The Soil Farmers: Black Food Sovereignty and Climate Solutions

The Viet Nam Farmers Union rolled out a train-the-trainer program focused on encouraging rice farmers in Vietnam to take up more sustainable practices. This style of training helps farmers overcome any hesitation towards trying new methods by allowing them to learn from their peers and see the success of demonstration plots.

After they were socially, economically, and politically forced from their agricultural land, the people who have used regenerative farming principles for millennia are reimplementing the practice in their communities. This allows them to improve soil health and reconnect with the land.

Humus farming is a technique that doesn’t harm the soil or organisms living in it but instead nourishes it, thus making it more sustainable for long-term use. Humus farming and other climate change mitigation tactics to revive soil and make it healthy and usable are spreading across Europe.

A conservationist dedicated 1.7 acres in Odisha, India, to farm and conserve native rice varieties in an effort to revive resilient crops and food systems in the country after many were abandoned for high-yield varieties. The seeds are shared with small farmers across several states.

Biochar, charcoal made by heating organic biomass like forest debris, can be used as an amendment to improve soil health and sequester carbon. The charcoal is incredibly porous, so it holds nutrients, water, and carbon.

Government agencies, trade groups, and businesses are working together to provide agroforestry training and environmental education to rubber farmers in Thailand. Cultivating rubber alongside other useful trees and crops is better for the environment than monoculture farms and increases farmers’ profits.

The nonprofit Group to Promote Education and Sustainable Development teaches women in drought-ridden Indigenous communities across Mexico to use ancestral methods of irrigation and grow drought-resilient medicinal plants. The four-year training program also aims to address gender disparity through empowerment. Participants are encouraged to set up savings funds to increase their financial independence and attend group therapy sessions, among other activities.

Farmers around the world are implementing agroecology practices to make their farms more resilient to climate change while promoting climate justice to strengthen farming communities. Agroecology follows 13 principles that include ecological practices, like using organic fertilizers, and political and social values, like embracing land rights.

Nonprofits are spreading knowledge of breadfruit trees to communities facing food insecurity around the world because it is a reliable, resilient crop that produces abundant yields. Local farmers are taking an agroecology approach to planting the trees — which produce a nutritious, potato-like fruit — with other mixed crops so the plants can benefit from each other.

Plant Your Future is working with Peruvian farmers to reforest the Amazon rainforest by helping them earn an income while growing trees instead of doing so by cutting trees down. The charity does outreach, teaches farmers about agroforestry, intercropping, and the carbon market, and then supports them throughout the transition to those practices.