Hello, Chris here. I wanted to share with you some of what we have been doing at Bertrand Farm. As some of already know, we have been integrating the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD) into our farming practices. This framework is giving us a strategic approach to becoming more sustainable. There are four system conditions in the framework and I have previously discussed two of them. I wanted to talk about the third system condition that is: Reduce and eliminate our contribution to the ongoing physical degradation of nature.
This system condition requires us to think conscientiously about our natural resources, in that we should: draw resources only from well managed eco-systems, pursue productive and efficient use of our resources, and exercise caution when using resources as to not over harvest them. We looked around at the farm and found that we are wasting a lot of our free rainwater that we could be capturing to use in place of ground water for watering our crops.
One of the ways that we are going to capture rainwater is by putting in swales.
(Swale design by Bill Mollison http://climatelab.org/@api/deki/files/531/=tree_swale.jpg)
Swales are used in permaculture to capture rainwater and divert it into the ground. This keeps the water in the soil and contributes water to the aquifers below us. This is an opposite approach to what we have been doing which is using the ground water that would have gone to the aquifer. Another approach is to capture rainwater that comes from the room of the farmhouse. We want to use this water for watering our greenhouse crops and the crops in our raised beds.
One of my most recent readings is called The Common Life by Scott Russell Sanders. It talked about the importance of communities as a hub for exchanging ideas while also being a mode of support. I see this as a self-evident truth. We owe our fellow intern Richie, the credit for the idea of putting in swales. His expertise in permaculture was made valuable to us by simply giving us the idea and showing us how we can put it into practice.
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