Greening the desert

Fact is, growing and tending a garden just may be one of the most revolutionary acts any of us can do today.

Today, farmers plant acres and acres of fields with a single crop, stretching nearly as far as the eye can see, broken only by roads and the occasional farmhouse.

Onion field
A morgueFile Free Photo

They spray their fields with poisons to kill every living thing except that lone plant. Then, they spray again with harsh, chemical fertilizers because the soil is now sterile and has nothing left to give.

Tractor pulling spraying equipment across field
A morgueFile Free Photo

Growing a garden that feeds, nurtures and waters itself may be the most radical action any of us can take.

And yes, we just might be able to obtain world peace and end poverty and hunger with our gardens, not to mention lower our own stress levels and improve our health.

Like Lawton, Japanese farmer Masanobu Fukuoka proves we can green deserts with very little water if we return to more traditional, polyculture crop management. He sees the intensive, monoculture farming methods of Western countries as a chief cause for desertification. In a 1986 interview titled Greening the Desert, he tells reporters Robert and Diane Gilman:

Seven years ago I took an airplane for the first time in my life and went to California, Boston, New York City. I was surprised because I thought the United States was full of green everywhere, but it looked like death land to me.

Later in the interview, he explains why food drops and traditional aid are not working in Africa, why we need to give Africans garden seeds, not grain and jobs on monoculture plantations:

The United States is helping the people in Somalia but also killing them. Making them grow coffee, sugar and giving them food. ... The United States is trying to make them bread eaters. The people in Ethiopia cook rice, barley and vegetables. They are happy being small farmers. The United States government is telling them to work, work, like slaves on a big farm, growing coffee. The United States is telling them that they can make money and be happy that way.

As more and more land turns to desert (6,950,245 hectares so far this year, on July 31, 2011; that's 26,824 square miles, and that's a mile wide band wrapping all the way around the Earth with plenty left over), Fukuoka's water-miserly method of planting polyculture seeds is increasingly appealing. He says:

Chemical agriculture can't change the desert. Even if they have a tractor and a big irrigation system, they are not able to do it. ... To make the desert green requires natural farming. The method is very simple. You just need to sow seeds in the desert. ... You have to mix vegetables and trees; that's the fastest way for success.

The article, directly linked in the first paragraph above, appeared in In Context: A quarterly for humane, sustainable culture. Learn more about Fukuoaka on Wikipedia.

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