems’ that ensue.

The statement that small farmers need to ‘get big or get out’ overlooks the fact that profit is the difference between expenditure and income. In years to come we will perhaps wonder why it took so long to realise the futility of trying to grow crops in dysfunctional soils, relying solely on increasingly expensive synthetic inputs.

Economic development is only sustainable if it strengthens, rather than depletes, natural resources.

The soil’s ability to produce nutrient dense, high vitality food – which after all, is agriculture’s real purpose – depends on appropriate management. Enhancing the natural flow of carbon to soils will result in increased microbial diversity, improved nutrient cycles, enhanced soil water-holding capacity, greater resilience, improved catchment health – and a more satisfying, profitable future for farmers.

The longer we delay undertaking regenerative changes to land management based on biology friendly farming practices that rebuild carbon-rich soils, the more soil carbon and soil water will be lost, exposing an increasingly fragile agricultural sector to escalating production risks, rising input costs and vulnerability to climatic extremes.

Its time to move away from depletion-style, high emission, chemically based industrial agriculture and get serious about grass-roots biologically based alternatives.

The future of Australia depends on the future of our soil – and our willingness to look after it.

Rebuilding soil productivity via the restoration of natural carbon flow and the sequestration of stable soil carbon is the only means of saving agriculture’s bacon – and ensuring a future for human society as we know it.

Literature cited

• Allen, M.F (2007). ‘Mycorrhizal fungi: highways for water and nutrients in arid soils’. Soil Science Society of America, Vadose Zone Journal. Vol 6 (2) pp. 291-297. DOI:10.2136/vzj2006.0068.
• Burgess, N. (2010). Agricultural debt from 1994 to 2009. Sourced from Westpac Economics& Reserve Bank of Australia. nburgess@westpac.com.au
• Cawood, M. (2009). ETS lifeline: soils capable of absorbing cattle methane. The Land, 3 September 2009.
• Dlugokencky, E. J. et al. (2009). Observational constraints on recent increases in the atmospheric CH4 burden. Geophysical Research Letters. 36, L18803, DOI:10.1029/2009GL039780.
• Dunfield, P. F. (2007). The soil methane sink. In D.S. Reay, C.N. Hewitt, K.A Smith and J. Grace, eds. Greenhouse Gas Sinks. pp. 152-170. Wallingford UK.
• Jones, C. E. (2006). Carbon and catchments. National ‘Managing the Carbon Cycle’ Forum, Queanbeyan, NSW, 22-23 November 2006. http://www.amazingcarbon.com
• Jones, C.E. (2008). Liquid carbon pathway unrecognised. Australian Farm Journal, July 2008, pp. 15-17. http://www.amazingcarbon.com
• Khan, S.A, Mulvaney, R.L, Ellsworth, T.R. and Boast, C.W. (2007). The myth of nitrogen fertilization for soil carbon sequestration. Journal of Environmental Quality 36:1821-1832. DOI:10.2134/jeq2007.0099
• Killham, K. (1994). ‘Soil Ecology’. Cambridge University Press.
• Larson, D. L (2007). Study reveals that nitrogen fertilizers deplete soil organic carbon. University of Illinois news, October 29, 2007. http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/news/internal/preview.cfm?NID=4185
• Leake, J.R., Johnson, D., Donnelly, D.P., Muckle, G.E., Boddy, L. and Read, D.J. (2004). Networks of power and influence: the role of mycorrhizal mycelium in controlling plant communities and agroecosystem functioning. Canadian Journal of Botany, 82: 1016-1045. DOI:10.1139/B04-060
• Liebig, M.A, Schmer, M.R, Vogel, K.P. and Mitchell. R.B. (2008). Soil carbon storage by switchgrass grown for bioenergy. Bioenergy Research 1: 215-222. DOI:10.1007/s12155-008-9019-5
• Morris G. D. (2004). Sustaining national water supplies by understanding the dynamic capacity that humus has to increase soil water-holding capacity. Thesis submitted for Master of Sustainable Agriculture, University of Sydney, July 2004.
• Mulvaney, R.L, Khan S.A, and Ellsworth, T.R. (2009). Synthetic nitrogen fertilizers deplete soil nitrogen: a global dilemma for sustainable cereal production. Journal of Environmental Quality 38:2295-2314. DOI:10.2134/jeq2008.0527
• Quirk T. W. (2010). Twentieth century sources of methane in the atmosphere. Energy and Environment, 21(3), pp. 251-256.
• Strzelecki, Paul Edmund de, (1845). Physical description of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land: accompanied by a geological map, sections and diagrams, and figures of the organic remains / by P.E. de Strzelecki. Printed for Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, London. (Note: prior to 1851 the state of Victoria was part of the colony of New South Wales).
• Watson, L. (2010). Portugal gives green light to pasture carbon farming as a recognised offset. Australian Farm Journal, January 2010, pp. 44-47.

Food forests are at the heart of Permaculture and fast becoming a hot topic in many areas of debate as people realise the their full potential.

Let’s face it, with our all-consuming global problems, there aren’t many natural solutions out there that can halt and reverse deforestation, stabilise the climate by returning carbon to the soil where it belongs, solve poverty & extreme hunger, all in one hit, are there?

Yet this is exactly what the food forest is capable of, and provided people understand it and are at the centre of the system, they can go on living off that land forever.

Here is a video of Geoff Lawton showing a series of food forests that have been planted at Zaytuna farm over successive years.

And note that PRI sells the excellent Establishing a Food Forest DVD which is a full 90 minute DVD featuring Geoff Lawton as he demonstrates how to grow a food forest from start to finish.