An Overview Of Our Solution
Foundation Rachel & Pamela Schiele – a 4,000 hectare organic farm and WWF reserve in Argentina which is farmed sustainably and attempts to demonstrate alternative methods of farming with planned conservation and research and to reduce the impact of pesticide use and conventional farming practices in surrounding areas.
Who is this solution impacting?
Community Type
Rural
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: South America
General Information
Organization type
Nonprofit
Ecosystem (select all that apply)
Grasslands
Population impacted
12,000 in local town + consumers of our food as we
Challenge
Size of agricultural area
3,000 ha
Production quantity
1,100 cattle + 800 tonnes grain
People employed
16 people
Solution
Describe your solution
We have carried out organic farming at scale across our land for 23 years. We plan conservation across the whole farm integrating it with farming practices. We also conserve untouched original grassland and thickets which are used for occasional grazing by cattle. We publicise excessive aerial spraying and wind contamination from non-organic crops both of which affect our crops. We attempt to educate local authorities and inhabitants on the dangers of pesticides and the benefits of alternative farming systems, and by demonstrating our sustainable method of mixed farming at scale.
Implementation
Describe your implementation
Activities: We address misuse of pesticides by educational activity and conservation by a consensual conservation planning and the promotion of onsite scientific research. Educational activity amid local institutions and farms – we offer educational programmes and workshops on farming and conservation issues. This requires connectivity with local institutions, administrative and educational. Receptivity in these areas is variable but we keep pushing hard to ensure that our programmes continue and farm visits re well attended.
External connections
WWF/Fundación Vida Silvestre, Universities of Cordoba, Buenos Aires and Rio IV for botanical and soil conservation, Movimiento Argentino de Producción Orgánica.
Results
What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?
Estancia Las Dos Hermanas (2H) is surrounded by farms growing GMO crops – soya and maize. The conventional GMO farming system, involving the use of herbicides and pesticides, many of which are delivered by crop spraying, has a profound impact on the surrounding farms and threatens 2H with crop pollen contamination. The trees on the neighbouring farms are suffering annual damage, with grave damage to tree foliage. Little wildlife survives in the fields and super weeds resistant to herbicides are becoming a problem for conventional farmers. This has led to the use of more powerful chemicals, exacerbating the problem. Further afield the hydrology has been affected by the drainage of wetlands, which has had an impact on wildlife movements, such as the appearance of puma on the farm, which has an impact on cattle rearing.
Describe the context in which you are operating
Context: Our farm is 12 km on poorly maintained dirt roads from a small town (Arias). Till recently the urban and rural population had little knowledge of the environmental impact of the local conventional farming practices, recent concern in Argentina over poisoning from glyphosate spraying has led to bans of specific pesticides around population centres. But banning glyphosate has sometimes led to the use of worse pesticides. Knowledge of how to farm without spraying has almost disappeared. There is little knowledge of alternative methods of farming with conservation and the associated environmental services
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
We fence and monitor intensively specific grassland plant communities. We protect and harvest seed from other communities. We have a plant nursery for other communities.
Language(s)
Which language(s) are spoken in the area where your solution is implemented?
Water
We monitor activity on and around our wetland system, alerting to misuse, measuring water health and the populations
Food Security/Nutrition
We sell nutritious organic food products on a sustainable basis – 1,100 cattle and 8t00 tonnes of grain
Economic/Sustainable Development
We create employment - 15 jobs locally and more in the food distribution chain. We also create a demonstration effect of a sustainable organic farm, of which there are no comparable or equally large examples in Argentina.
Climate
Our conserved grassland acts as a carbon sink; this applies both to original pampa grassland on the area which has never been ploughed and to other natural grassland on areas which have been only rarely ploughed over the last 70 years.
Sustainability
We are a sustainable organic farm which is able, just about, to maintain itself, its level of employment and to recapitalize itself over the economic cycle.
Return on investment
Our returns are between 0 and 2% of turnover and around 2-5% of capital invested over a long cycle of investment (eg in bulls/cattle or tractors/equipment) and consolidation.
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Replication and Scale
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
Primary requisite is land but also required are supportive partners such as WWF?FVSA who set enabling environment and training/monitoring. We believe that there are many other private reserves in Argentina which can follow our example of combining organic farming with detailed conservation planning.