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  • California Has Farmers Growing Weeds. Why? To Capture Carbon

    Richer soil not only retains more water and minerals, it also trap carbon from the atmosphere absorbed by plants. As California works to meet its carbon neutral goal, the state is enlisting farmers in its climate change strategy. Grants from the state encourage California’s farmers to grow plants traditionally considered as weeds as a way to boost the amount of organic matter in the soil.

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  • Can This Breakfast Cereal Help Save The Planet?

    Human beings' reliance on crops like wheat and rice has a detrimental environmental effect: because these annual crops need replanting every year, farmers are required to destroy any existing vegetation in order to get the seeds to germinate. But scientists with the Land Institute are promoting kernza, a perennial relative of wheat that provides seeds year after year.

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  • Farmers in Uttarakhand Look to the Past to Benefit the Future

    Mountains are particularly vulnerable to climate change, and a mountain city in India is finding sustainable solutions in traditional agriculture. Women overwhelmingly make up the farming workforce in Uttarakhand and are using a number of ways to combat the effects of the temperature increase. These solutions include bringing back an ancient grain, finger millet, to appeal to new tastes and dishes, storing seed banks of traditional varieties, and opening a cafe serving local food using the ancient grains to attract outside visitors.

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  • Agroforestry helps Tajikistan farmers overcome resource pressures

    Many farmers in Tajikistan are transitioning from Soviet-era monoculture to agroforestry, a method that more closely mimics natural ecosystems. While the farms are small, many payoffs--good income, diverse crops, robust wildlife, and carbon sequestration, to name several--are being realized.

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  • Millet anyone? Facing soil crisis, US farmers look beyond corn and soybeans

    After decades of planting almost solely corn and soybeans, across the Midwest and Plains, farmers are trying new methods to restore nutrients and replenish their soils. Methods like no-till farming, growing diverse cover crops during the winter, and using soil-sensitive crop rotations are growing in popularity. While the new practices face some resistance, cultural awareness is growing and being encouraged by new legislation.

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  • ‘We see its value': Ugandan communities benefiting from agroforestry

    Communities across Uganda have been realizing the benefits of agroforestry, an old farming system that mimics natural ecosystems. Apart from creating a diverse, stable local food supply, the practice promotes soil health, bolsters biodiversity, creates wildlife habitat, and sequesters carbon. An NGO is working with communities to spread the practice across the region, with marked effect.

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  • Agroforestry ‘home gardens' build community resilience in southern Ethiopia

    Farmers in Bule, Ethiopia, are practicing agroforestry, a diverse cropping method that mimics natural ecosystems. A survey found a stunning average of 16 crop species, including 21 species of tree, on farms. The benefits of the practice are myriad: food security, improved soil health, carbon sequestration, diversified revenue streams, and new wildlife habitat, to name several. While the incentive to grow valuable monocultures can be high, many growers stick with agroforestry regardless.

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  • Indian tribe revives heirloom seeds for health and climate security

    The women of India's Dongria Kondhs, with some assistance from grassroots organizations, are leading an effort to move away from monoculture and back to lost seed varieties. A community can grow as many as 50 plant varietals on a single farm. Not only do such practices empower growers to navigate pests and climate change, but also to improve health.

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  • Agroforestry supports food security and conservation in Papua New Guinea

    In Papua New Guinea, agroforestry--an old method of farming that more closely mimics natural ecosystems--has provided the Gildipasi community with diverse crops and greater food security. And in a boom for wildlife, the practice has allowed the community to set aside 4,940 protected acres of forestland, as well as a marine protected area, over the past two decades.

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  • Agroforestry saves soil and boosts livelihoods in Tajikistan

    To restore degraded lands in Tajikistan, farmers are turning to agroforestry, a traditional cropping method that more closely mimics natural systems. An estimated 45 gigatons of carbon is sequestered by agroforestry systems globally. Add that to the benefits of reforestation, erosion control, and the return of wildlife habitat.

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