Climate Change - a hot world issue for 2011- item 2 on Dadamac's agenda today January 5, 2011

Agenda item 3. Permaculture and Attachab ( http://www.dadamac.net/projects/ecology-and-appropriate-technology/attachab )

For content this was also relevant for dealing with climate change - as it relates to agricultural practices and sharing new ideas and information. Reference socio-tech it is also relevant to people who care how information gets shared with groups who are most distanced from the Internet.

More of John's comments:

• Jim has just another 17days to go at Attachab. ( http://www.dadamac.net/network/jim-guy )
  
• The tree planting has been very good with 95% survival. (This probably refers to Jatropha seedlings - at a February 2010 Dadamac meeting we were told that "we are raising a nursery of 2000 jatropha plants we intend to transplant when the rains begin". They were for various locations, and so it is possible that some went to Attachab.)
  
• the surrounding farmers are still curious about the new irrigation methods we are introducing: less labour intensive, cheaper etc. But it takes a successful crop to convince them
• Construction work will start shortly of a wooden house: another new technology wich can be shared with farmers/ students visiting Attachab
• Attachab intends to provide hands-on learning experiences on modern affordable green farming and building technology
• We have visited and are being visited by neighboring farmers, as the work progresses we will continue to report it here at DMC (Dadamac meetings)
• Graham ( http://www.dadamac.net/network/graham-knight ) suggested the use of clay pots for irrigation and we have bought 8 such pots and will be using them at Attachab. It turns out to be an age-old method of irrigation which is n longer practices
• Hopefully, Attachab will resurrect more of such viable, cheap technologies and encourage their adoption
• We are still challenged with the high leakage from the earth ponds; if we could get pond liners, it would be great
• But we've heard of a local clay, mostly used in the oli producing industry, whicjh may help reduce the leakage in the ponds
• As the dry season comes up, the pond walls shrinks and crack leading to loss of water
• ATCB (Attachab) is all about learning
• We are now in the dry season
• In terms of coping with climate change, dry season farming may actually turn out to be more predictable and amenable to control than the rainfed farming
• If you are near a stream, like we are in ATCB, your water supply is assured and you can use drip irrigantion to water the crops
• You have no problems of the deluge and erosion of the torrential rains
• Yes we are now using drip irrigation for the vegetable beds
• We realise we need more water hoses, more reservoirs uphill and a bigger water pump
• Yes, its Jim thats supervising the FF staff on the ATCB
• He listens to how the folks have been doing it and sees how things may be improved.
• We have one plastic 5,000L reservoir, one pump and 2 water hoses.
• (The hoses are not like garden hoses) more like what the Water goddesses use for fire control in UK
  
• The interaction with the local farmers is one of the key achievement at ATCB: they make suggestions on what they think we should be doing, they are skeptical about our drip irrigation.
• We use a petrol (driven) pump at moment.
• Drip irrigation appears too slow to them (local farmers), the finer points of controlling how much water and how quickly water reaches the plants are lessons that are not easily passed on
• our present pump is 5Hp, we could do with a 20HP pump
• We pump into reservoir located uphill, and distribute the water using gravity