An Overview Of Our Solution
Climate change is posing an ever growing threat to humanity. Not only are many places on earth getting hotter, they are also getting dryer, more degraded and less fertile. But, a unique transformation is taking place in the Altiplano in southern Spain to realize the restoration of 630,000 hectares of degraded lands. Together with association AlVelAl, Commonland developed a large-scale landscape restoration plan for the region. Enhancing the biodiversity and local economy, while promoting local pride and inspiration. Next to that, over 30 business cases with the potential to contribute to landscape restoration have been identified and we are establishing several demo farms. My farm is one of the demo farms and I have implemented swales, ponds, sediment traps, keyline planting and I am going to include aromatics
Who is this solution impacting?
Community Type
Rural
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: Europe
General Information
Organization type
Other
Ecosystem (select all that apply)
Deserts
Forests
Population impacted
10.000
Challenge
Size of agricultural area
1500 ha
Production quantity
500.000 kg
People employed
7
Solution
Describe your solution
The farmers in the region need examples of success cases of regenerative practices. In my case, I have started implementing swales, ponds and composting because I believe that this is the only way we can create prosperity in this degrading region. The ponds are already showing increased biodiversity as amphibious, birds, wild goats, boars, and other animals have returned.
Farmers in the region often lack inspiration on how to manage and develop their land in such a way that it will prosper for many years to come. There are only little examples around of farmers who do increase the fertility of their land, increase their yields, have abundant biodiversity on their farms and have combined with thriving business cases. By implementing these restorative practices as one of the first farmers in the region I hope to inspire others in doing the same and showing them that sustainable land use can be done without losing yields or profit while at the same time increasing biodiversity on all levels.
Implementation
Describe your implementation
Specific activities that have been implemented to decrease erosion, are; swales, sediment traps and ponds and leaving on the plot all the shredded hay of the cereals when harvested.
For soil fertility; a rotation of 3 years, rye or wheat, leguminous, and barley. Leaving all the hay on the plot. On dry years we have a minimum of 2.500 kg per hectare of rye hay that we are adding to the soil, rye also helps us with weeds control and compacting the soil due to its rapid growth and deep roots which has increased yields. Adding compost to new plantations of trees and to established plantation of trees has doubled the growth rate of the trees. We make the compost ourselves with cereal hay, sheep manure and add some micro-elements and microorganisms that we get from our natural areas and propagate them.
For biodiversity; rotation of crops, sediment traps, ponds, and permanent vegetation on Swales. Planting local varieties of trees on gullies, and wetlands of the farm.
As a consequence of implementing these practises I have been actively promoting them during trainings and workshops in the region as well as online. Also, farmers in the region come to visit my farm to see and learn about it.
With the technical support of Commonland and AlVelAl I have been able to design some of the practises.
Obstacles that I have encountered are the high costs of the learning process and the failed experimentations because of the lack of other examples in the region.
The key success factors are the increasing amount of examples on how to implement these practises and the better image of our brand when commercialising our products.
External connections
Alvelal is a local Asociation created to promote the environmental, social and financial regeneration of the regionwe are in, that includes 1.000.000 hectares in the Southest of Spain (part of the provinces of Murcia, Granada and Almeria).
Commonland® believes that landscape restoration offers tremendous untapped opportunities for sustainable economic development. To demonstrate this potential, we develop landscape restoration projects that are based on business cases. Our efforts to implement regenerative practices links closely to the international goals on climate change, desertification, food security, biodiversity and ecosystem restoration embedded within the different committees, conventions and agreements of the United Nations. The United Nations Environmental Program mentions that: ‘’turning agriculture a brighter shade of green will not only ease pressure on the environment and help cope with climate change, but will also create opportunities to diversify economies, increase yields, reduce costs, and generate jobs—which will in turn help reduce poverty and increase food security’’. They are hereby linking the greening of agriculture directly to economic benefits and food security.
Results
What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?
Climate change is posing an ever growing threat to humanity. Not only are many places on earth getting hotter, they are also getting dryer, more degraded and less fertile. Feeding the population is thus seen as an expanding challenge which requires urgent action on all levels.
A more sustainable form of agriculture is needed (ground cover, swales, soil retention etc.). But, in the south of Spain, transition on farm level is still slow. In our region, an initiative has been set up that works through the 4 returns approach: return of natural capital, return of inspiration, return of social capital, and return of financial capital. AlVelAl transmits the vision of a region that can be full of life and prosperity by looking after the soil, water, biodiversity and ecosystems. This means transforming conventional farms into ecological ones and providing innovative business-cases to make the change easier.
Describe the context in which you are operating
The project takes place in a region with one of the highest levels of land degradation in Europe.
The conventional way of farming does not result in the same yields and economic security as it used to. Instead, it leads to failing yields, more resistant plagues and decreasing water levels. Ecological farming is something that is believed to be less productive, more costly and is more vulnerable to plagues.Farming is seen as a marginal lifestyle that one should not want for their kids, resulting in an exodus of young people from the countryside, thereby decreasing the liveliness in the villages further.
From the environmental problems, erosion is one of the biggest we have in our region. The numbers are quite impressive if we consider that on our rain fed plots the average erosion rate is 46 tons of soil per hectare per year.
Our climate is a big limitation, with an average rainfall of 370mm and major rainfall events in the last 5 years (more than 70mm in one day) with more that 50% of the rain of the year, and a big reduction of spring rain.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
The regenerative practices that have been implemented positively impact the biodiversity of the farm in the sense that the microbiological function of the soil has been improved, the swales and ponds have attracted numerous animals among which amphibious, wild goats, boars, birds, etc.
Also, the ponds provide a natural safe haven where animals can prosper. Besides that, the swales are meant to increase the moisture in the soil and bring alive the natural springs that have been dried out for years. By restoring the natural springs higher up, a wider area of land will be reached, influencing the land not only on my farm but on other farms and natural areas as well.
Language(s)
Spanish
Water
By installing more than 10 kilometers of swales, 12 sediment traps and 4 ponds in the last year we have improved dramatically the infiltration of the rainwater in the soil and decreased erosion by reducing the speed of water on the plots. The leaving of hay from the cereals on the plot reduces evaporation and improves infiltration of rainwater.
Food Security/Nutrition
We have improved the productivity of our farm by applying these practices; the yields have improved by planting local varieties of cereals that are better adapted to drier conditions. The products that we sell from the farm are more and more appreciated by local businesses like shops and bakers because of their higher quality.
Economic/Sustainable Development
These practices require investments. Some of them result in long term benefits and others in short term benefits. We have decided to use the extra income we receive from the improvement of commercialisation of our products in the implementation of more regenerative practices. All this results in a more productive and resilient farm also in the short term. This also allows us to hire more people and contribute to improve the employment rate in our region.
Climate
By incrementing the general green mass and the organic matter in the soil as well as infiltrating more rainwater in our plots we are increasing the general humidity of the soil of our farm. This not only improves our yields but also contributes to decreasing climate change on a larger scale.
Sustainability
The sustainability of the solution to be as efficient and fast as possible relies on a three factors. Funding is needed to start with regenerative practices, especially the ones that are most expensive and have longer term effects, like ponds, biodiversity bushes and sediment traps. This can be grant funding or government subsidies. A market based revenue for products that come from regenerative farming can help a lot to allow farmers keep doing regenerative practices constantly, not only when there are grants or subsidies.
Return on investment
The cost of a 5.000 square meter pond is around 15.000€ and of a small/medium size sediment trap of 100 square meters is around 200€. The average cost of a kilometre of swale is 500€. The cost of implementing compost is around 100€ per hectare but that practise along with crop rotation give a profit in the same year. Ponds, swales and sediment traps are medium to long term investments.
The results are very positive, in our case we invest in regenerative practices just the extra money we receive from the extra price of our products compared to conventional products, this way we can make it a constant and sustainable investment.
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Replication and Scale
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
The regenerative practices can be replicated on other farms, although the way of how to implement them should first be developed by an expert (for example within AlVelAl). At this moment this is been done with the implementation of swales, keyline, ponds, and aromatics. The funding required can differ between 10.000 for smaller adjustments and 50.000 for bigger changes. For technical assistance Commonland and AlVelAl are available. They have the capacity to provide trainings and workshops for implementation. The CAP and the regional governments can provide additional funding.