Photo: Banana leaf sheet mulch deployed in raised bed garden. Hana, Maui.
Banana leaves have many uses in the Islands (and in all traditional cultures where banana plants grow), though here's one you may not yet have considered: a natural, locally & readily available, biodegradable weed barrier for sheet mulching.
In urban and suburban Honolulu, cardboard is a readily available waste product that can easily be upcycled as a biodegradable weed barrier for sheet mulch gardenbeds and paths, though in remote Hana there is nowhere near the amount of waste cardboard available for us permaculturists!
There is, however, and abundance of banana plants (which love the chocolatey-volcanic soils and moisture), and therefore an abundance of banana leaves...
...which brings us to the point of this post:
Appropriate Design. (an excerpt from Rick Coleman's essay 'The Role of Permaculture in Sustainable Aid')
If you are going to introduce a new technology / technique / tool, these are some things to consider:
Can you use materials that are inexpnsive or free, that are easily accessible and safe?
Will it have a tangible positive effect on the community (as well as the aid organization)?
Most importantly is it able to be repeated (if you build a grand-darble-dooble-funky and leave it, can anyone build a new one?)..
How can the technology be integrated to solve other problems or be connected to other elements (in the system) and therefore become more productive?
... which, of course, now leaves us with the question:
What else could we use banana leaves for?
While we ponder that one, here's another example of a locally appropriate material being deployed for use in a sheet mulch garden being built in the drylands of Mexico:
Photo: Banana leaf sheet mulch deployed in raised bed garden. Hana, Maui.
Banana leaves have many uses in the Islands (and in all traditional cultures where banana plants grow), though here's one you may not yet have considered: a natural, locally & readily available, biodegradable weed barrier for sheet mulching.
In urban and suburban Honolulu, cardboard is a readily available waste product that can easily be upcycled as a biodegradable weed barrier for sheet mulch gardenbeds and paths, though in remote Hana there is nowhere near the amount of waste cardboard available for us permaculturists!
There is, however, and abundance of banana plants (which love the chocolatey-volcanic soils and moisture), and therefore an abundance of banana leaves...
...which brings us to the point of this post:
Appropriate Design. (an excerpt from Rick Coleman's essay 'The Role of Permaculture in Sustainable Aid')
If you are going to introduce a new technology / technique / tool, these are some things to consider:
Can you use materials that are inexpnsive or free, that are easily accessible and safe?
Will it have a tangible positive effect on the community (as well as the aid organization)?
Most importantly is it able to be repeated (if you build a grand-darble-dooble-funky and leave it, can anyone build a new one?)..
How can the technology be integrated to solve other problems or be connected to other elements (in the system) and therefore become more productive?
... which, of course, now leaves us with the question:
What else could we use banana leaves for?
While we ponder that one, here's another example of a locally appropriate material being deployed for use in a sheet mulch garden being built in the drylands of Mexico:
Elyse Peterson is an experienced food scientist in the dairy, seafood, meat, and soft drink industries, Elyse served two terms in the Peace Corps helping promote sustainable food security solutions. As part of her work in the Peace Corps, she helped to develop a Solar Food Dryer which became the catalyst for a community-based food security and economic development project in in Antigua.
We talked to Elyse about this technology, which is highly appropriate for many tropical areas, and may have application into other climate zones:
Photo: Mangoes drying in the sun.
TBG: How does Solar Food Drying work? Solar drying is a low cost method of drying food. It is important to understand moisture in food and the properties of the air around us.
All food contains moisture which comes in three forms: liquid, solid & gas. This moisture is what microorganisms need to live and thrive, so in order to stop microorganism growth you may reduce this moisture to a safe level to preserve and extend the shelf-life of your harvest.The design of the Solar Dryer harnesses the power of the sun's rays to raise temperatures within the unit to between 110 - 130 degrees Farenheit. This heat lowers relative humidity while increasing absolute humidity, so that the air inside the unit attempts to reach the absolute humidity of the climate outside the unit by taking moisture from the food.Coupled with proper air circulation, this is what makes the solar dryer work.
Photo: Solar dryer built with locally available materials in Antigua, 2007.
TGB: What kind of Solar Dryer Designs have you developed?
There are three basic designs of solar dryers that you may follow when building your own solar dryer: direct absorption, indirect heating, and mixed mode. In this project a direct absorption solar dryer was designed because it was found to be the most sustainable for Hawaii’s needs.
In these designs the food is placed inside a cabinet or “hot box” which allows the rays of the sun to heat up food and air around it. A compartment with a transparent roof and insulated walls is used, but if designed properly all the walls can be transparent. These may also use reflectors at the bottom of the compartment to increase light (metal or foil).
Ventilation holes are required to promote proper air circulation. Indirect heating dryers dry the food with heated air collected by a “solar panel”. The food is placed in an insulated heating chamber with proper air circulation.
These models are effective but cost a lot of money. Mixed Mode dryers are a combination of the other two designs. Food is heated directly by the sun but additional heat is collected with the “solar panel”. These can cost about $1300EC to build, effective but expensive.
Businesses attempting to expand and produce higher quality products should look into building one of these models (for the purposes of this project and the situation in Hawaii the direct absorption model is the best fit). When constructing your dryer be sure to follow the design carefully, because the angles achieved are vital for efficient processing.
Photo: Mangoes selected for drying are peeled and cut.
TGB: How do we select produce to dry? When selecting food to process in the solar dryer it is important to remember that drying will not improve the quality of the produce. Only produce that you would consume fresh should be dried.
Produce with cuts, bruises, or other evidence of contamination should not be used. Select fruit that is ripe yet firm. Using over-ripe fruit can cause the final product to come out brown and sticky. Ripeness is about 2/3 ripe.
Photo: Mango is prepared for dehydration in the Solar Dryer.
TGB: How do we prepare produce for drying? Produce shall be soaked in a bleach solution to remove microbial contamination (1 tsp bleach in 1 gallon water). Peel fruits and cut into appropriate sized pieces. The smaller the size piece the faster the drying time. As the size of the piece increases the time for drying grows exponentially.
Example: A slice or piece two times larger with take four times longer to dry. Experiment with your dryer to see what size piece is the best.
TGB: Doesn't that mean we will be eating bleach?
There are alternative methods for sanitation, but bleach is the most available and inexpensive. One must remember that bleach is highly volatile. It evaporates into the air, so there is essentially no bleach on the product by the time we eat it. This is a standard practice in the food industry that many of us don't know about but owe our safety to.
TGB: Does it work in the rain?How long does it take? No. The dryer should only be used on days with consistent powerful sun as to reduce the time required for drying. Depending on the results you may find it necessary to rotate the trays throughout the day so every tray gets equal amounts of direct sun exposure.
Drying should take about 12 hours of full sun power (possibly one day with good sun). Optimal temperature for solid drying is 110-120°F but 130°F will be the most effective temperature. Putting a thermometer in the dryer during processing is a safe way of monitoring the efficiency of your dryer.
Keep a close eye on the produce towards the end of drying because drying happens at a faster rate just before it’s reached 10% moisture. To test for doneness you should see that vegetables at about 10% moisture will be brittle and easily can be broken apart.
Fruits should be soft and chewy, but test the moisture content to verify 5-8% moisture (refer to Principles of Solar Drying). There are a few quality issues that need to be considered when solar drying produce.
________________________________________________
For more information and detailed instructions on how to build your own Solar Food Dryerin Hawaii, download the Solar Dryer Manual here:
Photo: Mongolians work new potato fields in Zavkhan Province (2010), and are learning to grow vegetables because changing weather patterns are rendering ancient grazing patterns obsolete.
“Food security has been defined as ...access by all people at all times to sufficient food for an active and healthy life.
Food security includes at a minimum: the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and an assured ability to acquire food in socially acceptable ways (without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing and other coping strategies for example).”
[(Online), Dieticians Association of Australia, www.daa.asn.au (2006.)]
Food Culture refers to how we experience our food – from field to plate – and how it impacts our health, happiness, and sense of community.
Perhaps the best way to explain the impact of food culture upon our wellness is to think of the way you feel, hear, smell, taste, and see another culture when you experience it through their cooking; so much of our cultural values are expressed in the way we grow, prepare, and share food. Indeed, most of our major holidays and celebrations are centered around the experience of sharing a meal.
Food culture andfood security are closely linked: threats to one affect, and are affected by the other.
A society which marginalizes the importance of celebrating and enjoying its food, also marginalizes the importance and richness of the living systems which support and create food.
The ‘fast food culture’ of modern society has distanced most of us from this richness of experience, with sobering results. The Slow Food movement was spawned out of a response to the globalization of food production, and promotes sustainable food production by small local businesses to preserve and celebrate local and traditional food cultures.
A society which celebrates the importance and richness of its food culture, creates resilient, happy communities: there is much data to indicate that average reported happiness is consistently lower in countries with a pervasive fast food culture [such as the USA] than in countries such as Cuba, which embrace and celebrate a locally produced, organic food system.
When a community is unable to provide for its own food needs, individuals are disempowered, despair sets in, and food aid must be imported. The community must be rebuilt with the knowledge and practical skills to produce enough of their own food to meet their needs, or a cycle of dependence can develop.
Agricultural yields are arguably at higher levels than ever in recorded history, yet in our world today, 1 out of 7 people will fall sleep tonight without access to enough food to lead an active and healthy life.
A solid understanding of food culture and food security issues are important to a wellness practitioner because it will equip you with a foundation to act on a local scale, and know that you are improving the wellness of humanity on a global scale with your contribution.
"Stupidity is an attempt to iron out all differences, and not to use them or value them creatively."
- Bill Mollison -
The long-term impacts of the modern conventional food system, which has only been in existence for the last 40 years or so, are only now starting to become more apparent. Obesity levels and diet-related disease are at epidemic levels in the developed world, regional economies are being drained of their livelihoods by big agribusiness, while social and environmental impacts are being reported on by filmmakers, journalists, bloggers and other activists all over the world.
Once we understand the limitations and challenges created by the conventional food system, we can begin to identify opportunities to flourish within, while operating from outside the system: first, by producing enough of our own food to meet our survival needs, then to generate sufficient surplus to share in our local communities.
It is here than we can access markets most efficiently, here that we can develop our most loyal customers, and it is here that the economic activities of our enterprise will make the most difference, because money will be cycled around local suppliers, distributors, and sellers to ehance and strengthen our community.
Photo: PermablitzHI, a vibrant community of people who share common needs and goals.
‘Market’ does not mean ‘places where we can sell crap’ to a permaculturist. Instead, we view ‘markets’ as a vibrant community of people [think of your local farmer’s market], who share common needs that we can help to meet.
When we can identify and meet these needs responsibly, ethically, and sustainably then we are rewarded with surplus cashflows to reinvest into our people, our enterprises, and our community.
For example, we can look for local heritage varieties of crops that have adapted to growing conditions in the area, and develop a niche demand for varieties that are unavailable on supermarket shelves because they may not be suitable for long-term transportation or storage.
Or, we can look for high-value crops that can be integrated into our polycultures, increasing the biodiversity and resilience of our system, while increasing the diversity and resilience of our economic yield.
Only when when our enterprise is able to competently serve the needs of our local community, should we look to developing our system to generate further surplus. We expand our operations and systems organically, by careful observation, continuous improvement, and constant adaptation to changing long-term trends; and always, always conduct ourselves with respect to the ethics of permaculture, which underpin all of our work.
It is vitally important that we look at what our land offers us, rather than impose our will upon the land. For example, deciding arbitrarily that ‘I want to grow chamomile’ because there may be a market for it would not be in alignment with the permaculture ethic of Earth Care, while paying our employees less than a living wage would violate our ethical principle of People Care.
Finally, hoarding all of our profits and not re-investing surplus back into our local communities not only serves to isolate ourselves from our basic need to connect meaningfully with other human beings around us, it would not honour the third ethical principal of permaculture: Resource Share.
______________________________________ by Matthew Lynch 'Essays on Permaculture and Wellness'
PermablitzHI is a grassroots movement restoring Hawaii's food security one backyard at a time.
Before.
Photo: Backyard paring lot behind Sweet Home Waimanalo Cafe.
After.
Photo: In one day, the parking lot is transformed into an edible landscape.
Hawaii's first Permablitz transformed the parking lot behind Sweet Home Waimanalo cafe into an edible landscape featuring a mandala kitchen garden, banana circle, living fence, worm farm, and an experimental sweet potato stack (for starters):
Plans for a mini-fruit-orchard, shipping-pallet-seating-area, and other goodies are in the works.
Permablitzes are entirely volunteer-based, and are based on permaculture design principles, reciprocity (the more you give the more you gain), and sharing resources.
Stay tuned to the PermablitzHI website for PermablitzHI #s 2, 3, and 4, coming soon.
To keep informed of upcoming blitzes and workshops, join in the Join Hawaii's Edible Garden Revolution by clicking here.
Permablitz (noun): “Blitz”, from the german for lightening, means a focused application of energy. A permablitz is when that energy is focused on installing part of a permaculture system. “Perma” is short for permaculture, which is a design system for sustainable living and land use. As a comprehensive design system, permaculture includes much more than organic food gardening. Growing at least some of our food where we live, however, has always been a central emphasis within the broader picture of permaculture.
Technically, a Permablitz is an informal gathering involving a day on which a group of people come together to achieve the following:
Create or add to edible gardens where someone lives.
Share skills related to permaculture and sustainable living.
Build community networks.
Have fun!
As an example, if you come along to someone’s house, plant a lettuce, learn about worm farming, meet some people, and have a few laughs, it may be accurate for you to say you’ve been at a permablitz. You may have already been to some in the past without knowing it!
The Permablitz story
Permablitzes began in 2006, when a collaboration between Permaculture designer 'Sourdough' Dan Palmer & friends, and a South American community group in Melbourne, Australia's, became a revolution of edible garden landscapes quietly appearing in backyards all over the suburbs. Check out Asha Bee's article and Katherine Kizilos' excellent article for The Age newspaper for the full story.
As of mid-2011, over 100 permablitzes have been held in and around Melbourne and throughout Australia, and have even spread overseas to California, Calgary, Montreal, Istanbul, Uganda, and now Hawaii.
PERMABLITZ-HI #1 is scheduled for Saturday September 17th, at Sweet Home Waimanalo(SHW) cafe. Matt will be teaching a hands-on weekend 'Introduction to Permaculture' class September 10-11, and PERMABLITZ-HI #1 will give participants a chance to utilize and share their new skills & knowledge by transforming the parking lot behind SHW into a functional, productive, and beautiful edible landscape. Drop us a line if you'd like to participate!
Permablitz (noun): “Blitz”, from the german for lightening, means a focused application of energy. A permablitz is when that energy is focused on installing part of a permaculture system. “Perma” is short for permaculture, which is a design system for sustainable living and land use. As a comprehensive design system, permaculture includes much more than organic food gardening. Growing at least some of our food where we live, however, has always been a central emphasis within the broader picture of permaculture.
Technically, a Permablitz is an informal gathering involving a day on which a group of people come together to achieve the following:
Create or add to edible gardens where someone lives.
Share skills related to permaculture and sustainable living.
Build community networks.
Have fun!
As an example, if you come along to someone’s house, plant a lettuce, learn about worm farming, meet some people, and have a few laughs, it may be accurate for you to say you’ve been at a permablitz. You may have already been to some in the past without knowing it!
The Permablitz story
Permablitzes began in 2006, when a collaboration between Permaculture designer 'Sourdough' Dan Palmer & friends, and a South American community group in Melbourne, Australia's, became a revolution of edible garden landscapes quietly appearing in backyards all over the suburbs. Check out Asha Bee's article and Katherine Kizilos' excellent article for The Age newspaper for the full story.
As of mid-2011, over 100 permablitzes have been held in and around Melbourne and throughout Australia, and have even spread overseas to California, Calgary, Montreal, Istanbul, Uganda, and now Hawaii.
PERMABLITZ-HI #1 is scheduled for Saturday September 17th, at Sweet Home Waimanalo(SHW) cafe. Matt will be teaching a hands-on weekend 'Introduction to Permaculture' class September 10-11, and PERMABLITZ-HI #1 will give participants a chance to utilize and share their new skills & knowledge by transforming the parking lot behind SHW into a functional, productive, and beautiful edible landscape. Drop us a line if you'd like to participate!
We stumbled across these simple banana circles at Laulima Farm in Kipahulu, on the road past Hana in the shadow of Haleakala (which I highly recommend checking out if you should ever find yourself wandering the magical road to Hana...).
It's a very simple design which can increase the tidiness, production & functionality of banana plants; by planting in a circle around a shallow pit filled with mulch, you can 'march' the bananas around the perimeter of the circle as the root corms send up new baby shoots. Sweet potato and other moisture-loving species like comfrey and mint can also be planted around the rim to increase yield and diversity in a concentrated area. Cacao was observed here, growing in the shade created between two banana circles.
Bananas are a very hungry plant, and will benefit from the extra concentration of nutrients the central mulch pit provides. Kitchen scraps from Laulima Farm's roadside stand were being dumped into this circle, and as you can see the plants were only too happy to take up all that excess nutrient and turn it into copious quantities of bananas.
The system can also work well for harvesting & processing greywater - turning greywater into bananas - so long as you are careful to esure that harsh chemical cleaning agents are avoided.
Rick Coleman of Southern Cross Permaculture Institute used banana pits in Central America, where subsistence farmers who were walking 2 hours each way to access their mountain grow plots had no toilet system, resulting in unhealthy (nasty!) runoff to the villages below.
Banana circles were dug upslope of their mountainside plots and filled with rocks & organic waste matter. These shallow versions of a pit latrine systems were an effective alternative to the practice of just going where and whenever the need arose, since typically only one or two people per day were using each banana pit.
In this simple example of Cycling Energy [Mollison] / Produce No Waste [Holmgren], a potentially toxic waste product is converted into a valuable nutrient source for an additional crop by asking the simple question:
How can the waste products of one element in your system become an input for another?
Back to Laulima Farms, and there are 0 food miles here, because bananas are planted in such abundance throughout the property that they practically give them away. (As an aside, their banana bread is OFF-THE-HOOK (amazing), spelt flour is used more to bind the banana mash that is used to make the 'bread'. We muched on a couple slices while we waited for the customers ahead of us in line to blend their own smoothies...)
Photo: Human-powered smoothies!
Photo: Nitrogen-fixing Peanut grass and hardy Mint used as a wonderfully attractive groundcover.
Photo: Food planted everywhere, as far as the eye can see at Laulima Farms.
Photo: Bamboo circle used to great effect as private seating area..
Photo: Bamboo construction used in Laulima's roadside stand.
Its been a long & winding road, spanning from a small cluster of islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, to the island-continent with one coast in the Pacific and the other in the Indian Ocean (Australia), across 'The Ditch' (Tasman Sea) to our Polynesian neighbors in Aoteroa (New Zealand), then to the European hinterlands of the North Sea (Hamburg, Germany), and finally back again to our island home: Oahu.
Also known as 'The Gathering Place', Oahu is home to Honolulu (capital city of the Islands), plus some 800,000-odd residents (out of the total state population of around 1.3 million)… Hawaii plays host to some 8 million or so visitors from North America alone each year, and while it really is as good as you have imagined it to be here (sun, sand, surf ….and so much Aloha spirit), just like your community, we face some serious issues which must be dealt with:
Photo (by Seattle Times): Empty shelves in a Hawaii supermarket during a recent tsunami warning. Food Insecure. Hawaii imports between 80 - 95% of its food, which is actually quite ridiculous when you think of the fertile soils and ideal, year-round growing conditions we have. If the shipping lanes were blocked for any reason, best estimates project that there would be only around two weeks' worth of food here to sustain the population. Anytime there is a hurricane warning, what do you think is the first thing to disappear off supermarket shelves? You guessed it: Toilet paper. On a bright note, you can now find farmer's markets selling fresh local produce somewhere on every day of the week.
Photo (by mtnbiker808): An oil tanker delivers its payload off the shores of Kapolei, Oahu. Energy Dependent. The numbers for energy security are similar to the numbers for food security: as much as 95% of our energy is produced from imported coal or oil… if you've ever sailed off the Ewa coastal plains when the oil tankers are offloading (twice weekly), you know how fragile those hoses which pipe our fuel to the refineries in Campbell Industrial Park (draped precariously off the side of massive tankers bobbing up & down in choppy seas) are. The State of Hawaii is working towards reversing those numbers, with a goal of powering the islands by 80% renewable energy by 2050.
While those are two issues tGB will be directly involved in addressing during the coming years, they are definitely not the only ones.. there are also issues of Homelessness, Elder Care Crisis, Growth vs. Sanity (a.k.a. Honolulu's Mass Transit System), Watershed Management, Invasive Species and Ecosystem Conservation challenges to be reckoned with.
Hawaii is a paradise precariously balancing conflicting pressures on our natural resources - just like our planet.My wife have spent the last few months relocating our lives to this tropical island paradise, reconnecting with family and friends, and working through the myriad of details which come with starting over from scratch in a new place to build a life together (like getting married on the summer solstice!).Along the way, we've stumbled into some pretty amazing projects that we'll be sharing about with you in the coming months. There are rumors that theGreenBackpack crew may be off again later this year to work in Vanuatu, and perhaps other areas of the Asia-Pacific region...…and of course, we can't wait to get back to Mongolia to continue our work there (and maybe even plant some seeds for more regenerative projects) - though not until next summer please (an Island Boy can only take so much -30C temperatures!!).Meanwhile, I look forward to enjoying the rest of the summer here getting my hands dirty in some new projects, and then spending the winter in a place where anything below 15C is a two-blanket night…In so many ways, Hawaii is like a miniature R&D testing lab for Planet Earth, a microcosm for many of the common challenges and issues faced by communities around the globe. We look forward to diving into working towards solutions that can be shared, adapted & applied; perhaps to your local region.Stay tuned for more permacultural adventures in moving beyond sustainability, and make sure you subscribe by clicking here if you want to make sure you don't miss any of it. We'll be posting consistently rather than frequently, because 1) we can't even keep up with all the stuff that crowds our InBox either, 2) there's just too much awesome to be done out in the real world, and 3) we don't want to make anyone too jealous about living in Hawaii. ...I jest! (sort of..) Regeneratively, -Matt Lynch & friends- aka 'theGreenBackpack'
The '“Food Security and Innovative Farming Approaches for Mongolia” Project (2010-2013, funded by the European Union) is led by a consortium of two French NGOs: Secours Catholique and GERES, who are working closely to support Mongolian NGO Caritas Mongolia.
The objective is to develop more efficient and diversified ways to grow vegetables at household level, in order to reduce the food insecurity which affects the most vulnerable families (1,000 families in Ulaanbaatar and in Gobi-Altai province).
Activities are intended to develop, implement and diffuse passive solar greenhouses (180 family and community greenhouses and 75 nurseries), improved techniques of soil and water management and bioclimatic cellars. GERES is bringing its technical expertise to the local partner during the first research and development phase on these 3 techniques.
In Autumn 2010, a Research and Display Center was built in the middle of the peri-urban “yurt areas” [['ger districts' - TGB Editorial]] of Ulaanbaatar. The Research carried out in the center aims at testing:
The thermal performance of different designs of passive solar greenhouses.
Potential optimizations for solar greenhouses (ex: hotbeds for early seedlings, thermal storage in water tanks).
Improved soil and water management practices (ex: rainwater harvesting, windbreaks).
Photo: Ulaanbaatar peri-urban Research & Development site for passive solar greenhouse design.
At the same time, GERES has developed a new low-cost passive solar greenhouse design for peri-urban areas of Ulaanbaatar (see picture). The greenhouse size is relatively small (8,8 m*4,4m) compared to “usual rural solar greenhouses” diffused in Asia. The constraints (in terms of suitable space available) are high: the standard size of the plot is small (700m2), with a large amount of available area often already occupied by other structures. Each plot is fenced with a 2 meters wood barrier and the orientation of the plot may not be suitable.
The size has thus been adapted to fit the families’ site constraints while insuring a sufficient vegetable production meeting their needs.
Passive Solar Greenhouses represent a new technology in Mongolia and have aroused a big interest from Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Governmental Agencies, since the project's beginning. This shows promise for this resource’s development in the country.
In this early spring 2011, greenhouses began their first full growing season. Thermal and agronomic performances tested since last autumn are revealing first results that meet our expectations.
Research greenhouses can be used from late February to early December (we have to keep in mind that atmospheric pollution in Ulaanbaatar reduces winter solar radiations).
Photo: April 27, 2011. Inside the Ulaanbaatar research greenhouse.
Family greenhouses can be used from mid-March for direct hardy vegetables seedling (radish, lettuce, turnip, spinach) and beginning of April for sensitive vegetables/fruits transplantation (tomatoes, cucumber, sweet pepper). At this date, greenhouses generally used in Ulaanbaatar (tunnel-type greenhouse) are frozen and usually start to be used from mid-May. Spring is a critical period regarding food security; thanks to these greenhouses, Ulaanbaatar families will be able to consume fresh and nutritive vegetables starting from April.
Thermal performance inside Ulaanbaatar greenhouse from Mar 17 - 20, 2011.
Some thermal data: At mid-March, during cold nights (minimum -20°C), the research greenhouse allows to gain 20°C and the family greenhouse allows to increase the temperature by 15°C.
Prospects: Thermal results will allow us to compare the different designs performances and suggest relevant optimizations. The main objective for 2011 as regards to agronomic experimentations is to suggest a new schedule for farmers, which will be adapted to this longer cultivation season, in order to make a better use of the opportunity offered by the passive solar greenhouses.
Photo: Anne Randall inspects this season's early crops.
____________________________________________
For more information about the “Food Security and Innovative Farming Approaches for Mongolia” Project, contact:
Anne RANDALL
Agronomist/Technical Adviser Mongolia - Country Representative
GERES - Group for the Environment, Renewable Energy and Solidarity
We came across this innovative little piece of appropriate technology developed by Beaverton Rotary during our research prior to the consultancy trip this March which is has been used successfully in other developing nations to start microenterprises:
The device uses a car tire jack to compress locally available organic waste material (such as rice or coffee husks, shredded paper, dried grass or leaves, etc) into a high-density, slower-and-cleaner-burning fuel briquettes.
This could be adapted to Mongolian conditions, although adjustments would need to be made:
Briquettes can only be made during warmer months, when rivers are flowing and the briquettes can dry out.
Water squeezed from the press during the manufacturing process should be caught and used on crops, as this water will contain 'pulp' organic matter that will break down and help build soils.
Suitable organic matter needs to be found: paper waste is plentiful in urban areas, and once trees and/or crop systems are established, the plants may drop enough organic waste matter to be used for briquettes.
Populus laurifoila grow prolifically on the floodplain we crossed en route to Altaitsudz soum.
Once again, we can see how valuable tree-cropping systems can be for creating food security and economic opportunity. Appropriately selected species of trees can provide:
Renewable sources of winter fuels (coppiced woodlots).
Emergency animal fodder (Ulmus and some Salix species).
Human nutrition (fruit & nut trees).
Construction materials (Larch and Spruce).
Bimoass (all of the above species + more), which can be used to protect & build soils (mulches, green manures & biochar) and create an additional fuel supply through biogas (fermentation process).
For more information about the Peterson Press, download this information brochure:
Tilyeubyek 'Bek' Yeltai, Food Security Director for ADRA-Mongolia, confirmed today that the local governments of Ulgii City and Bugat soum in Bayan Ulgii province have awarded two 3-hectare land parcels to the SEAL Project for development into permacultural demonstration and education sites.
"We are working on designs for the parcels now," said Bek. "The land parcels are barren and rocky, but the soil underneath looks rich and moist; they are close to the river, and sheltered by the nearby hills."
The list of 146 useful plant species suitable for growing in Bayan Ulgii's climatic conditions compiled Dr Beket's research team over the last few years will be a valuable resource to support the design for this new development in the SEAL Project.
Establishing large-scale demonstration sites give Project staff another location to conduct trainings, and a place to test experimental designs and techniques (such as plant guilds, worm farm designs, and mycellium innoculation of soils) for their effectiveness before implementing new ideas into the field (where an ineffective design could cause a family to go hungry).
The SEAL Project team will document development of the sites with photography and video (coming soon), to show how quickly a bare patch of land can be brought into production through permaculture and regenerative design.
We'll keep you posted!
Photo: View of Ulgii City, from the base of the surrounding hills.
Resource Alert: Scroll down to the end of this post for a downloadable pdf of 'Useful Plants of Monoglia: A Permacultural Perspective'.
You are invited, dear reader, to participate in an open-source, collaborative project to help conduct detailed research on extreme-cold tolerant plant species which have potential for a wide variety of application in cold climates from Mongolia to Canada.
Dr Beket (the hero of our 'Reforesting the Barrens of Bayan Ulgii' story) and his research team have spent the last few years researching and compiling a list of 146 plant species (mostly tree crops) that can survive (and even thrive) the extreme, sub -40C winters (and 30C summers) of Bayan Ulgii province.
Photo: 'Dictionary of Useful Mongol Plants'
We found the above book 'A Dictionary of Useful Mongol Plants', (Ministry of Nature & Environment and Mongolian State University, 2001) in the ADRA-Mongolia offices during the project consultancy, and used plants listed in this book + selected species from Dr Beket's report to begin the work of compiling a list of our own:
'Useful Plants of Mongolia: A Permacultural Perspective': in which the scientific Latin names are cross-reference with common English names of plant species, while the plants characteristics, funcitions, and possible uses are listed.
Our hope is to create a catalogued database that designers can use to identify suitable plant species for use in their systems - but we need your help.
If you are knowledgeable, or simply want to increase your knowledge of cold-tolerant plant species, and have access to a good internet connection, than you can help to build this database. Choose 10 or more plants from the list below, then download the list we have started compiling (click the 'download' link at the end of this post) to see what information we are compiling, and start your researching & learning!
Email us at theGreenBackpack [at] gmail [dot] com, with 'MONGOL PLANT DATABASE' in your subject line, and we'll send you an Excel spreadsheet template that you can use to compile your own research. Don't forget to record the sources of your information, and in return your contribution will be recorded in the published plant list document as it continues to grow and evolve... you can become a Sustainable Overseas Aid & Development Worker (and contribute to the development of Permaculture and Regenerative design in Mongolia) from the comfort of your living room (or favourite local cafe!).
Resource Alert: Scroll down to the end of this post for a downloadable pdf of 'Useful Plants of Monoglia: A Permacultural Perspective'.
You are invited, dear reader, to participate in an open-source, collaborative project to help conduct detailed research on extreme-cold tolerant plant species which have potential for a wide variety of application in cold climates from Mongolia to Canada.
Dr Beket (the hero of our 'Reforesting the Barrens of Bayan Ulgii' story) and his research team have spent the last few years researching and compiling a list of 146 plant species (mostly tree crops) that can survive (and even thrive) the extreme, sub -40C winters (and 30C summers) of Bayan Ulgii province.
Photo: 'Dictionary of Useful Mongol Plants'
We found the above book 'A Dictionary of Useful Mongol Plants', (Ministry of Nature & Environment and Mongolian State University, 2001) in the ADRA-Mongolia offices during the project consultancy, and used plants listed in this book + selected species from Dr Beket's report to begin the work of compiling a list of our own:
'Useful Plants of Mongolia: A Permacultural Perspective': in which the scientific Latin names are cross-reference with common English names of plant species, while the plants characteristics, funcitions, and possible uses are listed.
Our hope is to create a catalogued database that designers can use to identify suitable plant species for use in their systems - but we need your help.
If you are knowledgeable, or simply want to increase your knowledge of cold-tolerant plant species, and have access to a good internet connection, than you can help to build this database. Choose 10 or more plants from the list below, then download the list we have started compiling (click the 'download' link at the end of this post) to see what information we are compiling, and start your researching & learning!
Email us at theGreenBackpack [at] gmail [dot] com, with 'MONGOL PLANT DATABASE' in your subject line, and we'll send you an Excel spreadsheet template that you can use to compile your own research. Don't forget to record the sources of your information, and in return your contribution will be recorded in the published plant list document as it continues to grow and evolve... you can become a Sustainable Overseas Aid & Development Worker (and contribute to the development of Permaculture and Regenerative design in Mongolia) from the comfort of your living room (or favourite local cafe!).
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