931K views · Dec 2, 2015 · 15:29 · 4 HN recommenders · 12 mentions · discussed 2017–2023
A short film from Agenda Gotsch introducing syntropic agriculture and Ernst Gotsch's agroforestry methods, made for COP21. It shows degraded land regenerated into productive forest farms.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN users repeatedly offer it as the best introduction to agroforestry as a climate and food solution.
“Ever since watching the video on syntropic agriculture which I bumped into by reading a comment here in HN”HN comment, 2020
“I think for agriculture the way to go is syntropic agriculture”
Syntropic agriculture and its carbon storage in soil
I think for agriculture the way to go is syntropic agriculture: this video I've seen people implementing this very successfully, I've been doing it myself for around 4 years now, and its very impressive how much carbon the soil stores after a few years on this practice.
“Ever since watching the video on syntropic agriculture which I bumped into by reading a comment here in HN”
Syntropic agriculture works at small and large scales, improves marginal land
Ever since watching the video on syntropic agriculture which I bumped into by reading a comment here in HN [1], I've been doing some research on the matter. The practice seems promising. It seems to work at both small and large scales, so it enables small farms, which are very hard to defend as a business in the US. It also has a component of improving the value of land, by making marginal (sandy) terrain into productive agricultural land. The other interesting fact is that the productivity per acre for the individual cultivars when planted together is higher than if they were the only thing being planted. I can see those things combining to drastically increase products. The part of the video that was the most interesting was the farmer saying "this works. If I don't sell, I don't live, and I do sell" (not an exact quote). Intriguing indeed. [1] link / this video
“here's a good video that summarize his work”
Summarizes Ernst Gotsch's agroforestry work
Sure! When I started learning about agroforestry I looked for english books on the subject but didn't find good ones, Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway have really good info you could use. But in portuguese I've so a few good PDFs here, I guess that's because of the work of Ernst Gotsch here in Brazil, here's a good video that summarize his work: this video An agroforestry look like this: link Take very special attention to the ground on the video I linked above. So the main thing is the soil, the work will basically be always improving it by pilling up organic matter, from regular pruning and your organic waste too, the school must have good source of organic waste, also the city gardens/grass pruning are a good place to look for organic matter you could use on this project. Also, the more you plant together and at the same time the better. On the video you can see Bananas and Eucalyptus side by side, people think that Eucalyptus doesnt let anything grows near it, etc... but then I saw a lot of things fruiting just a few centimeters from Eucalyptus, because of the regular pruning. I'll send you an email so we can continue to talk about this.
“We should be focusing into building soil and edible forest to harvest multiple floors”
Building soil and edible forests instead of monoculture
We should be focusing into building soil and edible forest to harvest multiple floors instead of just that usual monoculture one: this video If we look closely forest's soil usually gets better and better, I see some people replicate this and seen some 'agroforest' with more then 5 years old and its stunning how productive there lands are, how diverse and how the soil just get better without adding external stuff like fertilizer, its a process type of agriculture instead of an input one.
“There's a great method called Agroforestry that uses forest floors to produce more food”
Big producers adopting agroforestry to scale it
There's a great method called Agroforestry that uses forest floors to produce more food: Quick overview of a farmer's land that uses this method: link he harvest around 3x more cocoa per hectare than traditional methods and its one of the most valuable in the world right now. Big producers joining to make it more scalable: this video
“There's an interesting video about it showing some big farmers here trying to build machines better adapted to this kind of agriculture”
Big farmers building machines adapted to syntropic agriculture
Around 6 years ago I quit my job as a developer to dive into agriculture. I learned about syntropic agriculture systems and felt in love with it because: - You are able to work with space and time in a way to maximize yield (not 1 crop yield, but but multi crop) - It focus on being biodiverse - It builds forests So in this systems you will see rows of trees intercalated with rows of beans, corn, soy anything "weedy" or grasses... Harvest this small plants for many years, after a few years you harvest fruits, and after 2 decades you harvest the wood and start over. All with extensive pruning. This way you end up with better soil each time without machines or fertilizers (sure you can speed even more the process with them), its a type of agriculture focused on nature's processes instead of inputs. There's an interesting video about it showing some big farmers here trying to build machines better adapted to this kind of agriculture, this is the biggest bottleneck to scale because right now most machines are very focused on monocultures: this video
“this video about Ernst Götsch and his 'syntropic' agroforestry is very exciting”
Ernst Gotsch and syntropic agroforestry
wish i could upvote this a hundred times. i love the work of Million Belay with The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) ( link ) as well as with the Stockholm Resilience Agency. this video of his and others like it really drove home the important core reasons to focus on soil health: link ( link ) also i think this video about Ernst Götsch and his 'syntropic' agroforestry is very exciting: this video
“I'd also recommend Syntropic Agriculture, an agroforestry method pioneered by Ernst Gotsch.”
Gotsch reforested degraded pasture without external inputs
Very good movie. I'd also recommend Syntropic Agriculture, an agroforestry method pioneered by Ernst Gotsch. He personally reforested 500 hectares of degraded pastures and doesn't use any external resources such as pesticides and fertilizers. Instead, he employs methods like maximizing photosynthesis and selective pruning. As a result, his land now stands as one of the most fertile and biodiverse regions within the Atlantic rainforest, achieving even higher yields than traditional farms. As syntropic farmers often say, they grow the soil to grow the food. link this video link Another example would be the Natural Farming method pioneered by Masanobu Fukuoka. He also practices farming without the use of pesticides and herbicides, and his yields also surpass those of traditional farms. link
“we are still figuring out a way of working with this stuff together with forests”
Shows people working machines together with forests
For industrialized I mean canned, over packaged, processed and refined stuff, also produces from vary far away on our daily diet, not against it but we do over consume this stuff. (Obs: thats what I see around me) But also, mono-crops are another issue which comes from industrialization too. I'm not against machines and robots, but we are still figuring out a way of working with this stuff together with forests: this video Here farms acreage is increasing, more mono-crops and less forests, all with the help of industrialization, crops from other side of the world and endemic fruits, nuts disappearing and because of that loosing habitats. At least eucalyptus is winning, even though native wood is better in so many ways, but the iron industry here don't buy the charcoal if not from mono-crops of eucalyptus.
“that and regenerative agriculture, agro-forestry, etc. Ernst Gotsch”
Ernst Gotsch as alternative regenerative agriculture example
this is a half-baked ‘solution‘ that just makes eating meat a luxury. a thing only for the rich. it’ll be like crimes that are punished by a fine - they just become the ‘fee’ that allows the propertied class to do whatever they want. beef is deadly for humanity because of destructive water and land usage (Vice had a great video showing the Amazon deforestation due to beef production). edit: my point is that the propertied class will lower wages and raise commodity prices to be able to pay to keep eating an unsustainable amount of beef. instead we should restrict or ban industrial animal agriculture, while investing in educational material to help society transition away from beef. that and regenerative agriculture, agro-forestry, etc. Ernst Gotsch: this video
“that and regenerative agriculture, agro-forestry, etc. Ernst Gotsch”
Ernst Gotsch as alternative regenerative agriculture example
the point is that the propertied class will lower wages and raise commodity prices to pay to keep eating an unsustainable amount of beef. instead we should restrict or ban industrial animal agriculture, while investing in educational material to help society transition away from beef. that and regenerative agriculture, agro-forestry, etc. Ernst Gotsch: this video i don’t want to give my children a dead planet either.
> Stripe Inc. is signing up to pay for carbon-removal technologies that haven’t been invented yet. > The payments company has formed a partnership with Deep Science Ventures, a London investment firm that specializes in building technology companies from the ground up. DSV will recruit scientists to develop ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. If they come up with viable concepts, Stripe will be their first customer. why not focus on implementing already existing ecologically sustainable inventions and strategies? what i read here: rent-seeking tech founders aim to funnel profits they collected from the taxing of economic activity [1] towards a privately-funded lottery of hoped-for future tech. the techno-fix is dangerous because it 1) ignores existing systemic dysfunction: "The current political economy is based on a false idea of “immaterial scarcity.” It believes that an exaggerated set of intellectual property monopolies – for [trade secrets,] copyrights, trademarks and patents – should restrain the sharing of scientific, social and economic innovations. Hence the system discourages human cooperation, excludes many people from benefiting from innovation and slows the collective learning of humanity. In an age of grave global challenges, the political economy keeps many practical alternatives sequestered behind private firewalls or unfunded if they cannot generate adequate profits." [2] and 2) it covertly wields the lone genius myth [3], that supposedly the S
