Duck tractors, instant gardens and fun on the farm — farmshop number 1

The playshop group plants seeds in an instant veggie bed under the direction of visiting permaculturist, Les Anwyl (right ). Photo by Dan Powell.

“What’s a duck tractor?”

That was one of the many questions asked and answered at the first Fair Earth Farm community agriculture “farmshop,” supported by the US State Department. Visitors from Kachin State in Burma, as well as farmers from neighboring Dorn Tarn village and a diverse collection of Thai and international “green people” gathered January 30, 2010 to exchange knowledge and experience in organic farming and to plant some food.

So as not to leave the good reader in suspense, a “duck tractor” is not a plow attached to a flock of grumbling ducks. It is a way of preparing a rice field by raising ducks in the flooded paddy before planting rice. The ducks paddle and nose around in the fields looking for food, controlling weeds and pests and fertilizing in the bargain, as well as supplying rich fertilized duck eggs (or duck meat if they refuse to lay!).  A certified organic farmer in Chiang Mai’s Mae Rim District known as Uncle Ard has successfully employed this practice, significantly reducing his costs by eschewing tractor rentals and increasing his earnings by selling eggs. He also sells his rice for several times the price earned by Dorn Tarn farmers, by selling into an organic rice network organized by the organization Green Net.

Following the hard work of a dozen ducks who spent about a month plowing the paddy field, we went to work planting a version of the System of Rice Intensification, SRI, in which single rice seedlings are transplanted into a field.

Duck tractors were only one of the innovative techniques in farming that were discussed, demonstrated and employed at the day-long farmshop. (We don’t use the term “workshop” because it has been so abused by the development industry that anyone with half a brain runs for the hills at the mere mention of the word. And our “work”shops are too much fun to be called work.)

Other issues addressed included:

• Permaculture
• the System of Rice Intensification (SRI)
• the “1-2-3-drop” direct seeding method of farmer-innovator Kru Pratum
• instant vegetable beds by sheet mulching
• famine-proof forest farming, and
• non-toxic pest control

In all, more than 30 people attended the ‘shop, representing five countries and diverse backgrounds and persuasions. The friends from Kachin State in Burma were visiting the farm for their second year as part of an ongoing environmental training program. On an earlier visit, we provided them with a tiny handful of loofah seeds. They went back to Kachin, grew a bumper crop and won first prize in a fair for a 4-ft. long gourd! At this ‘shop, about a dozen people from Kachin arrived, mostly women, and they came to discuss organic farming. We were happy to talk about it, but when it comes to farming, it’s not enough to talk. You need mud between your toes and dirt beneath your fingernails. The Kachin are no strangers to farming, and these folks were no neophytes when it comes to the environment. So we got along just fine.

Our neighbors from Dorn Tarn village are going through a rough patch in a generally lousy rural economy. Despite the occasional shallow dips, the price of agrochemicals steadily trend upwards while the price for their main product, chrysanthemum flowers for the cut-flower trade, just collapsed. Last year they got up to 4 baht for a single grade-A flower. Last week the buyers were offering them one baht for five flowers. That price would not cover even a fraction of their costs, so they just dumped the flowers they harvested by the side of the road, or left them in the fields. The price of rice, meanwhile, continues to pauperize hardworking farmers. They clearly need sustainable alternatives.

With the help of our crack researcher, Alongkorn, we’ve been researching the situation with neighboring villagers for several weeks, and introducing the idea of sourcing pesticide-free produce for our nascent network in community supported agriculture, or CSA. At Fair Earth Farm, we’re testing farming practices inspired by farmers from Chiang Mai Province and elsewhere that are completely free from synthetic chemical inputs. But we understand that immediately stopping the use of chemicals by local farmers is not possible, so our approach is to work with them to reduce their dependence on chemicals. To that end, the idea is to help them rebuild their degraded soil in test plots using alternative methods, while eschewing the use of toxics on food they’re supplying to the community farming network.

Ten villagers attended the ‘shop, including four women. Several had already received some training in organic farming connected with Mae Jo University – including two women – but their efforts were ridiculed by local farmers, who are very dubious about the prospects of organic farming. One of the attendees was Ai Seud, the Fair Earth Farm foreman, whose previous interest in organic farming had earned him the derision of his peers, but who is now a keen advocate of organic practices. One of the attendees, Ai Sak, is former law student and student leader of the 1970s, who is now an innovative flower grower (and one who foresaw the overproduction and consequent collapse of the chrysanthemum market and switched to marigolds, which require less investment). Both these men took initiative in the ‘shop and provided leadership in key activities.

Les explains the next activity: instant vegetable beds by sheet mulching. This practice builds soil, suppresses weeds and produces food at the same time.

Instrumental in the ‘shop was visiting Australian permaculturist, Les Anwyl, who helped design, plan and lead the ‘shop, and most importantly led a module on instant vegetable beds using a sheet mulching system. This innovative system builds soil, suppresses weeds, reduces labor and produces food at the same time. Using on-site material like water hyacinth, green manures like sunn hemp, as well as rice straw and compost, or easily available low-cost off-farm material like cardboard and cow manure, Les demonstrated how to create a vegetable bed without back-breaking hoeing or weeding. Given the natural human antipathy to such punishing work, this module seemed very popular. After the demonstration, the entire group created a 15-sq-m mulch bed on an area that had been grown to green manure (Crotalaria juncea [sunn hemp], and mung bean) for about 60 days. The group planted this bed using an adaptation of the traditional Native American intercrop of maize, beans and squash known as the Three Sisters. In this case, we used sorghum, sweet corn, bush beans and pumpkin.

Les has been using this system of sheet mulching for years, working with indigenous people in Australia’s Arnhem Land and the Kimberly Plateau. He used this demonstration to discuss some key aspects of permaculture. First, he explained that the approach makes use of things considered problems or waste in modern farming and society. For example, water hyacinth is an invasive species clogging waterways all over Thailand and the rest of Asia. It grows in the nearby drainage canal, and we introduced it into our system of fish canals. It spreads rapidly, but we use it frequently in composting and sheet mulching. And we probably haven’t scratched the surface of the uses of water hyacinth. It also reportedly has uses as a bio-remediator or natural water filter, and as feed for fish, ducks and pigs. The Kachin told us they use it for pig food to good effect.

Another example of a waste cum resource is cow manure, which has become a major pollutant through intensive livestock rearing. The great farmer-philosopher Wendell Berry said that when modern farming took animals off the land and concentrated them in feedlots, it “took a single solution and created two problems.” Now farmers spread imported industrial fertilizers on their fields, while feedlots dump the animals’ waste in huge lagoons. Permaculture calls for the re-integration of animals and plants in a holistic system. As for rice straw, the modern practice in northern Thailand is to burn the straw in the fields, creating an annual crisis of smog that threatens human health and the tourism industry. Ai Seud spends days after every harvest collecting the free straw from neighboring fields before it goes up in smoke.

Another lesson from the sheet-mulching activities is the benefits in reducing labor and reliance on agrochemicals. By covering weeds and grass with cardboard and a thick layer of mulch, a farmer can create permanent vegetable beds and dramatically reduce the labor needed for hoeing and weeding. They can save on their herbicide bills, too. These mulch beds also maintain soil moisture and can conserve on water and the labor needed to provide it. The participants had many questions about these activities and appeared quite interested, as would most anyone who has spent a lot of time in the sun with a hoe!

In all, it was a good day. Thanks to everyone who joined the fun.