The Agroforester

Altermatives toTraditional Agriculture and Forestry, Third in a Series

The author sees first-hand at the grassroots the necessary natural and human resources, it just needs help organizing, training, maintaining, monitoring and implementing.

Organic, Probiotics, Biochar

When we buy organic fertilizer it is more expensive than the chemical fertilizers.  There is no reason why a farmer need go to the farm store anymore, organic is already on the farm.

Probiotics brings the soil to life using friendly bacteria and a little technology.  It continues to live and give to the plants, sustainably;  no need to visit that farm store either.

Biochar is the product of turning biomass into gas or oil and adding it to crop and forest production systems as a soil amendment.  It has the potential to produce farm-based renewable energy in a climate- friendly manner.  If carbon offset markets develop, biochar can provide income for farmers and ranchers who use it to sequester carbon in soil.  (Victoria Kamsler, Chief Ethics Officer and Research Director at Greenfiniti, March 2010)

Instead of charcoal from trees, biochar can be made in a similar way from trash found on the forest floor.

Bio-diversity

More than 300 kinds of edible fruit grow in the Philippines but traditional mono-farming principles have developed fewer than fifty.  Many of the not so popular have excellent qualities.  The entire diversified forest prospers based upon the inherent benefits of its complex relationships between the two systems of fauna and flora interacting 24/7.

Sustainable Grassroots Economic Development in the Third World

The traditional rice farmer only nets annually about US$800 on one hectare that is for commercial  production.  Conversely, with diversified and sustainable producers (fruit, nut, sap, fiber, medicinal, herbal and biomass) grown organically using agroforestry, he may sustainably net ten times as much within seven years and 10 times that amount in 22 years.

Eradication of Poverty

It took Singapore nearly 30 years to progress from the lowest of Third World countries to First World.  Twenty-two years to progress to First World in the Philippines using agroforestry is not a long time.  Agroforestry can be implemented in each of the 42,005 barangays (villages) eradicating poverty at the grassroots level within 25 years.

Climate Change Mitigation

Everything about agroforestry is a practice in mitigating Climate Change through the carbon sequestration inherent in the process.  Forest carbon sinks will return to the land.

Beautiful sunsets usually mean the air is abundant with particles that belong on the ground, rather than in the air.

Growing Your Own Mini Sustainable Forest Using Biodiversity and Agroforestry – The Tree

1 in a series

The author is speaking from experience and not from the classroom.  There are certainly better ways, especially theoretically, but this system is working within the Third World framework of the Philippines.    

Which Tree?

The Broad Leaf Mahogany is also called the True Mahogany.  It is classified as the American genus Swietenia and belongs to the family Meliaceae.  It is an endangered species in its place of origin of Central America, however it is not endangered in the Philippines.  The tree was introduced by the Spaniards hundreds of years ago and then in 1917 the Americans began an expansion of its propagation and today it is one of the most prevalent species found in the Philippines.  The Department of Environment and Natural Resources recommends its use as its reforestation tree of choice.

Pioneer Tree

True Mahogany is a “pioneer” tree.  It grows where less rugged trees cannot yet adapt to the harsh conditions of barren land that has poor soil.  The Philippines only has 2.7% of its original forest with most of the deforestation having taken place 50+ years ago.  Conservatively, at least one third of the deforested lands remain barren.

Soil degradation results when the ultraviolet rays of the sun constantly beat down upon it and during the seasonal changes between wet and dry the soil erodes, cracks and looses its beneficial microbes.  The remaining soil becomes all but useless.  A pioneer tree, such as the True Mahogany will grow in such soil. 

Why Plant Mahogany, won’t Others Do as Well?

The first forest that we grow is for the primary purpose of soil rehabilitation.  The Mahogany is planted high density, about one meter apart.  They grow quickly and the competition between them for sunlight makes them reach upward.  The leafy portion of the tree is dense and condensed resembling more of a ball of leaves at the top of the trunk rather than a spreading and sprawling tree.  By planting them close together the leaves of each reach the neighboring tree and a canopy is formed within three years.  Although it is only ten feet above the ground it is nevertheless a canopy.

Moisture barriers form underneath the canopy and near the ground.  This is caused by the hot sunlight above contrasting with the cooler air within the shadows below.  The temperature differential is 20°F causing moisture to form along the forest floor only after three years.  This new environment is conducive to the return of the beneficial microbes attracting the insects and they in turn attract the birds which fertilize as they move about.  The older leaves fall from the trees to the floor and begin to decompose and that is food for the earthworms, which return as well.  This cycle takes about seven years to complete. 

Why Not Commercial Fertilizers, etc., Why wait 7 Years?

Traditional methods that are ordinary and customary have been employed in every major development bank project to rehabilitate similar barren lands and each has failed.  Each with feasibility studies volumes thick to support the hundreds of millions of dollars spent.

How Long? How Large?

It took mankind thousands of years to kill the forests and now that we have a method that works and only takes seven years why should we question that?  (This tree is only 12 years old, but well nurtured.)  The Italians grow vineyards for their children and the Greeks grow olives for their grandchildren. 

Why shouldn’t the Filipinos take a generation to build back their forests?  After all that would be faster than any other country, most of which think that a project of a hundred thousand hectares is large. More than 27 million hectares of land used to be forested in the Philippines.  What would a few hundred thousand hectares mean overall?  Not much, less than 1% and using traditional methods, even well funded, such a project is doomed to failure. 

On the other hand, each farmer family with one hectare of barren land can learn how to grow a mini-forest.  It is not grown to replace the famer’s existing cash crops, so why be concerned about earning from the forest during the first seven years?  No need, the land would remain barren otherwise and no income would be produced otherwise.  Why create an issue that does not need to be created?  There are more than two million of these opportunities in the Philippines, now we are talking about reforesting more than 6% or around 2 million hectares and doing it in a way that works.

 Contributors receive regular progress reports and are invited to visit the site.

 

 

Growing Your Own Mini Sustainable Forest Using Biodiversity and Agroforestry – The Sapling

4th in a Series

The Sapling

The three-year-old Mahogany is amazingly re-sealant.  As a sapling it has strength and size.  When confronted with drought it dies from the top first, giving in downward, until the first rain and then it begins growing again from the lowest portion that succumbed to the drought. 

Mortality now drops to less than 1%.  However, when it was in its seedling stage it required the caretaker to water it two to three times weekly during the dry season and provide fertilizer once during the beginning of the rainy season, otherwise mortality was around 60%.  As a sapling it is on its own.

With the use of Biochar, organic fertilizer and probiotics, which are being researched at present we may find very promising results.  There is no apparent reason why the saplings should not receive continued feeding and care.  Where we have provided such the trees have grown extremely well.  The illustrated forest is only 2.5 years old.

 The Mahogany trees illustrated in this photo, taken from the author's balcony, receive watering daily during the dry season and are also fertilized.  They are only 2.5 years old too but in comparison the growth rate is nearly double. 

The ones below, also at the author's residence, are 3.5 years old.  A tremendous difference when watered and cared for routinely.

    

The sapling becomes a tree rather fast and the tree seems to grow even faster.

The parents of this 21-year old college student planted this Mahogany 15 years before when Mhey was only 6 years old. Her parents planted thousands of them.  Mhey and her children should never suffer like her parents did because they planted trees with a vision.

Growing Your Own Mini Sustainable Forest Using Biodiversity and Agroforestry – Cash Flow

Everything about the forest should be viewed as potential cash flow.  My friends the flowing of cash is more important in business than the bottom line.  As long as you have a product and a market you have cash each time that you sell into the market.  Most of the imports into the Philippines are a result of the local manufacturers not being able to obtain the same raw materials with consistent quality from local producers.  The reason for this is merely attitude.

A change in attitude from windfall thinking to cash flow thinking is not so difficult.  However, to illustrate this point: How many Filipino friends do you have who own a piece of property that pays them 12 months rent in advance?  That is a windfall, they get that lump of money all in one shot and then what do they do with the money?  They travel and play for a month until it runs out.  The renter then calls and says that the water pump has broken.  Oops no money for that so the house deteriorates and deteriorates.  That is the cycle of windfall thinking, whether it is in real estate, farming or forestry. 

In agroforestry you build a diversified forest that has something of value produced every day of the year and it is sustainable from one year to the next without having to harvest all and replant.

You start with a piece of barren and non-productive land that you have had for the past 20+ years.  Just a hectare.  It is not an earner, has not been nor do you expect it to be in the future.  Let’s plant it in Mahogany, the beginning stage of an agroforest.  In seven years you have a mini-forest that has rehabilitated the soil and held the property together.  Over the next seven years we slowly convert at the rate that slides downward as the trees get older, maintaining sustainability.

Remember, rehabilitating the soil on unproductive and barren land was the initial goal.  That is now achieved and it is time to use that soil, productively and sustainably so that we produce an indefinite cash flow.

Each Mahogany that we thin, no matter how small, has value.  We must add value to what we cut before selling it.  Even prior to the first thinning we have been trimming the trees for the first seven years.  During that time we have learned how to make products for the market that have never been sold into it before. 

Recently we trimmed merely 246 trees on 450 meters square.  The small branches and usable twigs totaled close to 6 board feet.  Sure you won’t build a house, but how many small parts for the multi-billion dollar hobbyist industry will you make.  Such products are rare nowadays.  At US$ a board foot equivalent what other products can you think of that you could start your cash flow?  Oh, BTW, those twigs and branches that you trimmed are growing back while you work and there are another 9,550 square meters or 9,754 trees that need trimming, not to mention the ones that we are going to actually harvest to make room for planting producers.

Along the way we also plant fast growing "producers" that create a cash flow within the first three years.

Double click on the donation button, contribute the minimum and we will then communicate directly. Learn how we can manage your property that will then create sustainable income for your children and a legacy for yourself that your grandchildren will know who dramatically changed the financial security in their lives, indefinitely.

Growing Your Own Mini Sustainable Forest Using Biodiversity and Agroforestry – The Planting

3 in a Series

Planting

Cleaning of the land is mainly to remove growth that will interfere with the new seedling.  Vines are not friendly and should be removed.  

If you plant too soon the mortality rate will exceed 80%.    

Even when planted properly you will have a mortality rate of nearly 40% during the first three years. 

Each mortality, mostly from lack of water and even from thirsty rats that destroy the tiny trunk to chew the remaining moisture from within,
must be replaced the following planting season (wet season).  Amazingly, the replacement’s growth will catch up to its older siblings and complete the canopy. 

After 3 years the mortality rate of the saplings drops to less than 1%.  They will then be healthy trees standing on their own, but these seedlings illustrated above were planted too young and nearly all did not make it.

 Contributors receive regular reports and are invited to visit the site.

Growing Your Own Mini Sustainable Forest Using Biodiversity and Agroforestry – The Sapling

4 in a Series

The three-year-old Mahogany is amazingly resealant.  As a sapling it has strength and size.  When confronted with drought it dies from the top first, giving in downward until the first rain and then it begins growing again from the lowest portion that succumbed to the drought.  Mortality now drops to less than 1%.  In its seedling stage it required the caretaker to water it two to three times weekly during the dry season and provide fertilizer once during the beginning of the rainy season.  As a sapling it is on its own.

However, the use of Biochar, organic fertilizer and probiotics is being researched at present and the results may be very promising.  There is no apparent reason why the saplings should not receive continued feeding and care.  Where we have provided such the trees have grown extremely well.  The illustrated forest is only 2.5 years old.

The Mahogany trees illustrated in this photo taken from the second floor balcony are in the front yard of the author’s residence.  They received watering daily during the dry season and were also fertilized.  They are only 2.5 years old too but in comparison the growth rate is nearly double.  The ones (dark green) on the left are 3.5 years old. 
  A tremendous difference when watered and cared for routinely.

Contributors receive regular progress reports and are invited to visit.

Be a Climate Change Partner and Earn, Earn Big Money

 We Educate

That is what Foundations do!  

Why do we need Agro forestry?  

Benefits?  Problems?  Agro forestry communities are the solution to economic growth and climate change initiatives.  Learn more.

We Train

Our training is how to be an agro forester and make money.  The poor farmer can avail.

 We Plant

From the nursery the sprouts grow into seedlings, then they are planted on the farmers’ land to become trees.  

 

We Grow

Each year the growth is measured and records compiled.   Our growth rate is nearly double that of the standard.

 

We Collect Carbon

Trees are Mother Nature’s CO₂ collectors and oxygen emitters.  Of course this is the net effect of the two processes of photosynthesis and respiration, opposite processes, with the Carbon sequestering and oxygen emission being a net gainers, otherwise the trees would not grow.

We Thin to Create Sustainability

The first wave of trees creates shade for soil rehabilitation.  The second wave is for fruit, nut, sap, fiber, medicinal, herbal, biomass and are planted where the timber is thinned.

We Sequester Carbon

The carbon is converted from CO₂ into molecular carbon that remains within the wood of the tree where it is sequestered as long as the wood is not burned or decomposed.

Value-add Products

Products that are made of the wood are of high quality, thus retaining the carbon for generations to come.  High quality solid wood plank flooring, tonge and groove, last indefinitely.

       

    

We Use Your Advance Purchase

When you purchase the products they have not been made yet.  The process involves hand sawing and preparation, including seasonal drying.  The final milling is by machine.

You Partner to Make this Possible

Your advanced purchase makes this Value-add process possible and enables more reforestation to be initiated.

Partnering is sustainability

The strength of our continued persistence comes from your orders.

You Are also a Partner in the Climate Change Revolution

More area can be farmed through back yard forests than can be imagined.  British and American families grew all that they needed and more in small back yard gardens during WWII.  Forests do not have to be large and when biochar is added to the forest floor tremendous amounts of carbon iare sequestered.  

   

You Earn           

We charge you less for the product that you order than the price for which we will resell it on your behalf.  The difference is shared between you and the project.  We manufacture and sell direct, no middleman.

Students are Local

The Foundation’s students are farmer-families.  They own barren and non-productive land which we make productive workign together.

             
 
     
 Both Grew Together
 
 Mhey Declito was 6 years old when her parents planted this beautiful Mahogany.  She is now 23 years old and a fourth year student at a major university where she majors in education.  Mehy appreciates the importance of letting these trees live and understands the principle of sustainability.  A new generation of thinking is the answer and Mhey represents that thinking.  Not only can it be done, it is being done.

The Students Learn to be Self-earners

We teach money making from the creation of agro forestry through sustainable reforestation.

The Students Grow out of Poverty

Most barren land has been that way for as much as 50 years when deforestation was at its peak.  So, by reforesting it now we can bring the respective farmer-families to First World incomes in half the time.

       
 
           

The Students Become the Local Economic Backbone

Through the long-term relationships between the Foundation and the local farmer-families the new wealth for the locals is subtle at first and financial management and responsibility becomes the teaching ground for new curricula aimed at local economic stability.

          
 

Partnership is the Climate Change Revolution

Growing trees is expensive but feasible.  It is far less expensive than the far out technical projects being proposed by advocates of new technologies and is far more feasible than all of them too.  Together we can encourage voluntary replication that will produce several trillion-tree-plantings by billions of farmers and others around the world.  They just need to see it being done first and that is where we can partner.

Voluntary Replication

In the smaller photo there are 20 Mahogany saplings and trees in this very remote area.  Each planted by a poor farmer without any guidance or assistance.   This is voluntary replication of what they see IVAFMS Foundation is doing. For a moment, imagine, 1 billion poor farmers planting on their own 20 trees each.  Twenty billion new trees in this world is nothing we should ignore, especially the carbon sequestration and oxygen production.

       

Less Than 2 Degrees Centigrade

As part of the Climate Change Revolution we can plant enough trees to reduce the rate of global warming to less than 2 degrees centigrade, especially if we use biochar.  The current rate of increase in global warming is far greater and by slowing it to our target we can avoid more adverse climate change, buy time for additional “clean-up” technologies and be able to survive this crisis.

It is Very Simple to Help and Make Big Money

The Foundation is looking for partners and in return will provide a return of 100% within 2 years.  Payments are made along the way.  For more information simply click on the donation button and make a minimum $3.00 contribution and IVAFMS Foundation will follow with the partnership dialog and details. The time is now. 

Be a Remote Business Forester, Earn and Do Some Good

 

IVAFMS Foundation accesses barren and underdeveloped land through agreements with the local owners, creating 

• New forests,
• Sustainable forestry,
• Agro forestry communities,
• And sustainable and biodiversified reforestation that supports the local community.

You may benefit from this system by remaining at home and counting trees that we grow on your behalf and others in a remote area of the world through

• The "Green Endowment"  sponsored by the Ilin Value Added Forestry Management Services Foundation, Inc.
• Reforestation of millions of trees, sustainably.

The endowment is for

• Future education of your child,
• Supplemental retirement income and baloon lump sum payment when needed the most, and
• Sustainability of the new forests and locally based economic development in some of the poorest rural regions of the world.

How would you like to earn while making a difference?  

Please make this your "favorite", below, to show your interest in achieving massive reforestation sufficient to truly make a difference and create profitability too; and Reblog so others may learn.

Thanks! 

Biochar: Renewable Energy Without Greenhouse Gases

Biochar: Renewable Energy Without Greenhouse Gases.