Post date: Aug 22, 2011 12:58:41 PM
Arcosanti | 08.23.11 | Jeff Buderer - For quite some time I have been talking about Integrated Farming (IF). A key figure in the story of Integrated Farming is Alexandre Takamatsu. A bioiengineer originally from Brazil, Alexandre in April moved to the USA and now lives a town south of Phoenix called Maricopa. He decided to move to America as he was helping his son get ready for school in the USA at the University of Arizona.
Most of his career as a biologist focused involved working with agricultural Appropriate Technology research institute in Parana state (TECPAR). The institute promoted appropriate technologies in southern Brazil, close to the famed "Ecocity" Curtiba. While working at TECPAR Takamatsu had a chance to meet with George Chan of Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives (ZERI). Pig and animal waste on the large scale and highly concentrated farming operations is a major problem in Parana state and TECPAR was very interested in looking at solutions to this problem that involved more integrated and Holistic approaches. TECPAR agreed to partner with ZERI and they developed 6 pilot projects on working farms to promote Integrated Farming within the TECPAR region.
Alexandre talked about when he first heard about ZERI and the zero emissions philosophy. He says that at first he was a little skeptical because he did not think it was possible nor necessary to seek out zero emissions. For example a river naturally has chemicals and impurities in it the role of the ecosystem is to manage flows of energy and resources so that they the system stays in balance. The goal of Zero Emissions is reflecting a philosophy developed by Gunter Pauli who founded ZERI. Such goals may be necessary in relation to many chemicals and in terms of managing the chemicals for optimum use within a system.
Integrated Farming (IF) is a technique that involves the concepts of Permaculture. The specific derivative of IF developed by George Chan and ZERI was later called Integrated Farming and Waste Management Systems (IF&WMS). During his presentation, Takamatsu talked about his work at TECPAR that included background on why TECPAR identified IF&WMS as something.
He spent some time explaining the story of how he met George. Apparently George had a stoke while he was in Brazil and Alexandre had to rush him to the hospital. There were some side effects that affects George's ability to work in Brazil and basically Alexandre took on the role of care giver helping George during the rest of his stay. So there was definitely a bond between the two that I still see expressed in how Alexandre talks about George and in relation to their brief time together as George became a mentor to Alexandre explaining to him the concepts of IF so that the program could be successfully developed in Brazil.
It was a very hot during the presentation and the projector overheated so Alexandre had to revert to the old fashioned way of presenting ideas and discussing work without the technology of computers. It actually worked out well because we saw him in the front of the room talking about his experiences rather than at the back with the projector. Later we were able to get the projector going and Alexandre showed up how the IF works and the key elements of it.
We talked about the replication of IF. Apparently dissemination has been slow and farmers and other agricultural players have been resistant to new more holistic approaches to farming that IF is a part of. One of the challenges of innovative appropriate technology dissemination is that it is difficult to move people away from practices that people are comfortable with. Its not just about high level actors dominating the economic aspects of a region, field or technology but the stubborn residual fear of change. This is especially when change is speaking from a fundamental perspective of holistic thinking about the management of resources. So while biogas development on concentrated farms has grown in Brazil, in many cases this has developed as piecemeal approach that does not reflect the spirit of what was developing in China and other regions of the world 40 years ago as the foundations and forerunners of IF.
A question was asked about the risk of contamination of food with pathogens and Alexandre explained what I think is a remarkable aspect of this system: the bioreactor operates in the absence of oxygen kills the aerobic pathogenic bacteria and the aerobic tank later in the process provides an oxygen rich environment which kills any remaining anaerobic bacteria.
I realized that Alexandre led me to rethink zero emissions and what it really means. How we select or our words/semantics is important so that we are clear in the message we communicate to the world. We need to consider carefully the terms we use and why (Zero Emissions in terms of why and what it really means in relation to the human nature interface).
Alexandre also helped me to understand that what is vital in terms of environmental awareness and sustainability planning is to develop an awareness of how to manage human induced nutrient flows so that they do not create entropic patterns within nature. We should do this not just for the benefit of nature, but because we need nature at optimum state to sustain humanity. Understanding natural systems and effectively managing the interface between human and natural interactions may be more important than actually setting an absolute goal of Zero Emissions. However when we design human systems for providing and managing resources for our societies, they should be carefully designed so that they do not emit chemicals or release energy, altering naturals systems so they are unable to operate at their full natural potential and instead become degraded. That in my view is what the goal and vision of Zero Emissions is all about.