This reminded me how sad it is that our funding proposal for the period 2011-2015 together with a group of migrant organisations has been rejected by the Dutch government. Part of this proposal was a very interesting project with the indigenous inhabitants of the Suriname jungle. This project would reintroduce the knowledge on sustainable agriculture on tropical soils using the so called terra preta (black earth) technique. This knowledge was lost when in the sixteenth century the indigenous population was decimated by the diseases brought by the Europeans colonists.
Nowadays, food is cultivated on plots, small pieces of wood that are burned and can be cultivated for two years and then cannot be cultivated for at least seven years. When the population of a village grows, more plots are needed which means that sometimes they are located a very long walk from the village. The system of cultivation of the plots limits the size of these villages, and thus prevents the size needed for on-site secondary education. The choice is between two evils: no further education or to leave at a young age for the city with brings all kind of other problems.
Knowledge and experience how to make use of black earth again could solve this dilemma, because it would enable both a sustainable growth of food production and population of the villages.
Previous blogs by Henk van Arkel:
Research on mobile money
Training for start of C3-Uruguay
Training C3 for cooperative from Costa Rica
Uruguayan and Costa Rican cooperative both want C3
Combining different C3 initiatives in Uruguay
Looking for funds for female entrepreneurs
