This is the story of an inspiring Maasai man who has brought positive change to his land and community through permaculture. Joseph Lentunyoi started a permaculture center in his dry, arid homeland of Laikipia County 7 years ago where he showcases sustainable food systems following permaculture design principles, land regeneration practices, and other simple solutions that can improve livelihoods (solar, biogas, natural building techniques, etc.). Laikipia Permaculture Center -- the organization he founded -- also helped create business opportunities for women, including making cosmetics from Aloe and many different products from a locally growing cactus.

As part of the project “Building capacity: international advanced application course on GIAHS (globally important agricultural heritage systems)“, co-financed by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) and involving the Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental and Forestry Sciences and Technologies (DAGRI) of the University of Florence as the implementing party and Polo universitario città di Prato (PIN) as a partner, a collaboration with Slow Food has come to life.

Within the framework of Terra Madre Salone del Gusto, a series of four webinars and a digital conference are planned with the Slow Food network around the world (Terra Madre delegates, Slow Food communities and convivia, producers participating in the event’s marketplace, etc.), with the aim of illustrating the objectives and potential of the FAO’s GIAHS Programme for the sustainable development of rural areas.

The principles on which the Programme is based are explained, starting with the importance of cultural conservation, biocultural diversity and traditional production systems for the preservation of the environment and landscapes. These represent a viable alternative to the intensification of agriculture. The webinar will also explain the process for applying to be part of the GIAHS Programme.

Speakers TBC

The training session is conducted in English and French.

Project implemented by DAGRI in collaboration with PIN and Slow Food, with funding from AICS and the collaboration of Horizons.

Trees -- such as those of the Faidherbia genus -- are planted in fields or pastures as natural fertilizer. Intercropping with trees on farmland has now become popular. In Zambiamore than 160,000 farmers plant Faidherbia trees in their fields. Farmers in Niger have been able to make 4.8 million hectares of land greener and more fertile, thanks to these EverGreen Agriculture.

The Sahel, home to over 100M people, marks the frontier where human habitation and agriculture meets the Sahara desert. Farmers here have been managing crops and livestock with scattered trees for generations creating the vast agroforestry parklands that dominates the landscapes. Indegineous trees here are essential to locals as they provide food,medicine, timber and climate regulation. For decades this area has had high climate change, desertification and worsening food insecurity. Recently widespread regreening has happened because farmers have encouraged the regeneration of young trees that grow naturally in their fields, a practice known as farmer managed natural regeneration heralded as the corner stone of modern climate smart agriculture.

Trees for Food Security Project goal is to enhance food security for resource-poor people in rural Eastern Africa through research that supports national programmes to scale up the use of trees within farming systems in Ethiopia and Rwanda and then scale out successes to relevant ago-ecological zones in Uganda and Burundi.
Through the project, 5 Rural Resource Centers (2 in Rwanda, 2 Ethiopia and 1 in Uganda) and nurseries to enhance training and supply of improved tree germplasm have been established. The RRCs have provided business opportunities for farmer groups and unemployed youth particularly through grafted fruit trees.
Read more about the project here: http://bit.ly/2awF9S3

Made by leading Ugandan documentarist Nathan Ochole, this film explains what agroforestry is and the myriad of contributions that it has made to Uganda. It starts in the highlands of Kabale, where trees on farms prevented landslides and floods, provided fruit to villagers and made their agriculture more sustainable. It then roams to the parklands of northern Uganda where Borassus palms and Shea trees provide valuable nutrition and cash earnings (particularly for women in the case of Shea) and improve the yields of the crops grown near them. It visits Kapchorwa where we see the use of the nitrogen-fixing shrub Calliandra as feed for dairy cows and then documents the improvements that orange trees have made to livelihoods in Namatumba.

Along the way, the film interviews farmers as well as Dr Clement Okia, the representative of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in Uganda, and Dr Hilary Agaba, Programme Leader Agroforestry at Uganda’s National Forestry Resources Research Institute (NaFORRI NARO). It was produced by Cathy Watson, formerly of Tree Talk and Muvle Trust in Uganda and now Head of Programme Development at ICRAF, and by Australian AVID volunteer, Laura Keenan.

Regenerative agriculture is an effective way to restore biodiversity and stabilize the climate, but what exactly is it? This video explores three different regenerative practices that have great potential both in food production and in healing the land.

Sources:

Organic Agriculture does more harm than goodSearchinger et al., Assessing the efficiency of changes in land use for mitigating climate change, 2018.https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0757-z

Bacteria Converts Ammonium into Nitrite and Nitrate:Jeff Lowenfels & Wayne Lewis, Teaming with Microbes, 2006, 48.Myceilium brings water to plants:Ibid, 57.Worms increase water absorption and allow plant roots to penetrate deeper:Ibid, 89.Fertilizer leeches into water:Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, 2005.http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/en....glish/engineer/facts

Regenerative grazing can sequester carbon:Sanderman et al., Impacts of Rotational Grazing on Soil Carbon in Native Grass-Based Pastures in Southern Australia, 2015.https://journals.plos.org/plos....one/article%3Fid%3D1

Regenerative grazing can build soil and reverse desertification:Allan Savory, Holistic Management, 1999, 244.The growth of grass:Global Rangelands, Basics of Grass Growthhttps://globalrangelands.org/t....opics/rangeland-ecol

Julius Ruechel, The Daily Pasture Rotation, 2009.https://www.grass-fed-solution....s.com/pasture-rotati

Overgrazing leads to erosion, drought, and desertification:Ibanez et al., Desertification due to overgrazing in a dynamic commercial livestock–grass–soil system, 2007.https://www.sciencedirect.com/....science/article/pii/ forests consist of 7 layers:Toby Hemenway, Gaia's Garden, 2001, 172.

The final update from Al Baydha Project Co-founder Neal Spackman, 9 years in. How desertification resulted from the loss of an indigenous land management system, and how the land has changed since all inputs to the project were ceased in 2016. Neal moved on from Al Baydha in 2018 and can now be contacted at https://regenerativeresources.co

The species that worked the best for us were Ziziphus Spinachristi, Moringa Peregrina, commiphora gileadensis, prosopis spp (though this one we likely won't continue planting in the future), and the local acacias.

Music by Faisal Alawi, and by Olafur Arnalds (performed by Voces 8).

معلومات عن نتائج مشروع البيضاء و الزراعة المستدامة التي اسست في جبال ٥٠ كيلومتر جنوب مكه المكرمة
موسيقة: فيصل علوي و الفور ارنالدز

A majestic journey through Japan, Korea, and the United States that turns our perceptions of food (and life) upside down in a simple and poetic way. Solutions for our most pressing social and ecological issues come from unexpected places in a bite-sized film that New York Times bestselling author Alicia Bay Laurel calls “beautiful … both art and documentary.”Inspired by the work and philosophy of Masanobu Fukuoka, artist Patrick M. Lydon (USA) and editor Suhee Kang (South Korea) spend four years meeting and studying with multiple generations of modern day natural farmers. The result is a film that weaves breathtaking landscapes and an eclectic original soundtrack together with stories and insights from an inspiring cast of natural farmers, chefs, and teachers. The film gives modern-day relevance to age-old ideas about more sustainable, regenerative, and harmonious ways of living with the earth.Current-day leaders in the natural farming movement featured in the film include Yoshikazu Kawaguchi (Japan), Seonghyun Choi (Korea), Larry Korn (United States), and a dozen others. Their stories illuminate a brilliant-yet-maddeningly-simple path to sustainability and well being, one popularized by the late Masanobu Fukuoka, author of the seminal environmental text “One Straw Revolution.”Far-reaching in its application, “Food, Earth, Happiness” offers philosophical seeds to grow solutions for social and environmental justice.–Note: Officially released on January 1, 2019, this film is an abbreviated version of the acclaimed environmental documentary Final Straw: Food, Earth, Happiness (74 min / 2015). It has been edited by the directors for public and classroom use.–CREDITS– directed, filmed, and produced by – Patrick M. Lydon and Suhee Kang– produced by – SocieCity Films City as Nature– associate producer – Kaori Tsuji– production assistant & animation – Heeyoung Park– characters – Yoshikazu KawaguchiLarry KornKristyn LeachSeong Hyun ChoiEtsko KagamiyamaRyosok HongMaki SobajimaKenji MurakamiYoshiki YamamotoOsamu KitaKazuaki OkitsuDennis Lee– musicians – BomnoonbyulWindSync: Anni Hochhalter, horn; Garrett Hudson, flute; Tracy Jacobson, bassoon; Jack Marquardt, clarinet; Erin Tsai, oboeIpppen: Youji Kohno and Ben NakamuraJoyful Island– interview coordination and interpretation – Eri and Kazu DomaeIkumasa HayashiEri MizushimaIsao SuizuNaho TakeuchiHyunwoo Kim– translation – Masumi AbeSonny KimMalga KimNatsuki Yamada-KitadeKyoko KodaHyunwoo KimDaisuke MatsumotoAkiko MisasaEri Mizushima-PetersonUni ParkShumeiKaori Tsuji– explore more – http://www.finalstraw.org“Food, Earth, Happiness” was filmed entirely on location in Japan, South Korea, and the United States between 2011 – 2015 by directors Patrick M. Lydon and Suhee Kang.

Our story follows Satyavati – a young woman from the Araku Valley in Andhra Pradesh, India, as she compels her community to adopt a farming practice that is revolutionizing small-scale farming across India. Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) is a farming practice that believes in the natural growth of crops without adding any fertilizers and pesticides, or any other foreign elements. After decades of conventional agriculture, farmers in India found themselves in debt traps owing to loans taken to meet the high cost of fertilizers and pesticides. ZBNF promises not only to alleviate farmer debt, but also to increase yields, while alleviating the impacts of climate change, deforestation and land degradation.