Padma and Narsanna Koppula have turned a barren piece of land in Telangana’s Medak district in India into a food forest by engaging the community that lives around it. Here’s their story.
degraded land
The Natural Farmer – Healing Damaged Land
Our Natural Building Blog covers various topics including ways to restore degraded land for growing food and homesteading. The Natural Farmer shares a good story about Peter Ash of Embracing the World who helped restore some highly contaminated land in India. The main story is from 1:57 to 5:41 in case you’re in a hurry.
Turn Deserts into Oases with Mycorrhizal Fungi in Under 10 Years
Here’s the article I mentioned yesterday. The article is about mycorrhizal fungi (commonly called myco). It explains how a research center near Delhi, India turned a salty, rocky soil wasteland into an oasis in under 10 years using plants inoculated with myco. Now they are selling vast quantities of mass produced myco around the world. Today it’s easy to find myco products including myco inoculated compost in most garden stores. Myco can turn deserts, abandoned mining sites and other inhospitable areas into oases as explained in the follow article.
Better to Buy Inferior/Degraded Land Rather than Have No Land
Most people who want to build a sustainable homestead look for the perfect piece of land with good soil for their garden. The trouble is, the most productive land is locked up in profitable farms that’s typically not for sale, or if it is for sale it costs a fortune. This blog post explains one way to solve this dilemma.
Restoring Degraded Land: Growing Crops on Bedrock
This blog post is part of an ongoing series on how to restore degraded land. Good land is hard to come by and often not affordable unless you’re rich. The facts presented here are from the video Building Soil with Clive. His farm in Hawaii was scraped bare with a bulldozer down to bedrock not once, not twice, but three times before he started leasing it. The thought of farming land like this seems hopeless, right? But over the last 18 years Clive has built up 3”- 4” of topsoil on bedrock using the techniques he describes in his video, which are summarized here. He feels his main job is creating good habitat and taking care of the organisms in the soil using primarily mulch and cover crops. It’s interesting to note that he never seems to find time to make IMOs (indigenous microorganisms). Instead, his focus is on creating massive quantities of organic matter to build soil. The results speak for themselves.
The Forest Man of India
“Since the 1970’s Majuli islander Jadav Payeng has been planting trees in order to save his island. To date he has single handedly planted a forest larger than Central Park NYC. His forest has transformed what was once a barren wasteland, into a lush oasis. Humble yet passionate and philosophical about his work. Payeng takes us on a journey into his incredible forest.”