ah

It's been a while since I last blogged, it seems I'm otherwise occupied with many varied but hard to pinpoint thoughts, tasks and activities. The farm is entering a more dormant period with the rains and change of light. Here, being 9 degrees north of the equator, we don't experience such dramatic solstices, we still have close to 12 hours a day, but the quality of light is different.

My pumpkins while still flowering will not set. The cranberry hibiscus having put all its energy into flowering is dying back, the malabar spinach is dropping leaves. It's a time to back down, weather the wet and take a moment out of the crazy growing spiral that is the rainforest.

In the orchards the mondu (Garcinia dulcis) is still fruiting, the araza has dwindled to one or two malformed fruits and my beloved champedak is almost done: each harvested fruit smaller and lighter than the last.

We are harvesting vanilla for the first time and I will post about that. And our salak is strong too, today in the kitchen I'll be drying the salak and making mondu jam.

Otherwise we've been busy going back and forth to San Jose for various appointments. We took part in a 'Sustainable and Fair' faire last weekend, it was very good. We were the only vendor there selling dried fruits and cacao and we sold out of everything but jam. It was also a good opportunity to connect with others and we have a couple of new clients from it. There were a lot of craft and artisan vendors selling some really nice things from shoes to masks, and several indigenous vendors selling heirloom grains and medicinals. And all of it fair trade and 'sustainable' (whatever that means). The faire is bi-annual and is by invitation only. I hope we are invited to the next one in May. Oh one more thing, the President was there and bought some jam and fruit from us. Does that make us by presidential appointment?

eating locally

The Farmers' Market is becoming increasingly important to me, not simply the social enjoyment I get from sharing time and space with the other stallholders and our friends and customers, but the whole ideology behind the market: eating fresh local foods produced by fresh local farmers who know their dirt and love their land. (long sentence)
I've long been an advocate of harvesting my own food, whether it's something I've grown or something I've foraged, the simple joy never fades. I'm lucky and blessed to be able to make a living from this joy now.
Our first newsletter focused on support of the farmers' market and enthused about eating locally. Now I'm excited to be putting together the second with editorials continuing the theme and gardening info on which edibles work best in this area: I hope this becomes a series with each newsletter talking about a specific fruit, vegetable, medicinal or spice. I'm an avid reader of websites like Sustainable Table, Via Campesina/ Food First,Slow Food, which brings me to this post.

December 10th is Terra Madre Day - a day to celebrate local foods, sustainable and fair agriculture and the abundance the earth is prepared to offer us day after day:

"Slow Food is launching Terra Madre Day around the world, to be held for the first time on December 10 this year. Slow Food convivia, Terra Madre food communities and all people supportive of our ideals are invited to organize an event, however small or symbolic, in your local area.

By taking this opportunity with passion and inclusiveness, we can achieve one of the largest collective occasions celebrating food diversity ever achieved on a global scale,

A global revolution can only grow from local roots, and together our community actions will help build opposition to the misguided approach of agribusiness.

We invite you to let loose your creativity and make December 10 a memorable day, encouraging and supporting sustainable food in your corner of the world. It will give us all a boost and renewed pride in what we are doing locally, while knowing that we are part of a world network for change."

We'll be doing something here to celebrate, not sure what yet, but I'll let you know. Have a look at what's happening near you!

Camellones - Chinampas in Bolivia, from the BBC

Bolivians look to ancient farming


The project may help to cut down on the need to clear forests

By James Painter
BBC News, Trinidad, Bolivia

Poor farmers in the heart of Bolivia's Amazon are being encouraged to embrace the annual floods - by using a centuries-old irrigation system for their crops.

They are experimenting with a sustainable way of growing food crops that their ancestors used. It could provide them with better protection against the extremes of climate change, reduce deforestation, improve food security and even promise a better diet.

These are the bold aims of a two-year-old project being carried out by a non-governmental organisation near Trinidad, the capital of the department of Beni.

The system is based on building "camellones" - raised earth platforms of anything up to 2m high, surrounded by canals. Constructed above the height of flood waters, the camellones can protect seeds and crops from being washed away. The water in the canals provide irrigation and nutrients during the dry season.


Pre-Columbian cultures in Beni from about 1000BC to AD1400 used a similar system.

"One of the many extraordinary aspects of our camellones project is that poor communities living in the Beni today are using a similar technology to that developed by indigenous pre-Columbian cultures in the same region to solve a similar range of problems," says Oscar Saavedra, the director of the Kenneth Lee foundation.

He experimented for six years in his own garden to develop the complex system of hydrology.

Ancient and modern communities face the same problems - regular flooding followed by drought.

"The floods were the basis for development and the flourishing of a great civilisation," says Mr Saavedra.

There were bad floods in 2006 and 2007, but last year the region saw the worst flooding in at least 50 years. The floods affected some 120,000 people - a quarter of Beni's population - and caused more than $200m (£119m) of damage.

That experience prompted many local women to enlist in the camellones project.

"I had planted rice, maize, bananas and onions on my plot of land. But the water left nothing," explains Dunia Rivero Mayaco, a 44-year-old mother of three from Puerto Almacen near Trinidad.

"I lost my house too. We had to live three months in temporary accommodation on the main road. The children got ill there. So that's why I am working here on the camellones. I didn't want to lose everything again."


The canals remain full after the floods recede

About 400 families are now enrolled in the project in five locations, growing mainly maize, cassava and rice.

Many of the sites are still in an experimental phase, but the early signs are promising. Productivity appears to be on the increase.

"These camellones will help us when the floods come," says Maira Salas from the village of Copacabana, a 20-minute boat ride down the river Ibare.

"Crops like bananas that die easily have a better chance of survival. We are only just now learning how our ancestors lived and survived. They did not have tractors to build the camellones, and they survived for years. It's incredible."

Villagers are encouraged to embrace the floods and see them as a blessing, not a curse.

During the rainy season, large expanses of land in Beni are under water for several months - except for the raised areas. When the water recedes into the tributaries that run into the Amazon, it takes nutrients with it leaving a sandy brown soil in which it is difficult to grow crops.

But in the camellones project, the water left by the floods is harnessed to bring fertility to the soil and irrigation during times of drought.

In short, from being victims of the floods, poor people could become masters by turning the excess water to their advantage.

International charity Oxfam is supporting the project in part because it offers poor people the possibility of adapting to climate change.

If, as predicted by many experts, the cycles of El Nino/La Nina are going to increase in intensity and frequency, then the project has the capacity to help poor families cope better with the extreme weather events and unpredictable rainfall that are to come.

"It should not matter when the rains come as the water can still be managed at whatever time of the year," says Mr Saavedra.

Other potential advantages of the scheme include:

* The system uses natural fertilizers, and in particular an aquatic plant in the canals called tarope which both purifies the water and acts as a fertilizer when spread over the soil
* The canals can also provide fish stock, animal fodder and nutrients for the soil
* The camellones can act as a natural seed bank which can survive flooding
* The system can reduce the need to cut down the forested areas around the communities. This is because the soil on traditional plots of land is often exhausted after two to three years. This forces the farmers to clear more land for planting by cutting down the forest.

All this seems too good to be true.

Some of the women say the real test will come when there is a bad year of flooding or a severe drought. So far, 2009 has not been one of the worst.

There are other huge challenges ahead. One is to try to provide the families with an income from tomatoes or garden produce. Another is to overcome the scepticism from some local people about the time and physical effort invested in the camellones compared to other sources of local employment.

Mr Saavedra is convinced the camellones project can be expanded, even to other countries.

"This process could be repeated in various parts of the world with similar conditions to the Beni like parts of Bangladesh, India and China.

"It could help to reduce world hunger and combat climate change," he says.