News
from the Mini Farm, Friends and Colleagues
This is the fourth growing season for the joint
Ecology Action/Golden Rule Special Internship Program,
and the soil and plants are beginning to thrive.
Some of the corn is 15 feet high and often, as you
walk on a path between beds, you are surrounded
by a tunnel of vegetation.
- Three presentations were given in the Willits
area to acquaint county residents with Salik and
Yaquobi, the two interns from Afghan, and the
proposed Afghan GROW BIOINTENSIVE project. About
$4,000 has been raised locally, plus another $1,000
from an anonymous donor in the Bay Area, of the
$42,000 budgeted for the 18-month Phase One of
the project.
- We received a report from Wycliffe Mabonga,
a graduate of Manor House Agricultural Centre
who was a six-month intern at the Willits Mini-Farm
in 1997. Printed here are slightly edited excerpts
of his report:
Kenyan Biointensive crops
2000
Currently I am working with community groups,
individual farm families and church groups. Through
facilitation, consultation and trainings I have
managed to set up a GROW BIOINTENSIVE mini-farming
training centre (70-bed unit) at a project known
as LINK-AFRICA. This is a community-based organization
charged with the responsibility of supporting and
caring for the HIV/AIDS, the infected and the affected
people supporting the orphans, the widows and vulnerable
children. Through LINK-AFRICA I am conducting weekly
trainings on Biointensive techniques and at the
same time sensitizing community people on the HIV/AIDS
scourge. Basically the trainings offered to groups
are geared towards food-raising techniques and income-generating
activities. Since November 2003 I have managed to
train seven community groups and thirty-five individual
farmers.
As the millenium wheel keeps revolving, unemployment
still befalls many MHAC graduates after a two-year
apprentice program course. For the last six years
I have been identifying some of the MHAC graduates
who have not been absorbed or employed. I have brought
together six MHAC graduates to form a networking
organization known as Community Agriculture Environmental
Support Services. This six-member organization is
charged with the responsibility of working with
the poor resource farmers in food-raising initiatives
in rural communities. Every member works with farmers
groups and individual farmers within the community
he/she hails from.
- This is part of a letter we received from Cameron
Miller of Santa Maria, California:
I was one of the participants in the Workshop
in March. While I have allowed a few months to pass,
my time with Ecology Action has long stayed with
me. I was the guy who kept fighting the soil during
your double-dig demo. I was trying to push the blade
through the earth. You quite patiently and persistently
didn't let me do that. At one point, I was able
to let go, stop driving, and allowed the weight
of my body to guide the spade into the earth. The
action was as effortless as a knife through soft
butter. I wasn't thinking, just doing. I found that
moment scary (giving up control) yet also exuberant
as it was freeing.
Since returning from the workshop, I completely
redesigned my garden in my urban backyard and fit
in almost 475 sq ft of double-dug beds. I'm still
not very good with double-digging, but I'm no longer
afraid of it, and I'm not fighting myself so much.
Thanks for your patience and not allowing me to
give in to my fears.
As I have had time to think more about it, in
some ways that experience in your experimental garden
with double-digging was like a metaphor for my life.
I have always been drawn to working with the earth,
finding a connection and meaning that is absent
in most other types of "work." But I would
struggle with gardening. My past gardens, even after
I turned to organic practices, were labors of struggle.
I felt a need to try to force things and felt defeated
when unsuccessful. When people learn that I'm double-digging,
they think it's a lot of work. In a sense it is
a lot of work. But I'm finding that as I learn to
work with the soil, a kind of connection with the
soil develops that is very satisfying. Words don't
exactly capture what I'm trying to say, but I think
you'll understand.
- We also received feedback from four people from
Cornell University who attended the Three-Day
Workshop John Jeavons gave in Spring Grove, Pennsylvania,
in May:
- We are finally sending our belated but very
sincere thanks for your generosity during the
conference in Spring Grove. Together we presented
a talk about our experience to many other grad
students and faculty that generated lots of good
discussion. In fact we have been asked to give
another presentation this fall. On a personal
note, I know that any of us who attended and returned
to start our garden, started things off with a
double dig and have used the books for reference.
- I've got raised beds in my neighbor's backyard!
(We're kind of sharecropping since we have no
space.) I've experimented with many of your techniques
and am having a lot of fun. There is a lot of
interest at CU on the GROW BIOINTENSIVE method.
- I've had numerous discussions with people here
since coming back about lots of bits and pieces
of what we all discussed/heard about in PA. Thanks
very much and pass along our thanks as well to
the Moores.
- Thank you for your generosity and all of the
insights, perspectives, and stimulation of thought
you provided for us! I really enjoyed the workshop
and have installed a little double-dug lettuce
bed in my tiny front yard. I've had lots of discussions
about this with people-it's been great.
- We received a note from an architect who is
working on self-sustaining modular villages in
Afghanistan and South Africa. He stated that these
villages will "stress Biointensive agriculture
in an effort to create economic and energy independence
for the citizens." This is particularly interesting
to us since the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees
in Ecuador was so impressed with the Biointensive
gardens that refugees from Colombia had created
in the Amazonia area of Ecuador that he wanted
to recommend that all refugees in Ecuador use
the method.
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