Before we can get started on agroforestry, we need to address the question, "What is agroforestry?"
Now that we have a basic idea of what agroforestry is, lets look into its pros.
It seems common sense to grow what is native to the land, yet we seem to have molded our culture around growing mass crops more for their quantity, rather than their quality. Profit has become more important than the product.
Here's a preview of how to implement agroforestry into your farm:
While reading about the Guaraní people, naturally I began to compare our culture and theirs. If you have been doing the readings you may realize how hard that is. In America, we get upset if the season changes and we can no longer order the Pumpkin Spice Latté at Starbucks while the Guaraní people actually have a season where many of their people go without corn and beans for months...oh and without Pumpkin Spice Lattés. This is called the karuvaí or also know as the hunger season. After this season is over, the Guaraní have religious gathering and initiation rites. During this time, the religious leader announces the new children and praises them as well as they recognize and appreciate the corn initiating both into the community.
How interesting is it that we live such different lives and value such different things than these people? While thinking of things in the American culture to compare to the Guaraní culture, I focused on foods we value. I came to the conclusion that many Americans seem to value the huge feast we all prepare for on Thanksgiving and Christmas, but if you're anything like my
family you prepare it at home and bring it to to Grandma's ready to eat. I leave you all with one question..what is something your family values greatly and celebrates every year? It can be anything.
In the forests of Paraguay, the Guaraní people participate in a holistic way of life which values productivity, ecological diversity, and sustainability. This way of life is also known as agroforestry, which is a system that integrates tree crops with cash crops, food crops, animal raising, foraging, fishing, hunting, and trapping. As described by Richard Reed in “Forest Dwellers, Forest Protectors”, the Guaraní’s choice to employ this agroforestry system allows them to participate in the global market but does not tie them to it. This is to say that while they have the freedom to purchase food and goods, they do not rely on these items to survive. Their survival, instead, lies in the successes of their gardens and their hunting, trapping, fishing, and foraging skills. Each man and woman has all that they need to thrive in their own backyard, so to speak.
Suburban permaculture
While the positive prospects of agroforestry are many, the question remains: can we, as Americans, employ a similar system successfully within our own culture? Although it seems unlikely that we will be able to completely separate ourselves from the bonds that we have formed between ourselves and the capitalist market within our lifetimes, there are steps that we can take to at least mimic the ways of the Guaraní. The answer to our question, posed above, may lie in a movement which has already taken hold on a small scale within our society: permaculture. The word “permaculture” was coined in the mid seventies and it derived from the words PERMAnent agriCULTURE. In short, permaculture can be defined as an ecological design system which aims for sustainability in all aspects of human life. It teaches us how to design natural homes and abundant food production systems, regenerate degraded landscapes and ecosystems, develop ethical economies and communities, and much more by following nature’s own patterns.
Urban Permaculture
In its ideal form, permaculture encompasses the cultivation of a relationship between domestic and wild animals in the effort to encourage success within the sustainable ecosystem as well as in the garden. It also focuses on rainwater harvesting, watershed restoration, incorporating heirloom (non-GMO) plant varieties, the natural building of the community, and waste management. Although, typically, permaculture does not facilitate a total break from the market, it does, in fact, decrease the dependency of an individual on capitalistic commodities. At this point, if you’re thinking that the establishment of a self-sustaining garden in your backyard is impossible, think again. Check out this video of a man in Seattle who will prove that growing what you need to survive is possible, even in a relatively small space:
Permaculture can be successful in both the suburbs and the city. If these people can do it, what’s your excuse? Despite the fact that the prospect of agroforestry being a prevailing system within my lifetime or yours seems unlikely, there are steps that you can take in order to make your life a more free, sustainable, and fulfilling one. So get up, plant something! Be proactive, be the change!
The year is 3050, and the time has
finally arrived. It's everyone's favorite part of the year: the 84th
annual Hunger Games. You enter the arena confidently: after all, you
have a solid Hanover College education, about $700 in your bank
account, and you're in, like, the greatest sorority ever (shout-out
to my sisters watching at home). “You're fine, you've got this,”
you think.. Until you see the competition. It's a 20 year-old member
of the Guarani community. This is about the time you start thinking
that you hope he takes credit cards or will trade 35 used text books
for a chance to live. Otherwise, you're screwed. That's that. I don't
know how to trap my own food. I don't know how to fight, and I don't
run fast. In this setting,
these are the things that matter. However, these are not the things
that my life in rural North America has taught me because these are
not the things we value. We often mistakenly use our title as Americans
interchangeably with “better.” Because we are
“civilized,” we MUST be better than a tribe in the rainforest.
However, while their definitions of good/bad, important/useless,
edible/inedible vary from ours, that does not make ours better. There
are so many things that our culture could learn from theirs, if only
we could admit that.
There were so many things in this chapter that stood out to me about the Guarani way of life. One of them was their independence. Because of the farming and hunting abilities within the communities, they are able to operate completely autonomously from market systems. They know that they can grow or catch what they need to survive, so buying from retailers is an option that they avoid when they are unhappy with prices. I don't know of anyone who can do this. (In fact, while reading this chapter, the closest comparison that I could make with the Guarani tribe was Wendell Berry. I then realized how strange it is that Wendell Berry has received years of national publicity and praise for choosing to do with his life what every Guarani man and woman has been doing for generations.) The importance of their economic independence is that they have not become slaves to the market. While people in the Global North may feel sympathy for these people for being constrained by the forest or for lacking our level of freedom, we voluntarily lock on the handcuffs of society and capitalism every time we purchase at Walmart what we could have grown in our own backyards.
The second thing that interested me about the Guarani culture was that one third of the daylight hours are spent "resting, relaxing, and socializing" (52). As a North American college student always striving for more (just like I've been taught and told to do), I feel fortunate if I interact with people for more than 30 minutes between 8 am and 10 pm. The Guarani people are able to spend so much of their day socializing because that is something that their culture values. Yes, there is emphasis placed on success and production, but what are the benefits of these things if there are no friends with whom to share them?
This summer, I had the privilege of volunteering with an organization in the Peruvian Amazon called crees. This organization serves two purposes: one is to research the rainforest's biodiversity in order to gauge the rainforest's ability to regenerate after deforestation (which, it has been concluded, is almost fully). The second goal of the organization is to improve the lives of the forest's inhabitants. Given permission by the homeowner, the organization plants gardens in yards and teaches civilians how to grow food and tend to their garden. A second part of this community education focuses on agroforestry, which is something that the Guarani seem to have perfected. However, not everyone is as knowledgeable about the rainforest as the Guarani. As the chapter stated, the rainforest actually has very infertile soil and in order to reap its benefits, a worker of the land must know how to interact with nature rather than against it. Unfortunately, many people in the forest do not know how and are not willing to learn, preferring to continue planting unprofitable banana trees than to integrate more profitable plants, such as hardwood trees, into their agroforestry plots. The following video shows Reynaldo, a crees employee, practically begging his fellow forest dwellers to practice agroforestry and choose to live in harmony with the nature around them, much like the Guarani have been doing for centuries.
Throughout the entire reading I noticed one common theme that really stuck out to me, the importance of kinship in the Guarani tribe. Kinship is different from family in the fact that kinship involves a person's extended family (cousins, aunts, uncles, etc.) rather than just brothers, sisters and parents. Kinship decided where people could live, it's seen in the politics of the tribe, the religion of the tribe, and even the economics of the tribe. What really struck me about the importance of kinship was how they relied on each other very heavily in the food exchange system. Everyone holds everyone accountable to feed each other in the tribe. If you give someone rice one week, the week after, you'll most likely get something in return, and its an ongoing cycle. Which leads me to the question, do they have it figured out better than we do?
It was made clear that the Guarani tribe wastes no food. Each member will strategically harvest one food item, while the others harvest other important food items. Although they do harvest in large quantities they share the abundance with each other so no food is wasted. Should this be something we turn to, if possible? America has turned agriculture into just another corporation. Farming is no longer about feeding yourself and family. Its about mass production and making the most money from all of the products that you produce. We cannot seem to feed our own country efficiently with the abundance of food we produce, so maybe we should try the other extreme, the Guarani food exchange system. Radical? Yes. Efficient? Again, yes.
In the video above we are given the evidence of just how wasteful Americans are with food. I believe that the Guarani tribe gives us a good way to think about food. Yes, we can produce it in abundance, but let's make it worth it. I believe small communities in this nation could realistically adopt this method between farmers, but it's the willingness that I'm not sure about. Nevertheless, it was nice to see some alternate ideas about food, kinship, and taking care of one another just because it's expected of you. We have lost that in this nation.
Avatar, one of my
favorite movies in which a human assimilates into a foreign alien culture while
his fellow man attempts to destroy the unfamiliar yet profitable land, might be
the best representation of our author, Richard Reed, and his journey to the
Guarani community of Itanarami. And just like the Navi people of Pandora in
James Cameron’s Avatar, the indigenous people of Itanarami have lived for years
in peace, working within their sustainable resources, and whether those tactics
employ agroforestry or a neurological bond with the environment, the underlying
lessons still resonate.
Reed continues by foreshadowing the looming possibility of an environmentally bland, urbanized, and dim future for the
communities of the Guarani people in Itanarami. The ethnocide taking place in South America is another story which parallels our class discussions in which those in power exploit the naive indigenous populations. And in this video we can see the dull lives of those forced from the forest.
Our author then spends the majority of the first
chapter discussing the innervations that familial connections have throughout
religion, social structure, economics, and spatial living arrangements. And although
the Guarani world seems distant from the hustle and bustle of Wall Street, this
indigenous community embodies our basic human nature. Think of a world in which
our family exists as our only form of trade and socialization. The realization
that a transaction requires more than money and profit, but rather feelings of an
emotional connectedness, creates an unwritten agreement between the people of
Guarani communities. Imagine your family’s Thaknsgiving coming up in which every
family will bring something to benefit the whole; whether it be Aunt Kathie’s homemade
stuffing, or my cousin’s perfect mashed potatoes, every family member has their
role in the occasion. And in my family, my eldest and only living grandmother
will lead us in prayer, be the first to eat, and will be catered to throughout
the day, while the kids eat at a smaller table, and wait their turn. Fast
forward to Christmas in which gifts are exchanged, and maybe an elder uncle
offers his advice like the man who taught his nephew against domestic violence.
Our lives do not deviate much from the traditions of the Guarani, and
considering the social constructs that govern our closest relationships it is
not surprising that we stay close to our families, and willingly share our
possessions to benefit our loved ones. Therefore, if these interactions are
derived from our humanistic mind which seems to transcends societal pressure
based on our familial organization, the next step is realizing our intrinsic
relationship with nature, and allowing those feelings to surface again, giving
us a connection to earth like the people of Guarani have.
The Guarani people have been interacting with the outside world for hundreds of years. For many of these years, the Guarani people and the people outside their tribe traded ideas and goods freely. The Guarani people were able to find goods and food in the vast forests. They could use these goods to trade for other items they may need like tools.
However, after years of good interactions, the native people are losing their land to outside groups. The forests that they depend on are being destroyed at an alarming rate. The people are shoved onto small reservations. These reservations directly conflict with the Guarani ideas of community. The native people prefer to live in homes that have only the immediate family and possibly an elderly parent. When the people are placed on small reservations, they are not given the space they had grown up living with.
Since the Guarani people are losing their land, how are they going to survive? Is the government helping them? In the short video, a shaman pleads for help for his people.
The standard organization of the Guarani people is changing. Many native people across the world, however this group has been able to interact with outside people for years. Now, unfortunately, the interactions are less friendly.
