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HISTORY OF ECOLOGY ACTION
In 1966 Alan Chadwick, English gardening master,
brought his synthesis of the biodynamic/French intensive method
to the US and converted a barren slope at the University of California-Santa
Cruz into a flourishing garden. In 1971 the city of Palo Alto, California
invited Stephen Kafka, Senior Apprentice at the University’s
student garden, to give a four-hour class on the method. Ecology
Action had been started that year and had developed a recycling
program that was so successful it had been taken over by the city.
Members of Ecology Action were excited about the class and wanted
to make the information more readily available to the public. In
January 1972 the Board of Directors approved a Biointensive research
and education project whose purposes would be to teach regular classes,
collect data, make land available for gardening and publish information
on the method’s techniques. John Jeavons became the project’s
director. The Common Ground Organic Garden Supply and Education
Center in Palo Alto was also started at this time as part of the
Ecology Action organization.
After a five-month search for land, the Syntex Corporation offered
three and three-quarters acres of their grounds in the Stanford
Industrial Park, with all the necessary water. A half acre was kept
for the research garden and the rest became a community garden.
Alan Chadwick visited the garden site and gave us basic advice on
how to proceed. We then attended a series of lectures he gave nearby.
In the spring we started teaching our own classes, based on Chadwick’s
classes and Stephen Kafka’s.
Our work grew out of a concern about worldwide starvation and malnutrition.
If we could determine the smallest amount of land and resources
needed for one person to supply all of his or her needs in a sustainable
way, we might have a personal solution to these challenges. In 1974
we published the first edition of what has become How to Grow More
Vegetables, Fruits, nuts, Berries, Grains and Other Crops than you
ever thought possible on less land than you can imagine, (HTG) based
on our research. The same year we sent out inquiries to 200 alternative
technology organizations around the world, offering our materials.
The only response at that time came from Dr. Seshadri of the Murugappu
Chettiar Research Center in India. After the method was tried out
by village women, it was reported: “This method can be taught
to people with no previous experience of vegetable growing. They
can produce good yields with locally-available resources in poor
soils.”
1980 was the garden’s last year in Palo Alto. Syntex now needed
the space. But while the garden was still functioning, a University
of California graduate student in soil science tested the beds.
He found an unexpected accelerated rate of humified carbon buildup,
a process that normally takes hundreds of years. A search began
for a rural site for the research garden that would also be the
headquarters for Ecology Action.
In 1982 we moved to a site near Willits, California, with conditions
for a garden similar to those experienced by farmers in much of
the world: steep, rocky, with heavy winter rains, prolonged summer
droughts, and a short growing season.
In retrospect, the years from 1976 to 1984 laid a firm foundation
for the expansion and outreach that has marked our work ever since.
Two revised and expanded editions of HTG were published, as well
as many booklets based on our research. HTG was translated into
Spanish, French and German. Gardensong, a video based on Alan Chadwick
and the projects he inspired, was aired many times on PBS-TV, and
magazines printed articles about our work, resulting in thousands
of inquiries. An apprenticeship program was started. Bountiful Gardens,
a mail-order supply service for essential seeds, books and garden
supplies, was launched. We co-sponsored the Third International
Conference on Small-Scale and Intensive Food Production in 1981,
which drew 100 participants from 14 countries around the world,
including China. Polly Noyce, Carol Vesecky and Sandra Mardigian,
soon to play important roles, became acquainted with Ecology Action.
In 1984 the Biointensive method began to catch on globally. Juan
Manuel Martinez, who was director of the Menos y Mejores project
in one of the poorest areas of Mexico, chose the Biointensive system
to teach to villagers after reading the Spanish translation of HTG.
As a result of this five-year project, 2,000 Biointensive growing
beds were established in 67 villages in the area and hunger and
malnutrition were significantly reduced. Polly Noyce, on a trip
to Kenya, bought a former boys’ school four hours north of
Nairobi and offered it to Ecology Action as a site for a Biointensive
project. Ecology Action’s Board approved the idea and the
Manor House Agricultural Centre was started, with a two-year program
for training high school graduates in Biointensive agriculture and
other alternative technology methods. The Peace Corps started using
the French translation of HTG in Togo, West Africa, and has been
using it and other translations ever since. In 1986 Julian Gonsalves,
who had attended the 1981 conference, worked for the International
Institute of Rural Reconstruction in the Philippines. He helped
establish the Biointensive Gardening Project, which initiated 300
Biointensive growing beds on the island of Negros as part of a UNICEF
project for malnourished children.
In 1987 Sandra Mardigian, who had lived in Kenya and was concerned
about the marginal conditions under which rural villagers lived,
began a two-year correspondence with Manor House. She started Kilili
Self-Help Project, which in 1989 began sending groups of farmers
to Manor House for one-week trainings in Biointensive agriculture.
From 1985 through 1989 we published several more books and many
booklets. A PBS video, “Circle of Plenty,” about our
work, was taped and broadcast nationwide. Articles appeared in major
magazines. Ecology Action staff made two teaching trips to Mexico
and Juan Manuel Martinez came to the Willits Mini-Farm for advanced
training. At that time he and John Jeavons strategized the further
dissemination of Biointensive mini-farming throughout Mexico and
all of Latin America. In 1989 the first five-day workshop was held
at the Willits site with participants from the US and Mexico. In
1987 Carol Vesecky took Ecology Action materials to distribute to
contacts in Russia. In 1989 the first five-day workshop was held
at the Willits site with participants from the US and Mexico.
1990 was the beginning of an ongoing series of workshops—many
training people from other countries—which have continued
to this time. That year nine gardeners from Russia attended a 5-day
workshop given by Ecology Action at Stanford University. Ecology
Action staff gave two more workshops in Mexico. 1993 saw the inauguration
of our Three-Day Workshops. As of the beginning of 2005, 1,413 people
from 46 states and 24 countries have been trained in these workshops.
Fernando Pia was a participant at one in San Diego in 1993. An agricultural
extensionist from Argentina, Fernando had been looking for ways
to encourage small-scale sustainable agriculture in his area of
Patagonia. When he returned home he started CIESA and spent the
next 3 years researching the growing of crops using Biointensive.
Since then, Fernando has given regular trainings in Argentina and
Chile and has also trained people in Peru and Bolivia.
In 1992 Juan Manuel Martinez started ECOPOL, a non-profit organization
that has been actively working to spread Biointensive throughout
Mexico and Latin America. In 1993, Ecology Action published the
Russian translation of HTG, which had been facilitated by Carol
Vesecky. In order to help distribution of the book in the Former
Soviet Union, she started the non-profit Biointensive for Russia.
In the years since, the organization has facilitated workshops that
have trained people in Russia, Siberia and Uzbekistan.
In 1994 Ecology Action started training six-month interns, many
of whom are now directing significant Biointensive projects in other
countries. During the last half of the 1990s Ecology Action inaugurated
a Teacher Training and Certification Program to teach teachers who
will teach other teachers, who will, in turn, teach beginning practitioners.
Also, because the term biointensive has come into such general usage,
we initiated the term GROW BIOINTENSIVE—somewhat like a brand
name—to distinguish the system we have been developing for
more than three decades.
In 2000, in order to promote sustainable agriculture and help GROW
BIOINTENSIVE become better known in academic and scientific circles,
we presented the “Soil, Food and People” Conference
at U.C.-Davis. Over 200 people attended, ranging from university
professors to farmers to directors of Biointensive projects, as
well as members of the general public.
Looking back over our history it becomes obvious that things take
time to develop—but that sometimes they can grow with unbelievable
speed. We have remained a small organization by choice, functioning
as a catalyst that inspires and encourages others to take up the
work and run with it. |