Solarpunk Farming

Jason Baldes drove down a dusty, sagebrush highway earlier this month, pulling 11 young buffalo in a trailer up from Colorado to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. His blue truck has painted on the side a drawing of buffalo and a calf. As the executive director of the Wind River Buffalo Initiative and Eastern Shoshone tribal member, he’s helped grow the number of buffalo on the reservation for the last decade. The latest count: the Northern Arapaho tribe have 97 and the Eastern Shoshone have 118.

“Tribes have an important role in restoring buffalo for food sovereignty, culture and nutrition, but also for overall bison recovery,” he said.

The Eastern Shoshone this month voted to classify buffalo as wildlife instead of livestock as a way to treat them more like elk or deer rather than like cattle. Because the two tribes share the same land base, the Northern Arapaho are expected to vote on the distinction as well. The vote indicates a growing interest to both restore buffalo on the landscape and challenge the relationship between animal and product.

• Cocoa production in Côte d’Ivoire began in the 1950s in forests bordering Ghana, and progressively shifted west as trees were removed and soil exhausted. Côte d’Ivoire lost 217,866 hectares of protected forest from 2001 to 2014 to monocultures of it.
• Now, the region where cocoa can be grown is shrinking due to climate and rainfall patterns: agroforestry is the sole way ensure that it can continue as the mainstay crop of the economies of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, so it’s time to ‘go big’ on implementing it widely.
• Agroforestry cools the microclimates on farms and increases climate resiliency and biodiversity, but is a complex, time consuming technique that varies by region.
• Careful selection of tree species and spacing are critical to maximize yields, which is a key problem to solve toward wider adoption of agroforestry-grown chocolate.

archived (Wayback Machine)

archived (Wayback Machine)

Global food systems are responsible for around one third of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions each year.

Producing less meat, using less synthetic fertiliser, stopping food waste and integrating nature into farms are among the ways that scientists say can reduce environmental harms from producing food. However, some critics of these approaches note the possible trade-offs, such as lower yields compared to “conventional” forms of intensive farming.

Various terms are used to describe these more “climate-friendly” ways of farming. Some of these practices have set definitions and are evidence-based, while others are buzzwords whose meanings vary depending on the source. Many share similar approaches.

To break through the jargon, Carbon Brief has identified 25 commonly discussed climate-relevant farming methods and key terms.

Agroforestry is recognized as a way to boost local biodiversity, improve soils and diversify farming incomes. New research suggests it may also benefit nearby forests by reducing pressure to clear them.

The study found agroforestry has helped reduce deforestation across Southeast Asia by an estimated 250,319 hectares (618,552 acres) per year between 2015 and 2023, lowering emissions and underscoring its potential as a natural climate solution.

However, the findings also indicate agroforestry worsened deforestation in many parts of the region, highlighting a nuanced bigger picture that experts say must be heeded.

Local social, economic and ecological factors are pivotal in determining whether agroforestry’s impacts on nearby forests will be positive or negative, the authors say, and will depend on the prevalence of supportive policies.

archived (Wayback Machine)

archived (Wayback Machine)

By 2020, the global capacity of PV energy had climbed to 760 gigawatts. Much of this came from installations in leading regions like Asia, Europe, and North America. Most systems were built on open ground—often farmland—stirring concern over their effect on food production and ecosystems.

The widespread use of agricultural land for solar farms has sparked fears of shrinking crop yields and harm to biodiversity. Rural communities have voiced worries too, pointing to risks like fewer farming jobs and increased depopulation.

To ease this tension, researchers have turned to agrivoltaics—an idea that dates back to 1982. This dual-use method allows solar panels and crops to share the same land. Early designs let sunlight reach the plants underneath, preserving growing conditions.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20851278

archived (Wayback Machine)

Dr. Johnson lives in a self-constructed stonehouse in northeastern Arizona up on the Little Colorado Plateau near Kykotsmovi Village, about a 90-minute drive from Flagstaff. This area is a semi-arid environment, receiving six to 10 inches of annual rainfall a year, which isn't much. While conventional crop scientists insist that a farmer needs over 30 inches of annual rainfall a year to grow corn, Hopi dryland farming challenges this assertion. Hopi farming techniques are designed to conserve as much soil moisture as possible. For thousands of years, Hopi farmers have grown corn, beans, and squash in this harsh environment, and Dr. Johnson is working to ensure that Hopi dry farming traditions continue.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20767631

El híbrido FHIA-18 del grupo AAAB, es un banano con sabor a manzano, agridulce, similar al Prata Anâ del Brasil. Es rústico y resistente a enfermedades. Se consume fresco y procesado. Se encuentra en producción comercial en Cuba y en Perú.

¿El mejor banano del mundo?

Un cultivo indispensable y alimento de primera necesidad... pero más delicioso.

Our desire to preserve is strongly linked to a narrative of loss, both for biodiversity writ large and for rare heirloom seeds. But we recognize the need for biodiversity and destroy it in the same breath. What if we protected the Amazon instead of just the genetics within it? What if we supported small-scale diversified agriculture instead of industrialized monoculture?

Seed preservation has a place, but it’s not the thing that will save us. Heirloom seed keepers attempt to preserve the past, while plant breeders control genetic resources to commodify the seed. Neither camp is particularly focused on how to expand biodiversity into the future, as if biodiversity and seed varieties are fixed and finite things.

Compounding this problem is the climate crisis, which is dramatically affecting our ability to grow food. Diversity is a core component of resilience, so we need rapid, ongoing and diverse adaptation of our regional food systems – everywhere, all the time. If we’ve been preserving all these seeds for some imagined future need, then the need is now. Arguably, it’s already too late.

archived (Wayback Machine)

Ancient practices hold important lessons for farmers facing drying lands, but they were often more complex than modern societies realize. Glacier loss adds to the challenge today.

Ancient beliefs, behaviors and norms – what archaeologists call culture – were fundamentally integrated into technological solutions in this part of Peru in ancient times. Isolating and removing the tools from that knowledge made them less effective.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20514746

photos by Lumicon

This plant should not be thriving in this environment. It is growing on compacted oxisol in an area that gets over 4 metres of rain. Yet here it is, growing completely out of control. Nothing makes sense. Climate change?

At the foot of Pakistan's impossibly high mountains whitened by frost all year round, farmers grappling with a lack of water have created their own ice towers.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20461336

Source

It's aimed mostly at commercial growers, but it gives a useful overview for anyone new to growing fruit. Topics covered include growth rhythms, propagation, pruning, pollination, and harvesting.

Best read in conjunction with:

• Propagating and planting trees
• Agroforestry
• Abundance Agroforestry
• An Illustrated Guide to Agroforestry
• Natural succession of species in agroforestry and in soil recovery

Archived (Wayback Machine)

So there's a lot of info on growing food and whatnot in solarpunk settings. But is there info on medicine? Like, is there anything that's both scientific but DIY on making your own medicine past just basic herbs? But with ingredients you can grow or process yourself?

I'm not very knowledgeable about medicine at all, so I might be missing obvious things.

Traditional methods benefit hundreds of species but as new agricultural techniques take over, the distinctive haystacks mark a vanishing way of life

Hi there. It was requested that I post an update of my chicken after advice was sought for her lesion.

She was in quarantine for a week and literally on the first day began to immediately look better.

Sorry for such a late update. Enjoy the picture of my Daughter's hand raised hen that follows us around the garden.