Imagine an integrated system where edible annuals and perennials are interwoven with solar energy production. Now, imagine that this food and renewable energy producing system could improve the soil microbiome and harvest all water needs from rainwater off of the solar panels. Gary Nabhan is trialing this integrated system, known as agrovoltaic, in the Sonoran Desert where he lives and is seeing a 40 percent increase in yield of stevia, basil, and chiltepin Chili peppers planted under and around the solar panels. Instead of relying on center pivot and flood irrigation, he is using micro-aspersion, wicks, deeply buried clay pipes, porous capsule and micro-olla irrigation to efficiently transfer water to the root zone of plants better than any conventional form of drip irrigation. I was excited to dive deeper into Gary’s thoughts about permaculture after reading his incredible book, “Growing Food in a Hotter Drier Land.” And after visiting his home recently, I see Gary is walking the talk and more, if possible, when it comes to doing just that. From a mere baseline of 5 food producing trees at his home, Gary is now growing over 130 fruit and nut trees, all with water-wise irrigation based off of his international journeys to discover how indigenous cultures grow food with little water. When asked where he feels the permaculture momentum is taking us, Gary answered “I think it’s taking us back to how Thomas Jefferson thought about the world, that being a food producer is one of the highest intellectual callings that we could have. That we introduce plants, evaluate them, and share them with our neighbors. That we tell neighbors…what combination of plants work together in catastrophic years when we have flood or drought or freezes. So that we have a community of people that are sharing solid information with one another that is place-based. That’s why - even though permaculture has universal principles - all of it is about paying attention to the particulars of your place…I think its reminding people that universal theories that are like a drop-down formula imposed on the land are bound to fail. That we need to be attentive and see what the land needs.” Before whisking me away for a tour of his home site, Gary ended his interview with, “Permaculture gives us the observational tools and then the pattern recognition - I really think it’s about thinking in patterns and thinking in whole systems that permaculture lends itself to better than anything else. It’s an observational process and thought process and then response with design. And I think – as you and I have already agreed – those design principles can be applied to any place and any scale of agriculture but first you have to know your place really well and build on the natural and cultural assets there. I think we skip over that in other ways of thinking about food production. So, in a very odd way, permaculture is an ideological movement as much as it is a humbling process where we see what is before us and dance with it.” In addition to the book that deeply inspired me, Gary has written or served as primary editor for over a dozen books, with subjects ranging from “Ethnobiology for the Future: Linking Cultural and Ecological Diversity” to “Renewing America’s Food Traditions – Saving and Savoring the Continent’s Most Endangered Foods.” He also co-founded Native Seeds/SEARCH – a nonprofit conservation organization working to preserve place-based Southwestern agricultural plants as well as the knowledge of their uses – and served as founding director of the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ. Now, Gary serves as a Kellogg Endowed Chair in Southwestern Borderlands Food and Water Security, founding the University of Arizona Center for Regional Food Studies. In working with the University of Arizona, Gary helped with the recognition of Tucson as the first UNESCO designated City of Gastronomy in the US, he received a Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) grant to install over a dozen pollinator hedgerows, is researching climate change adaptation, phenology change and agrobiodiversity, and much, much more. Regarding “Growing Food in a Hotter, Drier Land”, a writeup about the book by Alan Weisman (should you be inspired to learn more and dive into the book yourself) states “Nabhan, one of the world’s experts on the agricultural traditions of arid lands, draws from the knowledge of traditional farmers in the Gobi Desert, the Arabian Peninsula, the Sahara Desert, and Andalusia, as well as the Sonoran, Chihuahuan, and Painted deserts of North America to offer time-tried strategies, including:
To discover more about Gary, his books, and his work with the University of Arizona and beyond, visit: https://www.garynabhan.com
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With an interest in punk music and a knack for questioning the systems we operate within from a young age, Brad Lancaster suites his role of enacting large-scale environmental change and helping shift our way of seeing the world. I visited with Brad for an interview at his passive solar, solar PV, composting toilet, outdoor rainwater-fed kitchen, solar clothes drying, food producing, greywater-fed oasis of an urban landscape in Tucson, AZ. Brad was one of the first people who introduced me to permaculture, and he was also a teacher in my Water Harvesting Certification course with the Watershed Management Group years ago in Albuquerque, NM. His in-person teachings, online videos, and books (Harvesting Rainwater for Drylands and Beyond Volumes 1&2) have had a permanent positive impact on me. When I had Brad as a teacher, I vividly remember him holding his hand pa lm-down in a mound formation, saying “this is how we usually plant in the Southwest. Where the plants are high and dry, and the paths are low and wet.” Then he flipped his hand over and showed a new way of seeing and planting our landscapes. A way that plants the rain with plants low and wet in basins and swales, while the paths are suitably high and dry. Since learning these simple, obvious, and often completely overlooked concepts from Brad, I have used his images and videos each year in my Communicating Sustainability undergraduate course to help students engage in systems thinking. Planting the rain. When it was still illegal in Tucson, Brad went out on a Sunday morning while no one was watching and cut his curb. This way, storm water flowing down the street could enter through the curb cut and infiltrate into the basin he created. Now, instead of harvesting only direct rainfall in a rain event, he had tapped the millions of gallons of rainwater previously untouched. Yes, one mile of neighborhood street in Tucson drains over a million gallons per year. In fact, more rain falls on the city of Tucson in a year than is used annually in municipal water by the city. And yet, Tucson relies on the Central Arizona Project (CAP) canal for its water; an open canal transporting water 336 miles from the Colorado River. The CAP canal cost four billion dollars to construct and over 80 million dollars a year to operate. It is the highest consumer of electricity in the state of Arizona and also the highest carbon emissions producer. Brad lights up as he talks about rainwater harvesting – you can see the passion emulating from him. So why is he shifting water policy? City employee practices? Neighborhood rules and regulations? Delivering workshops across America on rainwater harvesting? Why was the last Permaculture Design Certification (PDC) he taught almost a decade ago? According to Brad, “I was burnt out on the PDC. I couldn’t do it anymore…that’s not the whole answer. It comes back to the desired effect, what do I want to see happen? I was seeing all these holes…I didn’t think I was so uniquely skilled to teach the PDC. If I see that I’m easily replaceable in the work I’m doing, I quickly lose my will to do that work. So I have to shift to see where work needs done that no one is doing.” And now? “The big thing I’m trying to shift now is to change the practice of planting trees and other plants. So instead of planting a plastic pipe before you plant the plant, you plant the rain before you plant the plant. So that it’s not pumped water – typically imported water that’s irrigation sourced – it’s our free onsite water, it’s rainwater, it’s greywater. Water flows downhill so make the low-point first. Put the plant in beside the low-point so all water will go there anyway. Then we are not dependent on the city system right off the bat. We aren’t even connected to it! Instead, we are connected to the system we want to be connected with – the living system, the free system, the rain system. That’s got to drive the design. So what are we aiming for? Let’s not [&*$@%#] talk about it, let’s do it! And that has to be the driver.” In all the talks he gives, I was wondering what Brad hoped people would walk away with, if it was only one or two things. He responded, “I definitely want them to walk away with a new way of seeing, where they can see potential they didn’t see before. So they can hopefully see how water sediment, energies, people are moving through a system. They can actually image it and start to work with that. Becoming more aware of what’s really happening. I’m hoping they can think more critically and constructively with toolsets and frameworks that can get them to consider a larger whole, and…that they are going to leapfrog me, take me to places I can’t even envision right now.” And it isn’t only people interested in doing something in their backyard that Brad is working with. He is impacting designers, city planners, engineers, Extension Master Gardeners, and more. Beyond water, Brad’s efforts are also getting people to recognize that the native and drought tolerant plants he is planting are more than just for wildlife and of ornamental value. He is helping people to engage with their landscape; “it’s not just this pretty thing that has to be manicured. How can it be this dynamic thing that we engage with, that is influencing us and we are influencing.?” When Brad first moved into his Tucson neighborhood, he described it as a bleak solar oven leading to his experience of eco-depression. But now, over two dozen native birds have returned, there are community mesquite harvesting and cooking celebrations, neighborhood foresters, better bike connectivity, and curb cuts and swales on every street. With regards to curb cutting, thanks to Brad’s skills with policy and speaking the language of others, now it is not only legal in Tucson but the city even promotes it. Discover more about Brad and Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond at: http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/ The high winds blow sand across AZ-264 as we travel through the Hopi reservation and land at Kykotsmovi Village, site of the Hopi Tutskwa Permaculture Institute. Lilian Hill and Jacobo Marcus-Carranza founded the institute in 2004, and since then have been guiding mainly Navajo and Hopi youth through internships teaching essential skills in natural building, permaculture techniques, local food production, solar installation, harvesting and selling at local farmers markets, and youth empowerment. I had visited Lilian and Jacobo last spring as part of a permaculture workshop and partnership with Community Rebuilds, a natural building program and original collaborator with the Hopi Tutswka Permaculture Institute. Since then, I was excited to return. At the workshop, a group of 25 or so from Moab, the Hopi and Navajo Nations all began in a circle, introducing ourselves and tossing a ball of yarn to the next person. There were so many of us that we ran out of yarn and had to move in closer, further demonstrating the interconnectedness between us all – both by the yarn web we created and the closeness to our peers left and right. We spent a large amount of time that day discussing sustainability failures at the local, regional, and national level, broken out in groups with various topic areas such as energy, water, etc. These came to mind easily and within minutes our group’s flipchart was full. When we flipped the story, and had to write down sustainability successes, however, these flowed a little slower at first. They exist, but we can become focused so closely on the problem that solutions thinking is overshadowed; an important realization for all of us. We know the problem – the planet is warming and we have a limited window of about a decade to enact large scale change. However, we haven’t been discussing hope, solutions, and empowerment with the same urgency. The experience last spring had a lasting impact on me and I was excited to return as part of this research tour. We had eaten delicious, healthy food, connected with each other across cultures and environments, and discussed what we can do to be part of the solution. Hopi Tutskwa translates from the Hopi language to the life ways and knowledge of the land and soil. Lilian and Jacobo are helping their communities and beyond to reconnect, relearn from, and reshape our relationship with the environment that sustains us, our “Earthmother.” When I asked Lilian and Jacobo who the main students are that attend their program and what they are looking for, Lilian answered “our main students we are designing programs for are within our own community – so both within Hopi and the surrounding Navajo reservation. We have opened up our programming to other people as well, but mostly very young people who live in the community who may or may not have graduated high school but who for one reason or another have not left. They have stayed and a lot of them remain within their own family structure too – with their parents or grandparents. A lot of the students who come to our program are in an interesting place, in their early 20s and don’t know what they want to do with their lives.” Jacobo added, “We wanted to design programming to really help folks strengthen their lives in meaningful ways. A lot of the students who are part of the program are just here in the community and a lot of times they don’t have meaningful interactions…I guess with the home they live in, a disconnect between the home they live in and how they can contribute to the home. We are trying to develop programming to help folks have applicable solutions to where they can feel empowered to build their own home, grow their own food, and to catch their water. It’s really important for us to pass that on.” Their vision “is to strengthen community through the continued intergenerational practices of traditional Hopi farming and gardening, rainwater harvesting and spring restoration, natural building, and orchard-keeping while applying applicable Permaculture principles, methods, and techniques.” Lilian and Jacobo are working to create a world where:
Discover more about Lilian, Jacobo, and the Hopi Tutskwa Permaculture Institute at: https://www.hopitutskwa.org/ |