Les Foodingues

While everyone focusses on important space missions, we have put NASA’s space shuttle to work for agriculture thanks to our colleague Alain Gachet.

During its’ revolution around the earth, the space shuttle is scanning the earth surface with a radar which penetrates down to 30 meters under the earth surface. Then these images are analyzed and worked on with sophisticated softwares. Alain, is an engineer from the Ecole des Mines de Paris, explorator and geologist who has found petrol for Elf/Total during 20 years. He knows about the earth morphology better than anyone. The imagery of the shuttle helps him to peal literally the earth like an onion, displaying all its layers.

Thanks to this work we can find water for the farmers.

For our project in Peru, in Lambayeque, to reabilitate a desertic land which has been worn out by years of ill agricultural pratices and overgrazing, this technique has brought back water in a sustainable way :

Here is the 30 000acres domain on the surface satelite image.

Then we come to the radar satelite image to understand the geology of the place and how water organises itself : where are the water collector bassins, in which direction and where exactly they go; the exact GPS points where to dig and at which deapth can we go without hindering long lasting reservoirs.

Here we take into account only the sustainable reservoirs which are apermanently affluent. We do not touch at all the permanent reservoir which could fear any danger of disappearing and caus a long term catastrophy in case they disappear.

On the above image we are following water underground. At the surface, on the photo below, nothing shows.

Deeper, we go minus 30m meters underground.

By using this technique which he developped Alain has found water for the refugees in Darfour. the United Nations by the director general of Unesco have just officialy thanked him for saving more than 300 000 réfugiés in Darfour. From now on the Pentagone is preparing with him missions to find water in Irak, Afghanistan, Somalia…

Concerning agriculture the images treated by Alain also allow us to understand how the soil functions : to understand all the erosion process going on.

Example in Argentina : her we see South America from the space shuttle.

The dark squares are apparently sites that the army doies not want us to see. Lets get closer to where we work :

Closer. Her we have targeted a little to high; we arrive just in the lake where goes all the water of the estancia we are advising.

Lets get closer and play with the image so that we can understand the geological process, teh different rocks and the impact of water on the spot. First an image to get a global view on the whole region.

This image shows the climat impact on the domain.

All the water comes from the Amazonia. Our destiny is totally dependent on the fate of the forest. All the Eastern side of the mountains are green and our land is on the boarder with the desert. Our position is very fragile; therefore we have to find all the buffer solutions possible against climat change. This image points it clear, it should be our utmost priority. We must bring back this land to green, which on the satelite it is not for the moment. Plant trees and better management of the water ressources.

Lets get closer.

This land is dreadfully less green than it should be. Far less than the spaces untouched by man. What has happened?

Toute l’eau du domaine se dirige vers B’ et l’on dirait que rien ne pousse là.

Etudions les coupes de terrain que nous fournit la navette depuis l’espace :

The whole land is in total erosion. We have here alluvions which are all taken aay by the river: look at the cross sections to better understand the process :

What on the ground seems flat is absolutly not in reality. Giving the fragile composition of the soil, at long term everything can collapse to become a canyon. We must protect the sites which already shows sign of transformation in canyon. Avoid all kind of treading by the cattle in some area. lets get closer:

If we do not act, everything is going to collapse gently. We must avoid all kind of chemicals, forbid glyfosate, stop weeding. In order to prevent erosion we must count on any plant possible to retain the soil.

Without any ground experience we would not be able to understand things that way of course, but the images from the shuttle, the knowledge of Alain and his imagery, allow us to set our priorities. We are experiencing a true revolution for agriculture and sustainable development.

The Space Shuttle is comforting us in our choice for natural agriculture the way Masanobu Fukuoka used to do it : to understand nature by all means and turn it into an ally to cultivate and feed man.

While the French foundation to compensate carbon is teaching the world how to behave to avoid high carbon emissions in the atmosphere, with lots of communication and financial partners… A drama is taking place just under our eyes south of France… In Camargue the rice fields are being tilled and sunk under water, which is provoking the equivalent of a traffic jam under the Paris Arch of Triomphe for every acre… In Camargue we are talking of millions of acres which are releasing green house gazes which are participating in the global warming.

It seems here, like people are walking on their heads. Scientists tell Camargue is a place which will disappear under the sea level in 30 years… and they do everything to accelerate the process…

Organic or not they till the soil and sunk it under water … hopefully labour is costly here otherwise they would do like in Asia repiking the plantlets of rice… All this when the famous Japanese farmer Masanobu Fukuoka has been saying for forty years that you don’t need to do this to cultivate rice. One can raise the crops of rice efficiently by cultivating the natural way. Please read his book « the one-straw revolution ».

The natural agriculture when it comes to rice consist in : sowing rice associated with grains of a leguminous plant (clover for example) in a field of high grass ; then cut the grass ten days later while spreading the grass cut on the field to create a mulch on the surface. Then ten days before harvesting sow the next crop also associated with a leguminous seed (barley together with alpha alpha or any other) ; never let the soil nude, always enrich by itself at each crop. Instead of leaving your field nude in winter you get another crop.
According to Fukuoka, the techniques of sinking the rice field under water and repicking rice has been created by the Japanese Shoguns to avoid peasants rebellions while putting them at hard work.

One question as important : where have disappeared all the carcasses and the animal flours of the mad cow scandal ?

In Camargue again… something even more perverse has been invented for the rice culture : since March, thousands of big 500kg bags are sitting along the rice fields waiting to be spread on hundred thousands acres of rice fields : organic fertilizer they call it according to a decree 2092/91 modified (interior law from the French ministry of agriculture)…  Here is what is becoming of the carcasses at the origin of the BSE problem ( Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis) better known as mad cow disease … These animal flours are now used to feed the rice, organic or not…

It was yet amazing to have organic rice cultivated with the water of the Rhone river at the same time when the river was forbidden to any fishing and swimming because of the excess of pathogenic PCBs for human beings.
So now you have the rice fed with animal flours, which is also labelled organic. Who knows if these animals have had any antibiotic or any compulsory anti parasite injection ? Still organic ?

Prions, are ultra resistant cells, pointed out as a cause of the mad cow scandal, are they really destroyed by the process used to make the fertilizer ?
Nothing seems really sure as they add the caption « do not let animal pasture the field 21 days after spraying » … don’t you remember about animals eating animal flours ?

Here in Camargue these huge sacs are everywhere, along the fields, near the houses, in the mid of the « Mas » the local farms… and it smells of cadaver… dogs and foxes have broken some sacs and ate a bit of the mixture… they don’t do it twice. Our little fox terrier almost died the other day after tasting it.

But the worst is not that this fertilizer is used in rice culture ; it is also very popular among a majority of organic vegetable producers… just imagine, it is labelled organic fertilizers.

But let us come back to reason. Once more we are spreading NPK fertilizer without knowing if the soil needs it. We are cultivating without before understanding the dynamic of the soil. We use standard recipes systematically without trying to know what nature is already purveying to help the farmer. Maybe one day somebody will listen to the old Japanese Wiseman who is having record crop after record crop while using the natural way, while here we are experiencing a decline of production year after year. Maybe it is time to think instead of repeating the same process everywhere. Save our soil for the future generation.

Oh, just one more action for the planet : the products for the fields here in Camargue are also sprayed by helicopter… the big mosquito of the Camargue which sprays the fields surrounding the houses, with a big cloud of toxic product.
In one house you hardly hear through the open window a baby crying …  I dont know if this helicopter is carbon compensated but I’d rather let you appreciate its’ agility. The pilot is probably one of the best in France, or at least the one who cumulates the more flying hours.