A greenish spot stands out in the undulating landscape around Poções, a small municipality in the semiarid region of Bahia.
There, the profusion of cacti, succulents and caatinga trees contrasts with the degraded pasture and the surrounding bare soils.
The person responsible for the “oasis” is the 66-year-old retired engineer Nelson Araújo Filho.
“When I started here, the soil was compacted and didn’t produce anything,” he tells BBC News Brasil.
Sitting in the shade of an umbu tree, Araújo says that for many years that area, which belongs to his father, sheltered fields of maize and cassava. Afterwards, it became pasture for cattle.
But the years of intensive use depleted the soil and left it on the verge of becoming a desert — a phenomenon that affects around 13% of the land in the Brazilian semiarid region, according to the Laboratory for Analysis and Processing of Satellite Images at the Federal University of Alagoas.
Araújo began reversing the process three years ago with the implementation of an agroforestry system covering 1.8 hectares, an area equivalent to two soccer fields.
The method, which has been adopted in several regions in Brazil and around the world, is mirrored in the functioning of the original ecosystems in each region.
Abundance without irrigation
In the beginning, Araújo planted species from the caatinga that survive even in degraded soils, such as forage cactus and avelós. Afterwards, he started pruning the vegetation frequently, using all the material cut to cover and fertilize the soil.
With the improvement of conditions, more demanding species, such as large and fruit trees, are already starting to ask for passage. The abundance of flowers and fruits attracts birds and bees; and wild animals that had not been seen for a long time, such as deer, returned to circulate in the region.
In a few more years, Araújo hopes that his system will resemble an untouched area of the caatinga, with plants of all heights and a wide variety of species, from which he can extract honey, fruits and food for herds all year round.
And all this without using pesticides, chemical fertilizers or a single drop of irrigation water.
“There is no lack of water in the caatinga”, says the farmer, referring to the dew that bathes the vegetation every night and leaves him with wet clothes when visiting the agroforestry in the morning.
He claims that the still water is enough to “keep the system working”.
“Rain, for me, is a bonus,” he says, questioning the notion that, in the semiarid region, every crop needs irrigation or rainy summers to thrive.
Tool against climate change
Techniques like those used by Araújo have attracted the spotlight at a time when global leaders are discussing how to curb climate change — an objective of the Conference of the Parties (COP-26) taking place this month in Glasgow, Scotland.
For climatologists, agroforestry systems are tools both for adapting to change and for reducing the pace of change.
This is because the diversity of systems makes farmers less vulnerable to extreme weather, while agroforestry increases the absorption of carbon into the atmosphere.
And, according to specialists, the Brazilian semiarid region has already been one of the regions most affected by climate change in the world.
In its latest report, released in August, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) stated that the semiarid region has been facing more intense droughts and higher temperatures, conditions that tend to accelerate the desertification of its soils.
Hence the urgency to replace an agriculture that weakens the soils with one capable of restoring them.
In its 2019 report, the IPCC had already said that “agroforestry systems can contribute to improving food productivity while enhancing biodiversity conservation, ecological balance and restoration under changing climatic conditions”.
Greater water infiltration
For agronomist Eunice Maia de Andrade, a professor at the Federal University of Ceará, agroforestry systems are capable of recovering a good portion of the semiarid soils.
A specialist in soil and water conservation in the semi-arid region, with a doctorate in Renewable Natural Resources from the University of Arizona (USA), Andrade says that these systems facilitate water infiltration and reduce surface runoff, which protects the soil’s microbiology and helps retain nutrients.
But she says that implementing the system would be “very difficult” in some parts of the semiarid region, such as in regions where the soil is very shallow and rocky, or in areas where it rains less than 500 millimeters a year.
The driest parts of the Brazilian semiarid region receive around 250 mm of rain a year, a third of the rate seen in the wetter parts of the region.
In Poções, where Nelson Araújo Filho implemented his agroforestry system, the average rainfall rate is 624 mm/year, according to the Weather Spark portal.
For professor Eunice Maia de Andrade, combating desertification requires “a set of different actions and techniques”, which take into account the level of rainfall and the skills of each location.
Prejudice and resistance
In recent years, various collectives and social movements have held courses and experiences in the semiarid region to encourage the adoption of agroforestry or agroecological systems.
The two concepts are similar and are opposed to the so-called Green Revolution, a set of agricultural techniques that have spread around the world since the 1930s and are based on the intensive use of fertilizers, pesticides and mechanization.
Agroecology and agroforestry systems seek to reconcile food production with environmental restoration. Furthermore, they value the autonomy of farmers and the use of resources that are already available in the area.
One of the organizations that have spread the practices in the semiarid region is the Center for Assistance and Support to Workers and Alternative Non-Governmental Institutions (Caatinga).
One of the group’s members, Vilmar Luiz Lermen, frequently receives on his farm in Exu, Pernambuco, farmers from various states interested in learning the methods and visiting a 15-year-old agroforestry.
In the semiarid region, however, as in other parts of the country, there are obstacles to the penetration of these ideas and a reluctance to abandon certain traditional practices.
Nelson Araújo Filho himself faced resistance when he began to implement his agroforestry in Poções.
Some neighbors and relatives protested, saying that the large presence of forage cactus (a type of cactus) in the plantation would devalue the area.
This is because this species is widely used as food for goats, whose breeding is associated with poverty in the region.
The discontented argued that, instead of palm, he should plant grass for oxen, since cattle raising, on the contrary, is a valued activity.
thorny vegetation
Farmers who have implemented agroforestry systems in other parts of the semi-arid region face similar questions.
Antonio Gomides França, who has been cultivating an agroforestry in Crato, in the interior of Ceará, for a year and a half, says that many neighbors are reluctant to adopt his methods because they do not know how to deal with caatinga vegetation in areas where the systems are implemented.
In general, this vegetation is formed by hard and thorny trees that survive in degraded soils, such as jurema, cat’s claw and mameleiro.
When an agroforestry is planted, these trees must be pruned or felled to make room for other species that help to restore the soil and expand the system’s diversity.
“But the farmer, when he’s going to cut down this thorny vegetation, doesn’t know how to organize the material, so he cuts it down and sets it on fire,” says França.
The problem is that burning is radically opposed to agroecological concepts, as it leaves the soil exposed to erosion and kills microorganisms that are essential for plant life — in addition to generating greenhouse gas emissions.
For France, however, with simple techniques and equipment, it is perfectly possible to give up fire in the semiarid region, using thorny plants to fertilize and protect the soil.
Another advantage of the system in relation to conventional agriculture, he says, is the reduction in risks due to the diversity of species. While the conventional farmer deposits all his chips in a few foods, losing everything if it doesn’t rain in the right month or if a pest appears, the agroforester manages a system in which there are harvests throughout the year.
serial deployment
In the coming months, Gomides intends to implement another agroforestry that he wants to turn into a reference point in Cariri, Ceará.
According to him, there is great difficulty in the region in finding seedlings and plant seeds suitable for agroforestry.
Therefore, France wants to create a matrix bank of these plants to share with other farmers in the region. The next step, he says, will be to create a “collective force” with residents to implement and manage agroforestry systems in series.
“You arrive with the structure, implement it, go to the next area, until you create a popular agroforestry circuit in the region.”
Today Gomides says that there is a lack of technical support and government incentives for farmers to migrate to the system.
“Here we are ourselves, we are digging a hole in our nails”, he says.
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