The seed conspiracy

As if organic farming isn't difficult enough, it seems like as in all natural endeavours that don't envolve succumbing to consumerism, major challenges and conspiracies await.

I am not sure that many people are aware but we live in a time where seeds of fruits and vegetables are in danger of extinction. In the race towards making the bigger buck, companies have invented the hybrid seed. I'm not even talking about geneticaly modified seeds.

Hybrid seeds are engineered, albeit not geneticaly, in such a way that the seeds cannot be harvested for the next crop. This means that if you buy corn, as an example, once your corn cobs are ripe and mature to be harvested, you can use the corn for food but cannot save a small amount to re-seed the next growing season. Instead, you need to contact the seed company again and buy a new batch of seeds each year.

Why is this a crime?? For one, it is completely unatural! All plants have always had seeds that could be re-used subsequently (open-pollinated seeds), it is a part of nature and allows the plant to adapt to its environment with every subsequent generation. Only the seeds from the best plants with the desired characteristics are kept in every generation, thus allowing for gradual improvement of varieties, as well as development of new varieties, which are termed as heirloom seeds.

Hybrid seeds on the other hand always remain the same. They are only improved, if so, by the manufacturer, and never adapt to the environment of the farmer. Thus, if new pests emerge, the farmer also becomes dependent on new emerging chemicals that must be used in order for the crop to survive.

Another reason why hybrid seeds are a crime, is because it creates dependency! Farmers need to spend money to get their seeds, which they never had to before. Farmers rely on more chemicals. And in the end the diversity of seeds is lost. While in the past every farmer potentialy had a different type of tomato variety. Now there is only a handful of Comercial varieties.

Lack of diversity is a huge problem in the event of natural disasters or environmental change, like climate change. The more diversity in our food supply the more chance we have of one or more of those varieties to survive or adapt to a natural disaster or environmental change.

I have discoverd this Hybrid conspiracy problem first-hand when looking to find open pollinated seeds for my farm and the farmers I work with. The main agricultural stores sell huge beautiful cans of all sorts of seeds in their fridges. When I asked the guy in charge which ones where non-hybrid, he told me that none of them!
I looked at him in surprise: "none of these are open-pollinated seeds??" He said; " nope". I said do you sell any open pollinated seeds? Then he pointed to a wooden stand mostly empty, with small paper seed packets standing in the aisle, with perhaps two different varieties, and not even in the fridge. Those were the non-hybrid seeds!

I was standing there stunned not knowing what to say or think, say or do. I though about the implications of this. I work with poor organic farmers in the cordilleras of Panama. The only thing keeping them from producing expensive crops like tomatoes and peppers is lack of seeds. And if they do find their way down to town to Melo, the most comon seed provider in the country all they come across is hybrid seeds.

I take a can of seeds out of the fridge and carefully inspect it. One whole side is covered in fine print, giving all sorts of restrictions of how these seeds may or may not be used, since they are proprietary. I gasp at the horror. I no longer see beautiful cans full of seeds, I now see something as gruesome as mutilated animal heads all lined up neatly in that fridge. That is what it has come to ladies and gentlemen! Freedom is being striped away from us from all sides. Even with something as important as our right to grow our own food.

The Tierra Preta Project part 5- enjoy

Here are some nice before and after pictures of our vegetable beds that we started a few months ago. They are now growing young lettuce.

Adventures with Bokashi

Recently I discovered that while I was waiting for my compost heaps to be ready, local organic farmers always had a surplus of organic fertilizer. So much so, that they even sold it in bags.

I then discovered that what they were making was bokashi. Honestly I felt quite embarrassed for never having heard of it before. But once I put my pride aside and began to research it I realized why this was such a common fertilizer technique.

Bokashi is a Japanese term that means, fermented organic matter. In essence it is similar to compost with some major differences that sets it apart.

Firstly bokashi is made with very fine starter material such as bran (rice or any other) coffee hulls (the by product after removing the bean), chicken and/or horse manure. This material is very fine, and thus decomposes or ferments quickly.

To this certain mineral additives may be added such as wood ash, bone meal and or rock phosphate, and/or ground limestone.

The most important ingredient however is good soil. Bokashi generally uses a large percentage of soil, typically 25% of the total mass. The best type of soil to use is dark forest soil. This acts as an inocculant of good microbes that aid in the fermentation product.

The ingredients are mixed thoroughly and moistened. The moisture content is very important. when the mixture is squeezed in the hand it should clump together lightly but not drip. If it soggy, heavy, or dripping it is too wet. If it doesn't clump at all it is too dry.

the mixture is kept dry but well aerated. So it must be under a roof or lightly cover with plastic. It can be kept on a bare floor or concrete for easy turning. The temperature of the bokashi will raise rapidly, and so it must be turned and aerated at least twice a day for the first week. Also the bokashi pile should not be higher that 50cm.

In the first week the bokashi heats up tremendously, this is ok as long as it doesn't get too hot. It should not get as hot as the compost pile. So 40 degrees Celsius max.

The life of the bokashi is such:

The first day it heats up tremendously
within the first week it stays hot and begins to smell of fermentation (a very distinct odour)
Next it begins to cool but maintains the odour.
Once the pile begins to cool, it is dried, until the odour disappears.

What you are left with is a rich, lush compost like material full of beneficial organisms ready to aid in the assimilation of nutrients from the soil for the plants.

Off I go to Malambo today! Looking forward to seeing how I can use my knowledge to help the orphanage create an integrated agricultural system to feed its children!

Our pasture rotation project with forage trees for sheep

Well we have just finished our pasture rotation project with forage trees. The project consists of turning an approximately 1ha land that was once bush, then damaged pasture land into a sustainable pasturing system that can withstand more than 50 sheep without additional feed for and indefinite period of time with little maintenance.

We subdivided an approx 1ha plot of land into 21 approx. 650m2 enclosed paddocks. I realize we spent a lot on good quality fencing, but realy and truly this fencing should last for many years with proper care.

The paddocks are arranged in two sections of strips which are parallel to each other. In between the sections is an access road which also serves as a paddock in itself.

The paddocks where planted with improved tropical pastures. We couldn´t afford to buy seeds, so we actually propagated cut grasses from neighbouring farms. With permission of course.

We lined the fences with live fencing of Balo (Glyricidia sepium). Balo is a legume, which not only aids in nitrogen fixation but is a very nutritious supplement to the diet of most pasturing animals.

Under the Balo we planted white mulberry (Morus alba) shoots, which are extremely easy to propagate and don't mind the shade once the Balo grows. The white mulberry is nutritious and fast growing which doesn't mind grazing.

Next outside of the fence, as a funcional ornamental we planted hibiscus shrubs (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis). We plan to feed the animals the cuttings. Sheep and goats are crazy about hibiscus!

Next inside the pastures we planted some Guachapalí trees (Samanea saman) . Guachapalí is a slow growing tree, but grows huge and gives a nice shade wich doesn't seem to discourage the growth of grasses. It maintains moisture in the earth and provides substantial biodiversity in its canopy. The leaves and fruits are edible.

We also planted lots of Moringa (Moringa oleifera) trees. These can be grazed or cut. We kept some for cutting and shade and some for grazing. The Moringa tree is truly miraculous! It is highly nutritious full of Calcium vitamin A and protein. It also acts as a soil improver since it is a legume and is extremely fast growing. The trees we planted about six months ago are already more than 8 feet tall! The great thing about Moringa is that all parts of the tree are edible, including the beans that it produces, and it remains green even in the worst part of the dry season! And best of all it is very tolerant of grazing. The only thing I have noticed, is that sheep need to get used to it. They touch it more in the dry season when they have little of other greens.

We are still expanding on our forage trees planted in the pastures. Soon we will be planting Leucaena which is not very easy to come by for some reason. Leucaena is another legume that can withstand foraging. We plan to plant it in rows among the grass.

Guacimo is another native tree that is nutrious and loved by sheep. We have it growing wild and is apparently also easy to propagate. We are planing to introduce it along the fence, perpendicular to the Balo.

All these forage plants can be accomodated in the paddocks easily with some imagination. We have already mentioned a great variety and yet there are still twice as much out there which grow either native in this area or can be found relatively easily. Variety is the spice of life they say, and in nutrition I do believe it is essential!

For the summer we have an irrigated protein bank next to the pastures of about 650m2in which we grow Guandú (pigeon pea), black eyed peas (cow pea), amaranth. Guarúmo and Acacia mangium we have all over the farm which is cut and given to the sheep.

Now if could irrigate the pastures, then we would be set, however, the purpose of these investigations is to make it accesible to most farmers, plus we don't have electricity nor city water.

The maintenance of the system is such that, whenever the sheep leave a paddock, we remove manualy all weeds, and reseed any bare patches if necesary. This work actualy becomes less and less with time, because the grass does not get damaged in the short period of time that the sheep are there and has ample time to recover. The weeds soon have little space to seed since the ground is densely planted with grass.

We also fertilize with Super 4 broth every two weeks during the rainy season. Super 4 broth is a liquid fertilizer whith an array of micronutrients, that we make at the farm. It is very easy to make. More on that at a later post.

Our system should work for 50 sheep or more (I will let you know how it goes when I get there). At the moment we have 20, and we rotate them about every 7 days, or when the grass has all been eaten. This gives us almost 5 months between grazing for each pasture. This is actualy too much, idealy we graze every 2 months in the rainy season and every 3 months in the dry season. This means that we can double the amount of sheep in the area so they rotate about every 3 days. For this reason we actualy sometimes have to hurry them along and cut the remaining grass.

So 50 sheep within 1 ha is quite a good amount as compared to the information I have seen on 10 sheep per acre in other posts. This would be the equivalent to 25 sheep per hectare.

This system essentialy should provide all the necesary nutrients for the sheep to thrive. It also allows farmers to have a high density of sheep without the need to feed them artificialy. The system also includes ample amout of trees which provide shade, retain moisture, produces microclimates, increases biodiversity, enhances soil stability, improves soil with leguminous trees, controls erosion and provides space efficient "vertical grazing". All in all the most eficient animal management system I have found to date.

soil analysis results

Well, our soil analysis came in. Although the micro nutrients where not done. They said the machine broke! You got to love Panama!
Although there was no big surprise in what the soil is lacking it was quite a surprise to see the difference between the amended soil and the virgin soil.

Here are the results:

Soil sample %sand/loam/clay pH P K Al OM%
Virgin 48-16-36 5.2 - 39 2.7 1.6
Amended 42-22-36 5.3 10 160 1 2.89

To no big surprise, we have little or no phosphorus in the soil, but are doing well with potassium. That is why our peppers and tomatoes suffer, while our bananas our growing spectacularly! Our organic matter has increased significantly and the aluminum has decrease significantly. Those are the most important!

So I have since begun to amend with bone-meal. Bone meal is quite inexpensive and easy to find. There is some limited availability of phosphorus rock in this country but it is quite expensive.

I am also working hard to bring the pH up a little by adding limestone and the charcoal which is mixed with ash also helps.

I have also since, realized that some plants like corn and tomatoes actually prefer raw manure than compost. So I have tried that with good results.

The new plots of land prepared for planting now get:
Lots of charcoal, limestone, bone meal and compost and/or raw manure. I never use raw manure on plants that are low to the ground like lettuce and other greens. And our manure is recovered from rotating pasture.

I will post pictures soon of our new veggie gardens.

The magic compost Mix

Compost is vital for nutrient depleted soil, however in the tropics, nutrients tend to leach out dramaticaly and the addition of any kind of fertilizer is highly inefficient.

Therefore charcoal aka pyrogenic carbon, biochar is vital in tropical soil systems.

Charcoal can be added directly to soil or into the compost heap itself. First we beat the charcoal to get it to small particles of no more than 1cm in diameter, then we mix about three sacks or more into into the compost pile. The compost pile also consist of vegetation, kitchen scraps and animal manure. We also add two layers of calcium and two layers of phosphorus rock dust. This mixture is mixed well with added water to get the optimal moisture for decomposition and placed in a one meter by one meter wide compost pile maintained by sticks (picture coming soon)and piled about 1.5 m high. The compost is checked for temperature and moisture periodicaly and and only mixed and re-moistened if deemed necessary.

Temperature is important and I like to make sure it gets very hot especialy when using manure (from our farm). By monitoring the temperature I can determine what stage the compost is in. I monitor it by inserting a machete into the heap and leaving it there for a while. Once I remove it I consider it hot (thermophile stage)when it is so hot that I have to remove my hand quickly, and I consider it warm (active stage) when the machete doesn't feel burning hot but comfortably warm to the touch.

Idealy when the heap cools down it is inocculated with beneficial bacteria (more on that later) and worms. Finding worms in my area has been a challenge so that is something I have been able to do yet.

Here I post a picture I took a few days ago when I sent my soil to be tested. I have two samples, one is virgin soil from our farm that has not been manipulated, and the other is treated soil (two years old), with carbon and organic fertilizer. It has only been fertilized twice in the last two years.

The Terra Preta Project, Step 3 and 4

STEP 3:
Once the piggies have done their magic, the earth is mixed with our magic tropical compost mix, and covered with mulch. If using regular compost or organic fetilizer, then charcoal must be added and inoculated with microbial broth. All of this will be discussed later.

STEP 4:
When the soil has rested / incubated a little bit, the next step is to plant green manure. My preference is beans. These beans are then cut just before flowering. The plant is left on the soil and eventualy incorporated.

This step can be repeated as many times as deemed necesary, and depending on the organic composition of the soil. If the soil lacks most topsoil or organic portion of soil this process may take a few years. In my experience if the compost is good, the soil reacts pretty quickly although it will take years before it will become ideal.

The Terra Preta Project, Step 1 and 2

How to convert a dry/waterlogged, poor soil landscape into a lush rich garden!

Here we are starting a whole new project on converting poor soil, with hard tufts of grasses into useable agricultural soil. The soil is highly weathered clay, with non existing top soil, which becomes waterlooged and sticky during torrential rains, and dry packed hard soil during the dry season. The area is extremely dry with intermittent rainfall in the rainy season. This picture was taken at the end of the dry season.

The name Terra Preta is derived from the soil fenomenon found in the Amazon basin. These earths appear to be anthropogenic and have been studied in recent years, to find out why this soil, apparently created by ancient indian is so fertile and black even centuries later. We will be using some of those techniques in this system later on.

STEP 1.
Create an interconnected swale/water hole system.

Swales are constructed perpendicular to hills. These swales collect rainwater and carry it along at a 2% grade across the land. At each junction a water hole is constructed, from which another swale carries the overload across the land in the opposite directtion. Water holes can also be constructed in between junctions to allow collection of excess rain water.

Then end result is a zig-zag system of water channels which not only prevent erosion, but deposit the water in numerous water holes along the way before draining away into a nearby stream. The water is therfore maintained in these holes which allow moisture to seep into the surrounding soil between rainfall, or can be used for irrigation when necessary. This swale system will also be used for drainage later on.

STEP 2.
Put piggies to work! Pigs in piggy tractors, are put in place to excavate the soil little by little. If it is desired to do the work faste, one can use more pigs, in more tractors. The pigs are showered daily and the soil moistened, upon which they begin their work. The grasses are uprooted, and the end result is loose brown soil complete with pig manure!

Companion planting corn and beans

Here is a good example of companion planting.
corn thrives being planted with beans, in this case green beans. You actually put the corn and the beans seed in the same hole, and voilá!

The corn provides a trellis to the bean, and the bean fixes nitrogen for the corn as well as maintains humidity. One of our first crops while improving the soil after planting only beans, was corn with beans.

Our New Bunny House

Well, weve just constructed our first large scale bunny house. None of those independent cages that your used to seeing. I first saw the design in another blog that showed a picture of bunnies, in a bunny house in Morocco.


The bunnies used to be in bunny tractors, but that quickly became a problem because, first the females like to burrow in the ground for their nests, and if the tractor keeps moving they cannot establish their den. The other reason is also that burrowing in the ground of a movable cage is not ideal, as the bunnies carve holes large enough to escape or be endangered by dogs or other animals.
The other problem I noticed is that the rabbits become very wild in that environment and not very socialized, nor do they receive enough space for running around.

This new house has cubicles all around the house while the interior stays open to socialization. We made a 10' x 12' wooden frame, wraped in chicken wire from the inside. We burried the wire about 2 feet deep cemented into the ground. An 18 inch tall frame of sticks was built around the emerging wire. Onto this frame and wire support we proceeded to add "barro" or earth/clay with grass to make an 18 inch tall wall all around. We didn´t use cement because That would have heated up too much with the sun and would have caused the cubicles to be really hot. At the same time we were making blocks of earth stabilized with grass. The dimensions of these are 18"x18"x4". The cubicles were covered with 10' long boards.
The roof is a really nice clay imitation roof that we painted brick red.

Once the blocks were all dry we placed them in their locations to make 15 cubicles. We then smoothed and filled in the walls and cubicles with a water clay earth mixture. We then proceeded to fill the entire house with enough dirt to raise the floor about 3" to 4". The cubicles were then secure not to tople over. A bedding can be added on top like rice husks which we made an order for but still have not received. In the social area of the middle is where the water, fresh food and pellets and hay are put.

The house can be raked easily to clean, and the cubicles have access through the roof or by removing the clay blocks.

Once we added the bunnies, they were extatic! The moms with their young babies quickly picked their den. The babies started to explore all the cubicles with eagerness, hopping and skipping and running around with glee. Once we added the young immature females, they started jumping all over, including on top of the boards, looking at their million dollar view. All in all success!

The breeding males are kept separate, and the young males are separated once they start producing their scrotum and just when their testes descend, to the bunny tractor until they are large enough to slaughter, along with the older or unreliable females. We place the mature females one by one into the breeding males cage, for one day, and one night, then add them to the house.

We haven't had any moms give birth there yet, so I will coment on that when it happens. But as far as I now, they will burrow into their den, and slowly the babies will emerge as they grow.

The story of our raised circular beds

Here are pictures of our constructed raised beds. The last picture is of when we just started constructing them, the first two are of the finished beds. They are circular raised beds. We designed them that way for more delicate crops where we can adjust the soil according to the needs of our plant and to enhance drainage. Sandy our ridgeback is standing on the terraces that we started this year. And you can also see our rustic "semillero" construction where we plant our seedlings and extremely delicate crops like lettuce.

The soil in this area is a heavy clay, which gets very sticky in the rain. There wasn´t much growing on it except some tuffs of grass and weeds as you can see. I picked this area to start my garden, because I felt like it had moisture from infiltration of a nearby creek and because it is on the edge of the forest. I´m a big believer in planting on forest edges. I find that the ecology there is more vibrant and productive. This is why I believe that including trees in agriculture is so important.

The first year (2006) I planted beans everywhere. I cut the beans just before maturing seeds and left them on the ground as green manure since I had no other kind at that point.

The following year (2007)I did the same, although I harvested a few dry beans for personal consumption and for replanting of them. That year we also planted the beans in the paddock areas, where they grew very poorly. The beige beans (frijol chiricano blanco) grew far worse than the red ones (frijol chiricano rojo). The plants of the beige beans remained small and yellowish, however produced aboundant seed. The plants were cut and left on the ground again. That same year we also planted improved pasture in our pasture area. It gre quite well but not very dense in some areas.

I repeated this same process in 2008. We also planted a few yucca plants around the area.

By 2009 we decided to create the circular raised beds. We excavated the earth with an excavator and hand shaped them into cirular raised beds in an attempt to reduce erosion, reduce water-logging and improve drainage. I realize this is not the most economical way to prepare the earth but I wanted to prepare some controled environments for my experiments.

We prepared the soil with bags of charcoal which we obtained from our neighbours who make pottery, as well as chicken manure. We used about 5 sacks of each in each 5m raised bed. Rocks were placed around the beds to secure them. I didn't originaly plan on them being so tall but that is what the workers did when I wasn't supervising but taking care of my then newborn baby and two year old.

Last rainy season I discovered though that drainage was still a problem so I have to find a way to find a solution. One way would be to mix sand or sandy soil into our mounds. I had originaly considered that but the cost is quite high.

When we first excavated I kept an eye on what native bug spieces we would find. I didn't see much except for ants and termites. This year however when we introduced irrigation tubing into our beds, we had excavate a small amount of each bed abd found for the first time nothing else but earthworms!!

I was very excited. I keep working hard to enhance the soil organic matter. I try to keep as much leaf litter as I can on the beds to decompose. As the soil organic matter increases it becomes very obvious that the soil quality increases. The soil has changed colour drasticaly from a red to brown. The texture is more loose and a little less sticky than it was originaly. It gets less packed when dry and less boggy when wet. I now that the charcoal was a necesity. We didn´t put charcoal into one of the beds, and although it had chicken manure the plants on it showed signs of iron deficiency and/or toxicity, and the earth remained red. It was quite a drastic difference actualy.

Our new semillero

The dry season is bringing with it a lot of wind. The wind is so bad it is eroding our mounds and even blowing away our seeds. So I decided to make a new lettuce bed in our wind protected "semillero".

On the vital importance of soil health!

Traditional farming relies on stripping the earth bare to pant the seeds that will be harvested in a few months time. In the temperate regions these bare fields are left as such to overwinter. This may be its saving grace since it allows the earth to rest until the next growing season and regenerates to some extend the soil biota.

In the tropics however there is a whole different story. Farmers try to emulate the farming in temperate regions with often devastating consequences.

The advantage of farming in the tropics is that one could potentialy use the land all year round. The disadvantage is that the soil horizon is highly unstable due to torrential rains in the rainy season, high heat and sun and drought in the dry season. Soils get eroded quickly and the most of the fertile portions of the soil gets washed away into rivers when left exposed.

Regardless of the climate however, I fear that conventional farming has completely ignored the biological factor of soils, as being vitaly important in not only the health of the soil but consequently the health of the people connected to the soil. As the Biochemist Rene Voisin has stated last century already, Human health and illness is directly dependant on soil health. Nowadays farmers are primary concerned with 3 nutrients NPK. Nitrogen, phosphorus and Potassium. How naive we must be to believe that an organism as complicated as a plant has needs so simplistic that we can round it up into three letters!
Of course some other micronutrients are occasionaly considered by farmers, however often when fertilizers are concerned NPK becomes the norm.

When is soil organic matter ever considered? How igonrant we are that we simplify nature som nuch so that we may consider oursleves master tamers of "the beast".

Nature is vastly more complicated than we give it credit for. And soil organic matter must be nurtured constantly since it is the "breastmilk" of our plants. Soil Biota are which allow soil organic matter to thrive. A complex cocktail of bacteria, fungi, yeasts, molds, worms, ants, and so many other insects are involved in nutrient cycling in the earth. This small biosphere must bu protected and nurtured at all cost. Now if we put a caustic chemical sucha as urea (a nitrogen source) onto the soil, would it not damage the sensitive balance of organisms that exist? Now imagine pesticides, herbicides, the entire agro- farmaceutical arsenal at the disposal of the farmer. We are poisoning our own nutrient sink of which all our well being depends. Because that is exactly what our soils are to us. Everyting we need to live, to thrive to function, is contained in the nutrient sink of our soils. Plants are the builders of the molecules that we need. But the building blocks come from nowhere else but... soil.

Tropical Agriculture

We have been totally disconnected from where we come from and who we are on this planet. It is so sad to see that most of today's children believe that food comes from a carton in the supermarket rather than nature. It has gotten to the point where people consider nature as an entity to fear and conquer rather than the source of our being and well being.

Here in Panama I see so many people leaving their land, selling it for any possible money to pay their drinking debt or merely have $$$ mostly unaware of their property´s actual worth. This phenomenon was one of the reasons why the Panamanian real estate market shot up so tremendously. Poor farmers where selling their land for peanuts to eager expats taking advantage of the opportunity to relieve their home tax burdens. So these farmers then hurry to set up in the city where they struggle, work in ill paying jobs and perhaps even end up stealing to get buy. People especially young people do not see the importance of their land. They don't realize that everything they need can be found there.


The other day my husband found two enormous books that answered all our prayers regarding organic land use, they were manuals on organic agriculture written pure and simple on all possible topics. One was a manual on animal husbandry and related topics, while the other was on agriculture. Both written in Spanish and for all climatic regions. These are the most extensive books that I have seen on the subject. However, together they cost close to $300. What concerned us is that the people that most benefit from this knowledge, the poor landowners, do not have access to this type of information.

We have a farm where we cultivate organic produce for our own consumption and the excess we sell as organic baskets to a small clientele. Around our land are numerous poor people who don´t even have latrines or showers. They bathe in a small creek that goes dry in the dry season. This is also the same creek that they use as a toilet, as do numerous people up the creek as well as down the creek. These people make pottery for a living so that they may walk about 5km to the nearest store to buy food which in most cases are cans, dry beans and UHT milk. These people don't cultivate their land except for the occasional yucca and plantain plants. Some also have scrawny little chickens running around. Most however have been fooled to believe that they land is worthless for farming or that it costs a lot of money in fertilizer and pesticides to make anything grow.

One of our neighbours does grow some crops, however he first uses herbicides to kill anything on the soil prior to planting and then sprayes pesticides to kill anything after planting. I'm sure that this is no different from a farmer in a developed country. The difference is though that, one; tropical soil cannot handle this kind of treatment before quickly degrading into something useless, and second; this farmer needs to be relatively well off the be able to pay for all these products.

Tropical soils need to be handled with care, and ironically the easiest and cheapest management of tropical soils is the healthiest and most productive. Soil organic matter is of prime importance, it is necessary to maintain it above all costs. How to do so? Mulch, compost, don't till! Always maintain soil covered, leave dead plants there! Always fertilize with mature compost of plant as well as animal origin. Don´t over till the soil once biological organisms have made their homes in the soil due to the enrichment of soil organic matter, leave them there! Protect them at all cost!

When we bought our farm and began our agricultural project which I call the Tierra Viva Project, there was not one earthworm to be found. And even though we have never added a single one, we found our soil full of them only a year after beginning the projet in a given area.

It is worth mentioning that charcoal is also a major help in managing tropical soils. Charcoal prevent a lot of nutrient leaching and enhances growth of soil organisms. I researched this many years back when I did a research project on a phenomenon called Terra Preta.

In summary, poor landowners would benefit from taking advantage of their own land to supply their own food and perhaps even shelter.