Senegalese women who formed a co-op in Regeneration Program
Yesterday my diary
The Progressive Answer to Illegal Immigration: DEVELOP MEXICO - Update: Begin w/90 "micro-regions"! made the Rec List and began a great dialogue.
It came up, thanks to Serrano, that the poorest 90 micro-regions, hardest hit by the 70% drop in corn prices since 1994, are the places that the illegal immigrants are fleeing.
Figuring $4 million per micro-region 3-year program (an estimate from my NGO work), a large part of the illegal immigration problem could be permanently solved through a new approach to international development called the "Regenerative Zone Method". This is based on Soil Science, Organic farming methods and "Regenerative Economics". It's development from the bottom up instead of the failed, top-down policies of the past.
This would cost around $360 million to regenerate the 90 poorest Mexican micro-regions, far less than the several billion dollars to build, staff and maintain a useless border wall.
Of course we must also end the dumping of cheap US agribusiness corn into Mexico.
Here is an example of work my NGO did for World Vision, regenerating the Ansokia Valley in the great Ethiopian Dust Bowl of 1984:
From Dust Bowl To Oasis
The Regenerative Zone Method is a systematic, grassroots approach to making economic development restorative and sustainable--literally from the ground up, from the soil and the individual to the regional environment and community. By facilitating an integrated campaign based on community buy-in and ownership, the Zone Method synergizes several different efforts such as organic agriculture, micro-credit, youth development, online education, health, sewage projects (in some areas), renewable energy and so on, all within a single regional zone. This create multiple regenerative sources within one area, allowing the development to take on a life of its own and become sustainable.
In the 1980s Robert Rodale, of The Rodale Institute and Rodale Press, conceived of the Regenerative Zone Method and Regenerative Economics, which charts regional progress through a "Regenerative Index".
To support and encourage the peoples of the 90 micro-regions to emerge as successful producers and entrepreneurs, a paradigm shift is needed in the approach to agricultural technology, economic development, and human justice. This proposal is based on a new systematic method designed to do just that by "Regenerating" soil, then water, then communities and whole regions. Based on a new "Regenerative Zone Method", the plan calls for restoring the natural food production and thus the community and economy of the 90 Mexican zones.
Acting as a global delivery system, the Internet will be used for education, medical help, and online Regenerative Zone Planning support, working through local leaders and NGOs as well as individuals as appropriate. In addition, each Zone will be given its own Regenerative Zone Center on the Web site, which tracks the progress of a Regenerative Index, and gives villagers the ability to communicate with all the other villages that are regenerating around the world. In the Zone Center Web site, villagers can also post items they wish to sell or barter, or conduct one of 35 other "Community Actions" that can be enabled if the village approves.
The Zone Method is based on the recently established science of Regeneration, an organic approach to restoring the earth in a humanly and environmentally sustainable manner. By creating multiple sources of regeneration within a single Zone, a powerful economic and cultural synergy appears and grows stronger with every passing year. In the agricultural sphere, regenerative farming provides immediate production and income, which incrementally increases while stabilizing the soil and the environment. The Zone Method then delivers a whole framework of services, from micro-credit to natural sewage lagoons to community eco-tourism programs. This is all supported by new technology which produces tongue-and-groove earth bricks that can build housing out of mere sub-soil.
Initial work on the ground will be complemented with Regenerative Zone Planning and Development as soon as feasible in each area. The long-term vision of the program is to include planning and activities to contribute to full-fledged Regenerative Zone Development over a 5-10 year framework, contributing to employment, food, health, energy, industry and full resource utilization. The vision will be implemented incrementally, starting with Regenerative Agriculture, then adding marketing and business development, micro-credit, and other opportunities for the business and tourism that evolve from Regenerative Zone planning.
The Regenerative Zone approach will be supplemented by the introduction of specific technologies that are cutting edge, environmentally sustainable and regenerative. These technologies include organic coffee and corn, community-based eco-tour programs, construction of housing and tourist facilities with Compressed Earth Blocks
http://www.thesustainablevillage.com/...
and solar energy power for residences and businesses:
http://www.soluzusa.com
The program will be supported by appropriate training in leadership, community organization and participation, business development plus training in health and other life skills. The training will include participatory skills programs, sharing of local wisdom and dissemination of real life experiences through internet, mobile units, video clips and other appropriate media. The Regenerative Zone Method will be complemented by parallel learning programs featuring practical education.
The program will be implemented through partnerships with local non-government organizations (NGOs) which have successful experience working with local populations, and which share the development vision, the commitment to sustainable technology, and the participatory philosophy of this program. As the program proceeds to Regenerative Zone planning, partnerships with businesses, government entities, schools and universities, and other groups will be developed. Regenerative Zone Planning is the way to align the vision and coordinate the work of governments, NGOs and communities alike so that they all synergize and reinforce each other.
The Need for a Paradigm Shift
A new scientific-based approach to development is needed if the donor countries and leaders of the developing world do not adopt a holistic, humanly equitable, and environmentally sustainable approach. This science must include the social elements of participation and inclusion if it is to succeed on the ground. In short, the old top-down macro-economic approach that tried to raise average country incomes by trying to place foreign investment there has had very little return on investment. Regenerative Development in essence is "bottom-up" economic development from the village level up--and with a regional plan that the villages are all cooperating on.
Over the past two decades, the term "Sustainable Development" had become the rallying point for theorists and administrators around the world. In the eyes and budgets of many, unless the concept is "sustainable" it lacks credibility and merit.
Yet relief from food and economic deficits will be found not in sustainability, but in regeneration. We must not "sustain" that which is already abused and in decline. We progressives want to provide for the regeneration of soils, water, and thereby families and economies.
Whether or not the recovery strategies will be sustainable is then the province of the education and training systems we install and monitor for completeness and correctness. Regeneration specifically identifies and restores the abused resources that provide essential foods. THe Zone Plan must focus upon controlling and mining the wastes that occur in any endeavor, regenerate water sources, secure appropriate nutrition of the food produced, and lower the cost to the farmer of crop production.
These regeneration strategies not only restore soils and water resources, but equally provide the critical skills and knowledge vital to the perpetual renewal of those fragile resources. Regenerative Agriculture (RA) strategies inevitably create new economic resources and new marketable products.
For example, we now know that it takes less water to grow fish in the desert than a similar value of protein in a dry land cereal. This startling revelation came out of soil and water regeneration research. The science even provides a basis to wrestle clean nutrition from municipal waste streams and restore soils ruined by decades of agricultural neglect or misguided knowledge. All of these benefits are achieved without vast expenditures in fertilizers and tractors.
The New Science of Regeneration
Restoring the Earth has in recent years become a science, or rather a combination of several sciences. Based on the ability of nature to restore that which has been lost or diminished, Regenerative Science has evolved over the past twenty years and is now taught in universities around the world. Examples of this near-miraculous phenomenon of restoration include natural recoveries from a range of catastrophes including forest fires to lakes, rivers and entire watersheds. Yet restoration can also occur on purpose, by human hands.
Perhaps most important of all for our planet is the ability of soil to regenerate itself. Regenerative Agriculture is based on restoring the soil health of poor and drought-ridden farmlands by regenerating micro-organisms and micro-nutrients in the soil itself. The result is healthy food and improved soil health with each harvest. Farmers know when the quality of their soil and the value of their land is increasing.
Regeneration is defined as a technology or approach that helps to restore the Earth's environment or a region's economy or culture in an ecologically sustainable and economically beneficial way. Conventional farming and its use of chemicals is degenerative, while organic farming designed to restore the environment is regenerative. We now know that ecosystems are living things and that chemical agriculture and pollution disrupt and can even kill that living entity.
The main branches of the Regenerative Sciences include:
- The Philosophy of Regeneration
- Regenerative Agriculture and Soil Science
- Regenerative AgroForestry
- Regenerative Economics
- Regenerative Economic Development & Planning
- Urban Regeneration
- A series of technologies in construction, power and industry which complement and make possible the regenerative approach
Regenerative Agriculture views soil as a living organism, one that can be restored to health and fertility within a matter of months and years, depending on its degree of degradation and the inputs available to be used to restore natural processes. By inputting organic matter through natural processes, including nitrogen from the air, the natural bio-indicators of healthy soil return, restoring the natural nutrient cycles. There is then no need at all for chemical fertilizers.
Regenerative Agriculture and the raising of organic food and livestock are thus the foundation of Regenerative Development. Beyond sustainable agriculture, regenerative agriculture is designed to actually restore the local soil and environment. In contrast, organic farming simply replaces inputs with non-chemical inputs, many times continuing soil depletion.
Regenerative Development is the next step beyond Sustainable Development. Regenerative Economics is designed to track and restore economic strength from the bottom-up rather than the old trickle-down or top-down strategies.
A "Regenerative Index" establishes relationships between different aspects of a region's economy, and provides a planning framework which establishes a baseline and set of goals to be achieved. This process leads to the identification of mutually reinforcing activities to upgrade economic and social conditions to the highest level. In short, a Regenerative Index describes an ideal regenerated state, such as Full Employment (100% employment) compared to current levels of local employment. The same goes for health, energy, food, and so on.
The Regenerative Index shows how much money is lost by the Regenerative Zone when in-zone production or health levels are low, and when economic activities are "imported" from some other region. Other economic sectors within the region suffer, along with health and other factors. The idea is to instead develop each region's regenerative sources in a single zone, unleashing multiple beneficial synergies across the Index. This will increase money circulation, as well as food and economic self-sufficiency. A total Regenerative Index number tracks overall regional development. A good economy with high money circulation would garner an index north of 60, while a very poor region would score south of 45 or 40.
Not only does the Regenerative Index provide an initial baseline measurement to check against future progress, it gives a set of metrics that will be gathered online--all of which can be accessed by donors and partners. This tracking system will allow the Zone Leaders to evaluate the Zone progress and make needed modifications much more quickly.
For each selected Regenerative Zone, a Development Plan is created with the participation of as many people from the region as possible. The idea is to match resources with local needs--as well as possible external (out of zone) needs for foodstuffs and other products. At the same time, regenerative agriculture and micro-credit programs unlock the potential of the land and the villagers themselves. Rather than depleting natural resources, regenerative agriculture and micro-credit build them up.
Based on the restoration of soil health and wildlands, the Regenerative Zone progressively opens up more and more regenerative forces within the one region.
I will have more on the Regenerative Zone Method tomorrow and how it always involves the locals in the planning and implementation of the Zone Plan.
This is the REAL ANSWER to illegal immigration. Address the true causes that make people leave their beloved homelands, but with a workable practical plan, with the details crafted by the locals themselves.
Now we just need to find out where those 90 Mexican micro-regions are so we can get more into details and initial strategies.
Here is the Rodale Institute site and they have an article on Senegal right now.
Newfarm.org