I am a retiree farmer. 69 years old. Age has no boundaries .
*I transited to organic farming three years ago. I went into farming in 2011, with the “ambition” of learning and attracting more youths into agriculture. My main interests are:
- Promote youth agripreneurship and boost youth participation in agriculture.
- Intergenerational wealth creation by developing family farms to engage in farming sustainably, productively and profitably.
- Promote the transition from conventional to regenerative organic farming.
*My work is driven by Soil building and Family farm development.
*I have dedicated my 11 years experience to building competence in organic banana growing.
*Currently, i am working on transforming our farm into a food forest, using #Syntropic #agroforesty methods.
Regenerating the land, the mindset and the people through syntropic agroforestry.~ Roland van Reenen (Syntropic Agroforestry and Permaculture specialist ).
Syntropic agroforestry is a agricultural technology that is gaining a lot of popularity all over the globe. It started with a gentleman in Brazil that changed a desertificated and eroded place where the rain didnt fall anymore into a lush tropical food producing rainforest where streams are flowing now. In nothing you can now remember the desert it used to be.
Ernst Gotsch is the name of this gentleman produces one of the most wanted cocoa varieties on that farm. But that is maybe the least of his achievements for he changed the way that people and farmers in particular perceived the world. Through syntropic agroforestry we can regenerate any desolate place and turn it into an oasis while producing the highest quantity of food per m2. It means that the gap between agriculture and ecology has finally been bridged, that the animosity between ecology and economy has come to an end. It changes the role of people as destroyers of the landscape in that of managers of it. It is also the end of a paradigm of poverty, scarcity, impossibilities and harsh competition that has been replaced by that of abundance and cooperation.
Syntropic agroforestry is all about creating efficient food producing forests and more specified about speeding up the formation of forests that produces food abundantly. In desertified places it may take hundreds of years for a forest to grow but with syntropic agroforestry we can build up forests in 3 years. A more or less selfsustaining ecosystem that produces a succession of harvests between a month and 20 to 30 years.
The technology is based upon 5 main principles:
~ Keep the soil always covered (with thick layers of organic material like leaves, straw, hay, woodchips or anything that once has lived and with densely planted crops.
~ Maximisation of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the process in which the major source of energy, sunlight is transformed into life itself, sugars, oxygen and a cooling down effect. The more photosynthesis the more energy, the more life, the more harvests, in other words syntropy instead of entropy. The science of knowing the optimal dosis of sunlight for trees and crops to achieve the best photosynthesis processes is the basis for the maximisation of it. Some fruit trees need 100% of sunlight like the coconut, some need 80% like the mango, others need 60% like f.i. soursop and again other might need 40% sunlight like citrus and some just need 20% like cocoa or coffee. The same principle for vegetables. This means that as long as crops or trees have different needs of sunlight they can be palnted very close to each other without the need for competition. So the coconut tree shades partly the mango that partly shades the soursop that partly shades the citrus that partly shade the coffee. This guarantees high diversified yields per m2.
– Stratafication, the described technology to achieve this maximisation of photosynthesis is called stratafication.
– Succession is the knowledge that in the formation of forests one plant variety is succeeded by the other. We imitate this in our production of crops, f.i. radishes after 3, 4 weeks, succeeded by cucumbers after 5, 6 weeks, succeeded by melons in 6 or 7 weeks, succeeded by okra and corn after 8 weeks, succeeded by eggplants that keep on producing till the cassave gets ready. The cassave will be succeeded by papaya and bananas, unit they will be succeeded by the fruity trees that will be succeed by timber wood. And this whole line of succession is planted in one and the same time so there is no need to waste energy in ploughing and waiting for crops to be ready. With the same amount of water as for a single crop.
– Management; this is the work of the farmer, to speed up processes by pruning to pump up the system with biomass, to keep the stratas in place and to harvest.
For information on how you can be part a course to take place in Zambia contact Dr. Mpenga Kabundi on +260(0)762915911
