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In this new age of global trading and expanded population, not only is it good to learn how to earn a living as a freelancer, without having to commute somewhere far every day, but we should also learn to grow our food needs using land close to us. For hundreds of years the Indians around the area of Kashmir have learned how to maximize food output from a limited area of arable land. This is because they were in such a remote area that trade with the outside was very limited. To survive they had to learn how to become self-sustainable, control their population growth and optimize their crop outputs.
Eventually some Australians (Bill Mollison and David Holmgren) discovered this, studied it and took this “technology” home to develop it further. They have been doing so for decades and this new science is now rapidly spreading around the planet. The principle is to understand how nature works together and to develop a natural ecosystem where the plants work together and support one another. Crops are “stacked”, such as planting fruit trees in a grain field, above grape vines. By stacking in this way the land can produce much more crops than with traditional farming. Furthermore, by developing a self-sustaining ecosystem, you will no longer need to overturn soil every fall or pull out weeds in the spring and summer. The other plants take care of that, or perhaps the chicken. It is a specific science of designing your organic garden to create a self-maintaining ecosystem, producing the maximum yield for the minimum amount of work.
You can download the full 155 page report written by Bill Mollison from here. In there you will find a section for the arid land found in much of Africa. If you have any tips for others please feel free to tell me [ so that I can post them here!
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