The term is a mouthful, but it is a concept developed by Roland van Reenen, and applied in Curacao. He saw success in farming with this agricultural technology and is now spreading it around the world.
The theory, goes down to the way things were, and I can see it happening in my garden. I have a variety of plants, they all grow together, they invade each other’s spaces, use each other’s shade, share water and fill the area, some low, some high, besides 50% of my plants were dropped by birds, and just blend into the mix. It is disorganized but it is lovely. I understand the concept of not growing a single crop but growing a diverse cornucopia instead.
I think the British invented the disciplined, manicured, garden, and the world followed.
But the heavenly gardener who landscaped jungles, meant it to be dense and tangled.
And it seems to me we are going back to that.
Traditional farming dictates one crop at the time, syntropic agroforestry does a bunch of things at once, it is where plants and trees share nutrients, humidity, micro-bacterial and fungi-life, and create efficient food producing forests, together.
Agroforestry idea is now taking hold in Aruba, under the wings of Living Soil Aruba, an Agro Consultancy providing guidance and training to people involved and managing the overall initiative by Minister Ursell Arends, in collaboration with Santa Rosa. We now have 13 schools involved in the project. They expressed the interest and are now relying on volunteers, students and Santa Rosa professionals to make it happen. One of the schools is IPA which is exciting since it incubates teachers.
Paso Pa Futuro, and Princess Amalia School are also among the forerunners.
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Rose Barros told me about it, with great enthusiasm. The Syntropic Agroforestry pilot project in primary schools here was launched last year and will go on through the school year. It is introducing sustainable agricultural practices to local kids.
We started something that holds immense promise for our environment, our communities, and our future generations, says Rose, it will pave the way for a greener, healthier, and more sustainable world!
She explains: The beauty of Syntropic Agroforestry is that you can practice agriculture while restoring the earth, you work together with nature instead of against it. You also don’t need to use fertilizers or pesticides which makes you as farmer less dependent on chemicals, and it lowers costs. This requires a new approach to farming where you don’t focus on a monocrop, but you grow a wide variety of fruits and veggies. What we build at schools is still considered “hobby scale” and we focus on a wide variety of plants. When a commercial farmer comes along, he can focus on a number of main crops. But we don’t have a commercial farmer on the island yet, hopefully this will be our next project, she concludes. She is a passionate, eco-everything activist.
Rose is the co-founder of Eco Living Aruba, sharing the dream of living a more sustainable life in the desert climate of Aruba. Eco Living creates natural local products with as many locally sourced materials as possible. Rose dedicates her spare time to the introduction of agroforestry.
Enseansa pa Empleo put together a beautiful book in Papiamento, Un Guia Ilustrativo pa Agroforestry, un buki di guia cortico y simpel, explaining the concept with illustrations and clear, friendly text.
The original book is by Joao Paulo Becker Lotufo Junior, and it is illustrated by Cesar Claro Trevelin, translated by the Department of Education, Aruba.
