Part 5b: Regenerative Farming and Land Stewardship
Ok, But What Can I Do? Information and Inspiration towards Nature-Based Land Stewardship Perspectives and Practices
Continued from 5a…
Anne: That sounds like y’all need to be very transparent across your team.
Can you tell me some of the primary considerations for making decisions around land management practices?
Jesse: Context is everything and each decision needs to be vetted against that unique context. We use the decision-making framework of different scales of permanence starting with the climate. So first and foremost everything within the climatic conditions of weather, precipitation, sun, solar radiation, heating days, chilling days, fog, wind, fire — and then the human element. So, what kind of policies, rules, and regulations? What do the neighbors think - are there sound ordinances or visual appeal? All of the climate that surrounds the project needs to always be understood when there’s a decision being made.
Then we’re looking at the geology and geography of the property. Where are property boundaries? What’s the slope look like and where does the water go? What are the sun aspects? Where are the shady spots? Where are the sunny spots and where is there wind exposure? The geography of the property has a lot to say.
Then we look at our water systems. Water is life. So everything seems to come back to “What can we support through precipitation (rain, fog, mist, dew) to support living systems?” How do we access water? What is our level of access to water? Irrigation is needed in months that don’t coincide with when we get precipitation — so where’s our supplemental access to water? What’s the quality of water? What’s the availability of water? What’s the cost of water?
Then we look at access. Access means a lot of things. It’s how we actually get to the farm. Is it easy for people to visit and move in and out of the farm? Are the rows wide enough to move equipment and trucks, and humans with baskets though? What is the market access -- how do you get products off of the property? Where does it go? Who buys it? What’s the visibility of the work you’re doing? Do people care about your story?
Climate, Geography, Water, and access are all considered before you even move into the actual forestry part: the living things, the trees, the animals, the fungi, all the things that you can decidedly place there, and manage there, and grow there. None of that is decided upon necessarily until you fully consider all of the other things. All things considered (climate, geography, water, and access) could lead you to design an agroforestry system, but if you didn’t consider access to markets that would actually buy these crops because they were only culturally relevant to other parts of the world, you’ve missed a huge component to your system. It’s like going through that process and deciding to run cattle in India. You really forgot about a huge piece there. Understanding all those components is going to help you understand how to design your agroforestry system.
Then comes the built infrastructure. Where do fences go? Where do shade structures, processing houses, facilities, storage, and farmworker housing -- all need to be considered as well.
There are multiple levels and layers that we go through below that (soil, economy, energy, etc.), but those discussed are the top ones we really go through when considering how to design and manage the system.
Jesse Smith Building a Static Aerated Compost Bioreactor
(image source: https://www.whitebuffalolandtrust.org/our-work-1)
Anne: All those layers sound like there’s quite a bit of nuance that is needed when deciding to do one thing over another, but as long as you continue to decide within the local context, for the shared goals of land regeneration, you can’t lose.
How do you feel about composting?
Jesse: Nutrient cycling is a key component of everything we do — understanding where those nutrient streams come from, where their highest and best value is, and how to capture subsequent trophic layers to be able to put them into the right systems of our farm. We do both a thermophilic (hot) composting system — quick turnover of piles. These compost piles are able to process larger quantities of biomass, more quickly and provide a great “top dressing” of compost and work well for amending potting mixes, or for use in amending tree systems when putting them in the ground.
Steaming Hot Compost Piles
(image source: http://growmyownfood.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/hot_composting.jpg)
We also engage a compost bioreactor system. The system was designed by Drs. Johnson and Su and New Mexico State University. It is a static aerated compost bioreactor - so airflow is not forced air, but keeps us from needing any electrical onsite power -- it’s a flow-through system on a raised palette. The system provides the ideal conditions for a fungally dominated compost. It also utilizes worms, so it is partially a vermicomposting system as well. It is very inexpensive, so it is readily available to a wide range of land stewards, and it is built on top of palettes which are a readily available resource, and allow for a modular platform -- so they can be built in one place, and moved to another if need be. The outcome from that process is highly biologically diverse, fungally dominant, and able to be used in multiple formats as an inoculant (both as a root drench and as a foliar spray).
Anne: How far out is the vision for this land you’re stewarding?
Jesse: We always think about what happens after we’re gone. Not necessarily us, as the current land stewards, but us as a human species. If humans decided to move elsewhere and left the management of this property, would it be damaged to a point where it would then need to spend a lot of time and energy recovering? Or would a point of regeneration where other contiguous places/properties would be benefitted from the spread of the functioning of this property? We also think more short-term around the next land steward. Are they going to appreciate the decisions that we made (the shade, the ants traversing our paths, the fruit provided from the trees we’re planting now, and the economic viability of the system we’re building — does it add value to the property?)? In the shorter term, we’re thinking about how to increase cash flow in subsequent years. How much value can we provide towards the functioning of this system, while also having a harvest that will be able to support our continued management of the land? So we have a 200-year vision in place, while also holding the 2-year vision in place.
Anne: Do you have any advice for new land stewards?
Jesse: Fall in love with a component of being a land steward. Once you fall in love, it is really hard to distract yourself from the importance of that work. Right now, it is an all-encompassing thing for me, because I love food. I love eating food, I love growing food, I love sharing food. I believe that culture is best experienced through the ceremony. Each person who is a truly great land steward is in love with at least one component of their role as a land steward.
Visual of White Buffalo Land Trust Demo Site
(image source:
https://www.whitebuffalolandtrust.org/)
Anne: As a person of color, what are your thoughts on how we might increase the diversity of land stewards and farmers in America?
Jesse: I think that everyone would have a different response to that, regardless of background, race, or demographic. I think that one of the processes that I’ve been going through for quite some time now is trying to trace back my own relationship with the land, through the lineage of my father, grandfather, and forefathers, and come to terms with that history — and not bring forward that anger, but also not bury that story. I think there’s a piece of reconciliation that needs to happen where we, even though it might be full of demons, that we not demonize the history of what has occurred, where it has led us now, and how this world works that is still based so heavily on an extractive culture of human enslavement and disenfranchisement.
It is why I’ve been doing more research into my roots in the Caribbean and Jamaica, my family that still lives there, and the land they still tend there. I’m also doing more research on the history of cotton in the US as a way of trying to uncover what is still implied by the fact that we’re able to buy a cotton t-shirt for $9.99. What happened when we went from extractive slave labor to extractive chemical and machine labor? What have we, essentially, succumbed to because of that desire to still have access to cheap cotton? Where do we go next? Is it still cotton that we should rely on? What are other fiber options? What is the true cost of fiber production? There are all these questions that I’m still grappling with myself.
I’m avoiding answering the question directly because I always hate to assume that I can speak on behalf of anyone other than myself. I can only give you my story -- I can’t speak for all people of color. That’s obvious. But, as a person who identifies as half Jamaican and half Californian, who grew up a mixed child, it is something that I will constantly wear as a badge of burden, as well as a badge of honor. There are certain expectations and there are also certain opportunities that arise because of who I am and how I look, and the checkbox that I get to check. I think that respecting the individual and addressing the circumstances of individuals realities is a good start, but I don’t have the right answer, that’s for sure. I just wanna be part of the continual search for the right solutions.
Wooded Agroforestry Trail at White Buffalo Land Trust Demo Site
(image source: https://www.whitebuffalolandtrust.org/)
Anne: Jesse, it has been a pleasure to talk with you today. Thank you very much for your time.
This is part 5b of the manuscript I drafted for the final project of my Biomimicry master’s degree. I feel it could help you to understand the impact that each of us can have on our hyper-local ecosystems as we step toward stewardship practices that heal the soil.
— Anne LaForti —
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