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.

Smallholder farmers are key actors in the global food system, producing roughly 80 percent of the food consumed in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Yet, the voices of smallholders are often neglected by policy makers when trade deals are negotiated or regulations established. Increasing the participation of smallholder farmers in agricultural trade has the potential to boost livelihoods, improve food security, and fuel economic growth.

Within an international trade regime marked by ever-more-stringent quality and safety standards, sophisticated value-chains, and byzantine contracts, the challenge of linking smallholders to markets is no simple task. Considering the increasing importance of agricultural trade to food security, it is also not a task that we can afford to ignore.

What is the role of smallholder farmers in the global exchange of agricultural goods? What barriers do trade regulations and standards impose for smallholders to access local, regional, and global markets? How can we build an enabling environment for trade in which smallholders can participate more fully?

There are 1.5 billion small family farmers, men and women, who live and work on around 475 million family farms, that are no more than 2 hectares in size. Monika reminds us up to 80% of all food consumed in the world are grown by these farmers, and these people are at the forefront of our fight for food security in the face of climate change.

Monika Barthwal-Datta is a Senior Lecturer in International Security in the School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UNSW. Growing up, Monika lived and studied in a number of countries, including India (where she comes from), Japan, New Zealand, Uganda and ultimately the UK where she completed her postgraduate studies. While studying for her MScEcon in Security Studies (Aberystwyth University) and then her PhD in International Security (Royal Holloway College, University of London), Monika worked as a freelance broadcast journalist for the BBC World Service Radio. She moved to Sydney in late 2010 to take up a two-year research fellowship on Food Security in Asia at the Centre for International Security Studies, University of Sydney, and moved to UNSW Australia in mid-2012. Monika’s research focuses on international security from ‘non-traditional’ perspectives that prioritise the needs and concerns of those who are least powerful and marginalised.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx