Sara Ana

In a beautiful location by the Alto Beni river, surrounded by forest, lies the research station Sara Ana.

  

 Here, the Swiss Research Institute for Organic Agriculture (FiBL), carry out a long-term experiment in cooperation with local partners. Over a period of 20 years, several cacao production systems are compared:

1. conventional monoculture: exclusively cacao trees that receive both artificial fertilizer and pesticides
2. organic monoculture:the same but without artificial fertilizer and pesticides
3. a conventional agroforestry system: cacao interspresed with other trees, artificial fertilizer and pesticides are used
4. an organic agroforestry system: the same but without artificial fertilizer and pesticides
5. the Successional Agroforestry System (SAFS): the most complex of the production systems managed according to the SAFS principles 

The experiment is part of a larger research project with further experiments in Kenia and India.

International workshop in Alto Beni

 In early May 2012, a mixed group of  farmers, students, researchers, development workers and other with an interest in agroforestry from Brazil, Bolivia, Switzerland and Germany came together for 4 days to exchange experiences about successional agroforestry systems (SAFS).


Joachim Milz has reason to be happy: standing between his orange trees, he shows a foto of the same citrus plantation before he started to turn it into a SAFS. Now, he doesn't only get better citrus yields but can also harvest a great variety of other products in of his system.

 Other farmers in the region also told us about their experineces with agroforestry elements. Don Carlos, for example, stated that since he integrated shade trees in his cocoa plantation, he received "fertilizer from above" in the shape of falling leaves for his cacao.

Very impressive was a visit to a plantation of Cacao National Boliviano, a variety of cacao which has only recently been rediscovered for its special quality. The trees seemed to be more or less left to themselves and were by far the highest cacao trees I'd ever seen: 10-15 metres (in most plantations, they are about 2-4 metres high).

 Ernst's contributions to the workshop were theoretical...

 ... as well as practical

Besides visits to farms, we also had interesting presentations, for example about SAFS being successfully applied on larger scales (hundreds of hectares) in Western Brazil.

"Just a short hop to Sapecho"...

... that's what I thought on arrival in the provincial capital of Trinidad. The workshop in Sapecho would only start in four days. And as, in my calculation, the trip to Sapecho wouldn't take much more than a day, there was enough time to take a break, eat well, wash clothes and have my hair cut.

The next stop would be San Ignacio de Moxos, the main town of the Moxos region, a huge and mysterious wetland that I'd been looking forward to crossing since hearing about theories that this had been home to a little known but highly developed civilization. It wasn't until quite recently that traces of this civilization were discovered. In fact, I was so looking forward to travelling through the Moxos that I wasn't too bothered when I heard about a bloqueo that inhabitants of San Ignacio had begun the same day, especially as several people in Trinidad assured me that the bloqueistas were just closing the road for vehicles. Once there, one could pass the roadblock on foot before finding onward transport on the other side, I was told.

A few pictures of the Moxos ...

... where even in the dry season, several rivers have to be crossed by ferry.

And pictures of two of my fellow travellers.

The region is inhabited by people from very different backgrounds, including settlers from other parts of the country and indígenas whose ancestors have been living in this region for ages. As in other parts of the world, such a mix of people often brings with it conflicts of interest. Driving towards San Ignacio de Moxos, I wasn't aware that I was just a few kilometres away from a manifestation of such a conflict. It includes a march of hundreds of  people (mostly indigenas) to La Paz to demonstrate against government plans to build a highway through their territory and a road blockade of highway supporters (mostly settlers).

The first surprise for me was that the first roadblock, consisting of two big trees, was put up at about 3 kilometres' distance of San Ignacio. We thus took our luggage and walked...

... to the next roadblock, this time a manned one.

The second surprise for me was that the people at the roadblock were not at all willing to let us pass. In the course of the next hours, all but one of my fellow passengers (who most probably knew some of the bloqueistas) sneaked through the roadblock. The atmosphere was a bit tense so I did not want to take a risk and waited for the permission to pass. The beautiful sunrise was the nicest thing during the next, surprisingly cold, hours that I spent sitting on my backpack.

In the morning, representatives of the press arrived and after a meeting, a bloqueista leader declared that we were allowed to pass ...

 ... and enter the town which was still rather sleepy in the early morning.

The third suprise for me was the third roadblock at the other side of town. Here, the guys did not at all seem in the mood for compromise but declared unequivocally: "Nadie pasa!"

After about two hours of constantly increasing heat, I had gained a few metres towards the lorries that constituted this roadblock. A man whom I had taken to be one of the bloqueistas signalled me to join him and, without turning to look at the other people there, I followed him through the blockade. José turned out to be another passenger who had got stuck in the bloqueo. At a safe distance and out of sight from the bloqueo, we had a rest and waited for a vehicle to the city of San Borja (a few hours' drive from San Ignacio).

After an hour in which not a single vehicle passed, we decided to walk in the hope of finding a village with possibility of onward transport.

Two hours later, we were lucky. Jorge, a man with a pickup, gave us a lift to San Borja. We were really happy and relieved.

From San Borja, Jorge intended to continue straight to La Paz and agreed to take me to Sapecho, which was on his way. There had been rainfall in some places and the road was partly in a bad condition.

After many hours of driving we got stuck in the mud and could only continue after 10 people helped us to push and pull the car out. We arrived in Sapecho around midnight.

Crossing the continent...

... from Eastern Brasil to the Alto Beni region on the foothills of the Bolivian Andes, I spent 6 days (and 4 nights) on overland busses. The reason why I travelled so fast was that I did not want to miss the workshop that Ernst Götsch (who took a plane) and other people interested in his successional agroforestry system were going to hold in Alto Beni. The reason why I travelled by bus was that I wanted to get at least an impression of the huge distance that I covered and of the landscapes that I crossed. Here are a few pics of the trip from the city of Gandu in Eastern Brasil to the city of Trinidad in Bolivia, near my final destination, the village of Sapecho in the Alto Beni region:

At Ernst Götsch's Fazenda

I have briefly mentioned Ernst Götsch and his successional agroforstry system in an earlier entry to this blog. To have the opportunity to visit him on his Fazenda in Bahia was a great privilege!

In an area that is heavily deforested (the following picture, taken close to where Ernst lives, is representative of the state that the land in this part of Bahia is in), ...

... Ernst has created a beautiful and biodiverse agroforest.

Some of the trees that he planted are really big by now.

Almost every day, he works in this beautiful agroforestry system. Amongst others, he spends much time pruning trees which does not only keep him fit (very fit!) and offer him great views over his paradise ...

... but also provides light for trees in lower levels of the forest as well as a lot of organic fertilizer for the whole ecosystem.

Thus feeding and building up the soil, Ernst can harvest cacao of great quality (he was recently selected as one of the three producers of the best quality cacao of Brazil) ...

... as well as a great range of other products that grow in his agroforest.

While Ernst states that the time has not yet come for him to publish more on his approach to agroforestry, there exist some essays that he wrote in the 1990s. One of them, Break-Through in Agriculture, can be downloaded here.

The first days: Acclimatising to Brazil...

... in Salvador de Bahia...

... and on the beautiful Ilha de Boipeba.

The old Peugeot for the ride from Parakou to Natitingou in northern Benin didn't inspire much confidence. At least, my protests against putting a third person on the front passenger seat were successful. Four adults and two children were squeezed in the back. On the outskirts of Parakou, the driver of an oncoming shared taxi gave a hand signal and our driver turned off from the road to park the car behind a wall. He mumbled a few words and disappeared. After a while, I asked my front seat neighbour what we were waiting for and he explained to me that there was a police checkpoint which our driver, whose papers were not in order, wanted to have a look at. After the onset of a downpour, the driver returned soaking wet and in the best of moods. In a weather like this, he laughed, no policeman would get out of his shed to check the papers. The passengers were of the same opinion and we could continue. The limited visibility due to the rain (the windscreen wipers didn't work properly) and the horrible condition of the flooded road gave me an awkward feeling which wasn't improved by the fact that the driver kept singing in a high-pitched voice. At least he respected my plea to drive a bit slower. Due to the thousands of potholes we couldn't drive fast anyway. Contrary to our expectations, we were stopped at the checkpoint. With a sigh, the driver got out of the car and approached the two policemen with a huge laugh. These welcomed him stone-faced. I prepared myself for a long wait and thought that maybe it wouldn't be too bad if they'd make us continue in another vehicle. After a few minutes, however, our good-humoured driver returned, said something to the passengers of which I only understood "mille cinq cents" (thousand five hundred*) and we could continue our journey. The rear luggage cover wasn't properly closed because there was too much luggage so I did not have much hope to find anything in my backpack left dry on arrival in Natitingou. The heavy rainfall did not reduce and even increased when we had a flat tire. I didn't envy the two men who changed tires. In the next village, we stopped at a tire repair place situated on an island surrounded by rainwater-rivers. It took one hour until we could continue. The condition of the road got better and the driver got faster. I felt very uneasy and decided to get off the taxi in the next town to look for another vehicle to Natitingou. This wasn't necessary however as the driver stopped there anyway and made us board a relatively well-preserved Opel waiting there. Unfortunately, the rule that the better the condition of road and vehicle, the faster the ride proved correct. With 120 km per hour, we raced to Natitingou.

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* 1500 Francs CFA are about 2 Euros.