A polyculture of wheat grown with walnut trees produces ~ 40% higher yields.
1 hectare of wheat/walnut mix yields the same as 1.4 hectares of each crop grown separately.
This is an example of overyielding.
Overyielding is when a polyculture (multiple crops grown together) produces higher yields than equal areas of the same crops grown separately.
Other benefits of wheat and walnuts polycultures:
–Trees provide shelter for the wheat from wind, rain, temperature swings etc.
– Tree roots recover and utilize nutrients that leach beyond the wheat's root system.
– Trees add organic matter to the soil with roots and leaf litter
–Tree growth is accelerated due to wider spacing, equal to ~80% more growth in the first 6 years.
These systems also offer a huge potential for carbon sequestration, improving water cycles, and conserving soils.
There are 220 million hectares of wheat worldwide.
Imagine the economic and ecological impact of incorporating trees at this scale.
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Before Captain Cook landed, the populous Native Hawaiians were entirely self-sufficient and produced more food using less land than modern Hawaiian agriculture.
Here is a quick tour.
Native Hawaiians developed the ahupua'a system, a geographic unit used to delineate a specific land management and food production area.
Each ahupua'a started as a narrow point high in the the volcanic peaks, spreading wider like a slice of pie as it descended towards the sea.
A single ahupua'a spanned a cross-section of the island’s ecosystems and resources.
The ahupua'a was organized around the flow of water. Boundaries ran along the natural delineation of watersheds. From the top of the system to the bottom, water was treated with the utmost care.
It's a common belief that cattle cause ecological destruction.
So common that Allan Savory, whose grazing framework has been used to regenerate 40 million acres, once held this belief.
That is, until he came across the work of a little-known Frenchman
Andre Voisin was a French biochemist, farmer, and the originator of the theory of "rational grazing."
He would spend entire days simply observing his cows' grazing patterns, which led to his breakthrough in understanding how grazing can benefit the land.
Drawing on his observations, scientific mind, and study of related disciplines, Voisin developed a set of guiding principles for what he called rational grazing
1)For grass to achieve its maximum productivity, it must be given a recovery period between grazing intervals
The typical coffee farm applies an excessive amount of synthetic nitrogen – between 200 -300 kgs per hectare, a rate on par with high-yielding corn, the crop with the highest nitrogen demand.
But that's not the most surprising part...
Up to 65% of the nitrogen (N) applied on coffee farms is lost to leaching or volatilization.
The N that leaches through the soil profile makes its way into groundwater and waterways, contaminating the farmers' water sources along with surrounding communities.
The volatilization of synthetic N contributes nitrous oxide to the atmosphere.
Nitrous oxide has an atmospheric warming potential 265x greater than CO2.
Coffee-growing regions are already experiencing climate instability.
Who knew coffee was contributing to its own demise?
Coffee trees cover 11 million hectares of land throughout the tropics.
The production of coffee is facing the perfect storm of challenges that may drastically change the daily reality for consumers and farmers alike...
Farmers harvest ripe emerald coffee cherries by hand and meticulously process them until the seed is ready to be roasted.
These farmers do nearly all their work by hand, from planting and harvesting to processing and everything in between (save for mechanized farms in Brazil).
Most coffee farmers get by on razor-thin margins and often sell coffee for less than their production price.
But, the challenge of producing coffee doesn't stop there.