Close to the Ground
Keeping You Up-to-Date on the
Art and Science of On-Farm Monitoring
Summer 2000 • Vol.2, No.1
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Close to the Ground
Keeping You Up-to-Date on the Summer 2000 • Vol.2, No.1 |
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The growing season is upon us and how welcome it is! Some of us dabble with tomato and marigold starts. Others of us have cows, sheep, goats, even pigs and chickens on grass.
There are woodland wild flowers in the leaf litter, the perfume of warmed soil in the air. It really is a lovely time to be outside. And it would be difficult to pay attention to the landscape without
stepping both feet upon it.
Our cover story takes us to Brazil and farmer cooperatives attempting to stabilize their incomes as well as their agricultural resource base. Author and researcher Irene Guijt of the Netherlands uses the Monitoring Tool Box in her work with them. She and the farmers call their monitoring a process of learning from looking "on the ground." Be it said in Portuguese, Dutch, or English, it translates well.
Of note: as part of our continuing effort to spread the word about monitoring, this newsletter is now featured on our web site at www.landstewardshipproject.org.
...And the Pasture Vegetation chapter for your Monitoring Tool Box is in the final editing stages. We expect to ship out your copy within weeks.
...And last but not least, note that two day-long field schools on grazing and monitoring will be held in mid-September in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Give a call to LSP’s White Bear Lake office for
details.
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Looking "on the Ground"
Tracking Change with Farmers in Brazil
story and photos by Irene Guijt
[Ed. note: Irene Guijt is a Dutch researcher based in Brazil and the Netherlands. Her purchase of the Monitoring Tool Box triggered a conversation about monitoring in other countries, which
led to this abbreviated article about Irene’s work with farmers and agencies in the municipality of Araponga north of Rio de Janeiro. Thanks to Karen Benson for making the connection.]
Since January 1996, several organizations in Brazil have been developing a participatory monitoring process to assess the impact of their sustainable agriculture initiatives.
The work is motivated by needs in planning, reporting, dissemination, and policy. But also, farmers want to know if their efforts "‘are making a difference." For these poor farmers, increasing income immediately has been as important as ensuring a stable natural resource base for long-term agriculture.
The question, "who will use the information to do what?" shaped the monitoring project along three lines: monitoring to stimulate farmer experimentation, monitoring of alliances and pro-sustainable agriculture policy-influencing, and farmer-group monitoring of on-farm experiments.
A farmers’ trade union, a non-government organization, and a nearby university’s Department of Soils participate together, with a mission of stimulating regional development that is more ecologically
sustainable and socially fair. Five different activities are being monitored for now:
1. Field trials with traditional maize varieties, to enhance farmer independence from seed companies and to support agro-biodiversity;
2. Honey production and collective marketing;
3. Production of a mineral salt to improve cattle health and reduce input costs;
4. Agroforestry, to increase the number of products and stabilize income over the year, and to reduce erosion;
5. Biodigital, a form of medical diagnosis for ailments that are treated with medicinal plants, popular because of its low cost and important in terms of plant biodiversity.
A wide range of indicators has been followed over the past four years, with some being adjusted to be more precise, more relevant, or easier to collect. Some indicators were dropped as being too time
consuming to monitor. The monitoring itself generally happens at a collective level. This brings many other benefits than just the data that is collected.
For example, participants found that the agroforestry work put too much emphasis on ecological gains in erosion control and biodiversity, while labour demands were high and returns on production were too slow for cash-poor farmers. The findings have led to farmers and scientists radically adapting the model to mix economic and ecological benefits.
In another example, bee-keepers realized through joint monitoring that they represent a considerable source of honey for the trader and can therefore ask for higher prices, which they have done.
What is clear is that this is no overnight process. The results have provoked everyone to rethink the entire municipal development plan. Tracking even a handful of changes has made them realize that
their assumptions about how change would happen in the municipality were not always correct, and that development is a process that requires continual adjustment of plans as a result of learning from
looking "on the ground."
Irene Guijt has recently bought a home in the Netherlands and says she is staying put for awhile. She can be reached by mail at: Bredeweg 31, 6668 AR Randwijk, the Netherlands; by telephone at (+31)
317-483910; or by e-mail at guijt@worldonline.nl
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Farm Plans Work—But Write Them Down!
by Mark Simon
[Ed. note: Farm Beginnings is a program of the Land Stewardship Project with the mission of encouraging new farmers and a sustainable farming landscape through education and on-site training. It
has just placed its third class of ‘graduates’ into mentoring farm positions.]
I was a member of the first Farm Beginnings class three years ago, after being involved in farming for more than 25 years. Before joining the class, I had come to the conclusion
that there has got to be something out there that can help me. I was a one-year grazier, but I still was looking for something to help me focus.
One of the classes I took (as part of the Farm Beginnings series of classes) with my wife, Mary, was on farm plans. At first, the class didn’t do much for me because I always felt that I had a plan in my head.
But on the way home, we discussed the class and decided to have a written farm plan.
This past year, I have realized several of my short-term goals.
Farm plans work.
Mark Simon and his family own Meadow’s Pride Farm, a diversified grass-based organic dairy near New Prague, Minn. Mark is an active member of the Sand Creek Watershed Team, and he and his wife,
Mary, can be reached by telephone: 507-744-5108. Karen Stettler coordinates the Farm Beginnings program. She can be reached by telephone at our Lewiston, Minn.,
office, 507-523-3366, or by e-mail: stettler@landstewardshipproject.org
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Now THIS is Monitoring
Look, listen, and learn…and touch, smell, and see for yourself, is how Mike Schmitt thought this compost pile should be dealt with during a field day on the subject.
Schmitt is a soil fertility specialist with the University of Minnesota Extension Service. His hands-on discussion addressed the specifics of decomposition, nitrogen management, manure composting, and the three-year system designed by dairy farmers and hosts, Jeff and Pam Riesgraf.
Teaching by doing, his enthusiasm led participants to get down ’n’ dirty—the essence of good monitoring—to learn that weather, microbes, and time had turned the pile into a highly desirable product.
The field day led to the writing of a four-page fact sheet on manure composting, which is available for free through the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (MISA). MISA’s toll free
telephone number is 1-800-909-MISA (6472). MISA and the Land Stewardship Project collaborate on monitoring initiatives such as the Sustainable Farming Systems Project (SFSP), which co-sponsored the
field day. For more information on water quality research and economic monitoring components of the project, see the Summer 1999 and Fall/Winter 2000
issues of Close to the Ground.
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"Because of their sensitivity to changes in water quality and land use practices, managing frog and toad populations can help you assess…"
Your Monitoring Tool Box has a dandy chapter on frogs and toads and this is a fine season to take another look at it. There are some practical guidelines on where and how to lend an ear to herpetofauna as indicator species.
But wait! There’s more—in the form of a cassette of calls and a water-proofed identification sheet to help you put a name to the croak. If you really get hooked, the chapter includes two handfuls
of reference books and web sites to sate your appetite…all the while singing the "mud, mud, glorious mud" song in your deepest most bullfrog-like voice!
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from Ignacio Villa, Middlefield, Ohio:
…Hopewell Inn, my employer, is a farm-based therapeutic community for people with chronic and severe mental illnesses. We operate a small dairy farm, and try to practice seasonal dairying.
My dream is that monitoring could be an activity that would help us engage our residents and help them enhance their feeling of belonging to the farm and the community—in my view, the real healing force. But I have found that in general, our residents are too ill to relate to the exercise. Recently, I have been working with a few residents who raise my hopes that this could happen.
Ann Clark (Ed. note: a grazing specialist at Guelph University) is in Ohio on a sabbatical leave, and she visited us a few weeks ago. I am hoping that with her, I can develop some ideas about things that we could do. Your (Monitoring) Tool Box should be very helpful here as well.
Best regards…
from Audrey Arner, Montevideo, Minnesota:
…The grass is coming on well. I’d thought it was earlier than last year, but then referred to our last year’s grazing record, and found that we started moving the cow herd on April 22
in ‘98. I’ve been encouraging our team graziers to use a grazing record as a preliminary step to (eventual) grazing planning…
from Andy Hager, Medford, Wisconsin:
…Thanks so much for sending the Tool Box update materials. I’ve gotten some interesting "update reactions" in the form of, "I’ve had my (frog) tape out and
so far, I’ve identified four different frogs and toads this Spring!" These guys are having so much fun with aspects of monitoring, goal setting—all the stuff that "farmers never
do." We call that IMPACT.
Thanks again for the materials and your efforts toward sustainable agriculture. Keep the faith…
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We could use your help assembling our third reprint of the Monitoring Tool Box. Please contact Caroline
at 651-653-0618 if you have an hour or several to lend a hand at the White Bear Lake office. Thanks!