An Overview Of Our Solution
We constructed a novel method of market gardening: Synecoculture, based on the high-density mixed association of edible plants without the application of tillage, fertilizer, and chemicals.
We introduced a high crop diversity (200 species, 700 varieties in 1000㎡) for year-round sustainable harvests. This was shown to strengthen food security, nutrition profile, soil quality, cost efficiency, climate adaptation and field biodiversity:
In Japan, 2-fold productivity and 5-fold profitability was attained compared to conventional method.
In Burkina Faso, 40- to 150-fold productivity and 10-fold cost effectiveness was realized in arid tropic region.
Linear extrapolation of the result shows a strategic propagation of synecoculture could lift the entire population of Burkina Faso above the poverty threshold, and substantial achievement of Aichi biodiversity targets
Who is this solution impacting?
Community Type
Suburban
Rural
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: Africa
General Information
Organization type
Corporation
Ecosystem (select all that apply)
Urban/Built Environment
Population impacted
Japan: 6000 consumers, Burkina Faso: 1500 consumer
Challenge
Size of agricultural area
Japan: 3000㎡ in Ise city, Mie prefecture, and about 200 family gardens and smallholding farms all over Japan. Burkina Faso: 1 hectare in Fada N’Gourma and 500㎡ at Mahadaga in Tapoa province
Production quantity
Japan: 519,834 JPY/year/1000㎡ with organic price rate in 2010-2014, Burkina Faso: 7,572,000 CFAF/yr/500㎡ with organic price rate in 2015-2016
People employed
Japan:12 people (7 workers in Sakura Nature School, 1 researcher and 4 research assistants in Sony CSL) Burkina Faso: 17 people (12 workers and 5 committee members in AFIDRA)
Solution
Describe your solution
We constructed a novel method of market gardening for the production of vegetables and fruits: Synecological farming (synecoculture in short), based on the high-density mixed association of edible plants without the application of tillage, fertilizer, and chemicals.
We first shifted the definition of yield from the conventional single crop optimization to the community level, that is to harvest by thinning from a wide variety of edible plants forming mixed community. The management goal was set to yield the symbiotic effects out of the megadiversity of crops and naturally occurring species, with low-input methods that conserves environment and reduce labor. The spontaneous organization of ecosystem functions in response to the diversity of plant community formed a major basis of cost-effective management, which was revealed to be compatible with productivity and various regulation services.
The crop diversity was highly set (about 200 species, 700 varieties in 1000㎡) in order to assure year-round sustainable harvest with constant frequency. This was shown to strengthen food security, products diversity, nutrition profile, soil quality, water efficiency, and field biodiversity both in Japan and Burkina Faso.
We have also developed ICTs for the effective transmission of the practical knowledge on farming and utilization of products, and the on-site management of overwhelming biodiversity that goes beyond a natural state of ecosystems and human capacity.
Implementation
Describe your implementation
1: The synecoculture was designed as a total solution of the context analysis: The augmentation of biodiversity in the plot (about 200 edible species/ 1000㎡ under coexistence of spontaneous species), which substantially recovers lost ecosystem functions beyond a natural state and eventually reverses the regime shift in degraded land. It drastically enriched food diversity on the local production-consumption basis, and ecological interactions between plants and fauna enhanced micronutrient profile.
The low-input (no tillage, no fertilizer, no chemicals) and light manual labor with high yield reestablished natural material cycles and was adapted to aging community in Japan and under weak infrastructure conditions in Burkina Faso (specified in the RESULTS).
2: In Japan, we organized monthly seminars to explain the practice of synecoculture on site, as well as the publication of scientific evidences on the productivity and biodiversity realized.
In Burkina Faso, we organized an international forum on synecoculture gathering multiple stakeholders in the Sahel with the support of the Government.
3: Access to plant genetic resources is the fundamental basis. The system requires a highly diverse portfolio of crop seeds and seedlings, preferably locally adapted variety and underutilized species.
In terms of the interaction with the surrounding environment, conventional monoculture applying fertilizer and chemicals should be set apart to avoid pollution. Animal fence is needed against free-range grazing and mammalian pests (ex. wild boar and deer).
4: Human education is the primary condition for the realization of the novel method. The change of mindset from conventional monoculture to the community yield supported by a comprehensive biodiversity response needs to be understood for effective management.
5: The practice did not conform to conventional agriculture methods, though it was effectively supported by open-source initiative and institutional supports
External connections
The synecoculture is registered as a part of CSR programs of Sony corporation for the value of biodiversity offset and the relevance to information industry. The management system of synecoculture with ICT has a wide application not only in agriculture but in other sectors of primary industries where human activity is in direct contact with natural ecosystems, including the implementation of ABS Clearing-House defined in Nagoya protocol.
In collaboration with the Center of Innovation Program (COI-STREAM) and Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, evidences on regulation services in water cycle are being studied in view of implementation to the Earth Simulator to assess the global impact of biodiversity mainstreaming in smallholding agriculture.
The experiment results in Burkina Faso by AFIDRA has convinced the Ministry of Agriculture and Hydrolytic Planning and the establishment of the nation-wide institutional support is in progress.
The results of the 1st African Forum on Synecoculture was brought to the constitutional commission of Burkina Faso and contributed to implement the articles on the right to environment and sustainable agriculture resources in the novel constitution.
The overall activity gained the support of the UniTwin UNESCO Complex Systems Digital Campus program as a prominent example of open-source citizen science that has a potential to develop worldwide with transdisciplinary capacity building through north-south-south cooperation.
Results
What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?
We seek for a fundamental solution against the loss of biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services that are mainly triggered by conventional agriculture. This is not only the problematics of large-scale monoculture in developed countries, but resource-depleted small-holding farming especially in developing countries. While about 70% of the world food are produced on 80% of arable land by family-owned farms that accounts for 1/3 of the world population, it is a major source of the land degradation and biodiversity loss. Nearly 70% of the arid arable land is in the desertification process by inappropriate practice of local smallholders. We address a challenge that overcome the fundamental trade-off between productivity and biodiversity in the history of agriculture: Synecoculture project, that aims to create an augmented ecosystem mainstreaming biodiversity, with a synergy between productivity and biodiversity based on the ecology of community applied to agricultural production.
Describe the context in which you are operating
Japan experienced the worst farming crisis between 1995-2015 marked with a drastic halving of workers in farming and forestry, associated with the average age increase to 66. The conventional practice is no more sustainable in terms of income level and community building. Pollution from agricultural land is the major source that is affecting aquatic ecosystems and negatively impacting the fishery. Not only field biodiversity but the nutrition profile of conventional products is also worsening in terms of micronutrients, seen as relevant to the increase of national medical expenditure that accounts for more than 40% of the entire national budget.
Burkina Faso is an extreme example of poverty, desertification and consequent insecurity caused by inappropriate agricultural practice such as land conversion to farmland and overgrazing. Because the political situation is unstable, the rural development such as the construction of roads and technological supports on farming are left behind. Water resource is scarce while some regions in rainy season suffer from flooding by the lack of soil. Malnutrition and food security is a prevalent problem in the entire nation.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
We have introduced about 200 edible plant species which accounts for 700 varieties on 1000㎡ scale in Japan from 2010 and 150 species in 500 ㎡ in Burkina Faso in 2015 under the controlled coexistence with naturally occurring species. Tillage and chemicals were not applied in order to preserve soil and above-ground ecosystems, neither fertilizer to prevent water pollution and pest outbreak.
The high density mixed polyculture systems went through a self-organization process based on the spontaneous growth of plant community under the guidance of human by thinning harvest to maintain the coexistence of various species.
As a consequence, field and surrounding environments augmented biodiversity beyond a natural preservation state. Visual observation with the use of digital camera and ICT recorded more than 1000 plant and insect species in Japan, including IUCN red data list species in a plot. Abandoned arid land in Burkina Faso reestablished the vegetation to a most mature stage of primary succession in terms of species composition.
References:
http://www.seipub.org/jitae/paperInfo.aspx?ID=13782
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01291104/document
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01291125/document
https://www.elab-ose4el.net/?p=394
Language(s)
Japan: Japanese; Burkina Faso: Mossi, French
Water
Water pollution was completely prevented by the practice without the application of tillage, fertilizer, and chemicals. Experiments in Japan depended solely on rainwater except the nursing stage of seedlings. The productivity was not affected by the variance in precipitation, meaning the increase of water buffering capacity. In Burkina Faso, water efficiency as measured by productivity divided by water cost in CFAF rose to 8.53 compared to the mean of other irrigation-based methods 3.53.
Food Security/Nutrition
Synecoculture farms could provide a high variety of market gardening products throughout the year with the diversity comparable to regional scale, providing a bold basis of food security with local production and local consumption. The produce showed higher concentration of minerals and secondary metabolite which considerably overlapped with pharmacological compounds, especially phytochemicals that support long-term health protective effect.
Economic/Sustainable Development
In Japan, 2-fold productivity and 5-fold profitability was attained compared to conventional market gardening. No machinery was used but light manual labor that was accessible to aging population. In Burkina Faso, 40- to 150-fold productivity was realized in arid tropic region. The profitability reached 6,084,782 CFAF/yr/500㎡ as the only profitable method among other practices. This corresponds to 20 times the yearly GNI per capita and 50 times the absolute monetary poverty threshold in capital
Climate
Analysis in response to meteorological parameters in Japan revealed that product diversity was positively correlated w/ variance of temperature & sunlight duration & remained insignificant w/ change in precipitation. This means that community productivity of introduced species are reacting positively to climate volatility, expected to increase in the future climate change. In Burkina Faso drastic recovery from regime shift (desertification) strengthened regulation services against extreme climat
Sustainability
Both projects in Japan and Burkina Faso did not receive public funding or other subsidies. These pilot projects were performed under autonomous activities of Sakura Nature School (corporation) in Japan and AFIDRA (NGO) in Burkina Faso, with a research initiative of Sony CSL. The development of each farm was supported by the market-based revenue with local production for local consumption basis, except a part of produce was home-delivered as vegetable boxes all over Japan.
Return on investment
In Japan, the cost was mainly for the commercial seedlings, which costed 155,000 JPY/yr/1000㎡. Other inputs and heavy machinery were not used, which drastically decreased the initial cost compared to conventional farming. The overall cost was completely recovered on the first year, and the cost/benefit ratio converged around 0.5 (twice benefit than cumulative cost) from the second year.
In Burkina Faso, total costs for the implementation amounted to 1,487,218 CFAF/yr/500㎡ including seeds, water, tools, and labor costs, with the productivity of 7,572,000 CFAF/yr/500㎡. This results in the total cost effectiveness 5.09 (5 times more profit than overall investment) from the very first year, which is 10 times more than other tested methods.
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Replication and Scale
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
Successful replications in Japan are mainly in family gardens, forming a community of about 200 practitioners with high awareness on health and environment. Information sharing should be more promoted for scaling up, since the practice is highly diverse and difficult to transmit. Advanced ICT support could be a solution, as well as a funding for the seed supply chain including exchange of local varieties. Institutional and legal support could gather more professional farms.
The experiment in Burkina Faso is another replication in extreme environment, which showed prominent results in arid tropics. Accessibility to plant genetic resources is a key factor of implementation. Funding is required for a larger scale practice, especially for training opportunities. Linear extrapolation of the result shows a strategic propagation of synecoculture could lift the entire population of Burkina Faso above the poverty threshold, and substantial achievement of Aichi biodiversity targets by 2020.