“Let Us Make Cordillera Serve As PH Model Vs Climate Change” – Agriculture Secretary William Dar. Now, Considering That, We Have Lots Of Work To Do!

Look at the above images again. No, I did not see it immediately, but PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar was correct in pointing out that in the Cordillera, the mountains with the forests and rice terraces are alreadymodels of climate change. Good and Not That Good.

How is that? The forest trees on the mountainsides should be able protect the farms down below from winds and rains too strong for the crops growing on the terraces. But in this case, there are not enough trees to absorb the gale strength of the wind. And the field of rice growing on the valley (lower image) shows that with climate change, the practice of monoculture should now be buried in the trash left by typhoons!

To fight climate change, we must change monocultures to multicultures, from single crops to multiple crops growing in the same area at the same time. And no, not simply a mixture but a planned combination of food and wood crops: the wood crops are both for food and protection against strong winds. Don’t forget beauty!

That is why I have been proposing the new science of Regenerative AgriForestry (RAF) since middle of this year, which is different from Regenerative Agriculture (RegenA) and Regenerative Agroforestry (RAg). Both RegenA and RAg do not specify that the soil be regenerated, while my RAF requiresit, in fact begins with it.

The soil is the source of man’s food and wood – if it is not regenerated, or which is the same, not assisted in regenerating itself organically, and instead we continue to grow the food and wood with chemical fertilizers and pesticides, here comes your climate change even worse!

I say organic is the key to regenerative anything – we must supply the soil with organic matter so that it can regenerate itself, its own body and health, producing plant nutrients and soil moisture, even as it catches the latter from underground.

In Regenerative AgriForestry, the first thing to do is to supply that organic matter – I call my preferred method “Mulching Matilda” – where on the very first day of farming, with the crop refuse and weeds still on the field, I will rotavate the whole field shallowly, some 2-3 inches deep only, so that the soil and plant materials will be cut to pieces and mixed with each other in one circular motion of the rotavator blades. When you are done with your Mulching Matilda all over that hectare, you will have an organic mulch already laid out over 10,000 square meters, no sweat! [To test my Matilda Mulch, let us ask UP Los Baños to conduct a public field trial. No chemical fertilizers & pesticides. That mulch of mine will grow crops healthy and fight off any threatening bacterium, fungus or virus.]

Food & Wood fighting Climate Change. Highlands: How about bamboo trees growing along walls of terraces? Lowlands: Ricefields with bitter gourd under mango trees? The possibilities are endless!@517

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