Most of us believe scientific evidence that global warming is happening and climate change is the result. At a recent seminar by author and educator Graeme Sait, attendees learned that our oceans have acidified to the point that algae and krill will be gone in the next 20 years. The loss of these species will affect life all the way up the food chain — us included. Average temperatures have increased globally by about 1 degree since the 1970s. If the trend continues, another 2-degree rise could occur by 2050. A 6-degree rise by the end of the century would make human life impossible. NASA scientist James Hanson predicts we have five years until the trend becomes irreversible. The situation is dire.
Rather than planning to build underground hovels once Earth’s surface becomes uninhabitable, we could work toward slowing, stopping or reversing the trend. Sait travels the world highlighting the critical importance of changing agricultural practices and improving our soil as steps toward decreasing the amount of carbon we are pumping into our ozone layer. He spoke in Hawaii about replenishing our soil and using it as a carbon storehouse. An expert in biological farming and high-production fertility, Sait suggests we emphasize agriculture’s role in healing the earth and its inhabitants.
1. Buy food from farmers who grow it without chemicals, whether they call their practices sustainable, organic, biological or regenerative, it means healthier more nutritious food. “Putting a face on your food” means buying directly from farmers.
2. Lobby politicians for laws that pay “carbon credits” to industries that sequester carbon in the soil rather than in the air. Some governments also charge a “carbon tax” to those who pump large amounts of carbon into the air.
3. Compost and encourage others to compost. Everyone needs to put their food waste into a composting system. This will lower the methane gasses released from dumps, while providing fertilizer for our farms and gardens. Composting with worms increases the nutritional value of the end product and is easy and inexpensive to do.
4. Make small-scale farming more profitable by improving the soil, thus increasing production. One way to do this is to stop killing the mycorrhizae in the soil with chemicals and to start inoculating mycorrhizae into the soil to improve its health and fertility. Mycorrhizael fungi can help retain moisture in the soil and improve plant health while strengthening a plant’s immunity to diseases and pest attacks.
5. Increase humus levels in the soil by improving microbial activity with the addition of compost and mycorrhizae. Humus is the “glue” that holds soil together, helps prevent erosion and improves soil health through microbial action. Our current agricultural practices have decreased our soil humus by nearly 2/3. We can vastly increase the effectiveness of our fertilizers and improve agricultural production by simply increasing the humus in our soil with compost, vermicompost, bio char or other organic matter.
6. Ban the burning of crop residues. This practice adds tons of CO2 into the blanket of greenhouse gases while destroying organic matter we could use to create humus.
7. Start growing food and have your soil tested to insure maximum nutrition from what you grow. A comprehensive soil analysis and descriptive interpretation of the results can help you understand what your soil lacks and its pH, which affects nutrient availability, as well as other factors that can affect your yield and health.
8. Encourage public and private financing of renewable energy sources. Today 55 percent of our pension funds are used by oil and coal companies. You can request that this be changed. If we are to slow, stop or reverse global warming, we must not take more than 20 percent of the remaining oil and coal out of the ground to burn.
Most came away from Sait’s presentation with an understanding that building soil humus could be our single greatest gift to an overheating planet.
Graeme Sait is CEO of Nutri-Tech Solutions in Australia. For more information, visit nutri-tech.com.au.
Diana Duff is an organic farmer, plant adviser and consultant.
Tropical gardening helpline
Emily asks: I recently got a lovely flower arrangement that had some beautiful anthuriums in it. Can I grow them successfully in my garden at about 100 feet elevation?
Answer: The short answer is probably not. We get lots of questions about growing anthuriums in Kona. The plants thrive in Hilo and the flowers grow and bloom in many gardens as well as in the wild in the cooler, wetter weather of East Hawaii. You can encourage them to grow here, especially at upper elevations, but it takes careful placement and attention to their needs for them to thrive.
At elevations over 1,000 feet, with afternoon cloud cover, more rain and cooler temperatures, they can do well. At lower elevations, you will need to plant them in a shady spot in soil augmented with lots of organic matter and water them regularly. They grow best in rich, moist soil, so the closer you get to these conditions, the better they will do.
UH-CTAHR’s publication “Anthurium Culture in Hawaii” is available at ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/RES-152.pdf. It offers information about cultivars, propagation and pests.
Email plant questions to konamg@ctahr.hawaii.edu for answers by Certified Master Gardeners. Some questions will be chosen for inclusion in this column.
This column is produced by Diana Duff.
