The Skin of the Earth

The water I am drinking

I was never a person too much concerned about the quality of the food I am eating, actually I do not like very much to stay with people who are worrying all the time about the kinds of poison they might have in their meals. I always thought, the most dangerous poison is a poisonous thought. Therefore, why I care about environment is not because I worry about my nutrition but  because I like environmentalists. I like people who care about the consequences of their actions, I like people who consider nature as sacred, I like people who care about global equity and environmental justice.

But after I bought my weekly portion of bottled drinking water yesterday, and I had nothing else to read  but reading the bottles, I must say I was surprised. The nitrate content of my bottled water - the probably best quality I can get in this - well not quite pristine, but nevertheless somewhat rural -place was 80 mg/l, meaning 30 mg/l more than would be allowed in Germany! And I remembered of times when my attitude was different. That was after my eldest daughter was born and our forest were dying of acid rain. Then I was scared how my daughter could breathe without a forest, I took information, and the solution which was suggested was to lime the forests. Liming on the other hand, I was reading, would lead to an increased mineralization of organic substance, which would end up as increased loads of nitrate in our drinking water. Nitrate is not a very nice ion, it can cause cancer, and before becoming nitrate, however, the soil born nitrogen becomes nitrite and under certain conditions stays as such for a longer time than normal. These were the time when several babies suffocated from too much nitrite in the water. Sudden child death. Then I panickedly ran to my daugter's bed, she still was alive, and I continued reading articles by articles how to avoid too high rates of nitrate and nitrite in drinking water. There did not seem to be a way out. Then I wrote a thesis on nitrate in groundwater. These were the times when daily about 50 scientific articles were published on nitrate in drinking water. By and by the Germans and all Europeans managed to reduce their nitrate loads to their groundwater - I am afraid even without consulting my thesis.

But here, I do not know, who would care. I think the reason is the high livestock population and uncontrolled manure lying around everywhere. Then I told my Dean that I was worried about cancer in their societies. But the Dean answered, there is hardly any cancer, despite those high nitrate contents in the water, nobody would be aware of anyway. He said, because they have extended families and are always surrounded by many of their beloved ones. I think he is right. Beloved ones around reduce the risks caused by high rates of nitrates, I am sure. 

Gandhi, me, poverty and peace

I always wanted to live in poverty like Gandhi did, as long as I had a lot of money. I must say, I used to be somewhat in love with Gandhi and actually, inspired by the Ethiopian extended family principles where the wealthier ones care for the more needy ones, I also was always open to share my resources with families I used to live with.

Working once for a reduced salary, however, I changed my mind about Gandhi. Gandhi was not really poor. According to nobelist Amartya Sen, somebody who has a freedom of choice is not poor. So Gandhi was not poor, he had chosen to live in poverty, what is different, since he had the whole congress behind him, he came from a merchant caste, his father was a governor and he had chosen the lifestyle he lived. According to what is reported about him, even his Ashram was not economically sustainable and they secretely subsidized him. So, if he only would have had to establish his ashram on the returns of the sales of their spinnings, or if someone would have forced him to work for a low salary, would he have accepted? I doubt. He always used to travel with a 4th class ticket through India, but when they denied him a first class ticket in South Africa as a coloured person, he started his political movement. Also Jesus was not poor, actually, doesn’t he have a very rich father? And Buddha was a prince. Mohammed, well, was not that wealthy, but didn’t he marry a rich woman? So they all were not poor, as well as somebody who is fasting is not a hungry person. And moreover, they did not have families, or neglected them a little bit, like Gandhi did. So why did they tell the world we have to live in poverty? Nobdoy can start a social revolution from the position of poverty. Nevertheless, since I started to join the Ramadan fasting, I became reconciled with all of them. Although fasting with the opportunity to get any food you want during night time or whenever you want is not the same suffering as having no food and no idea of when to get something. Nevertheless, there is also some suffering and some purification in voluntary fasting - so the Koran considers it as an act of solidarity with the hungry ones and also as an act of equity since the King is fasting as well as the beggar, and actually I admire that the whole Muslim society does it uniformly. So, I think it is the same with in voluntary poverty, because there is a lot of beauty not to exploit one’s opportunities of living a wealthy life if one could. Then I read the blog of Satish Kumar’s homepage, who said, that it was love, that made Gandhi the Mahatma, Gotama the Buddha, Jesus the Christ, and Sister Theresa the Mother and I think he is right. So what obviously makes the difference, is the love within somebody. But love is also the product of freedom and internal richness. Therefore, if someone wants to realize principles of Gandhi, Christ or whoever, there is only a chance to impose it on oneself, never on someone else.

Anyhow, I am not a Gandhi or someone like that, and thanks to God I also do not have to be, and if I would start a walk to Berbera with Somali friends to produce our own salt, as my dear brother suggested to tease me, I do not think anybody would internationally recognize Somaliland, but that is also a pity on the other hand. 

But what I have in common with Gandhi is our problem with security guards. Gandhi did not want security guards and I do not want to have security guards, but he had and I have. The difference is, Gandhi’s security guards were dressed as Dalits when he left his Ashram for his political work, so he is said not to have known that security guards were around him. Because having security guards means violating the principles of non-violence. And actually, his end shows, that they even were of no use. As for me, I am forced to accept having two policemen as security guards in my compounds. Not only that, also two watchmen in addition. In the first month here, I did not sleep even one night, because I was so scared. I was not scared of being killed or kidnapped by Somali pirates, I was afraid of my guards. In Hargeisa I asked some security specialists for help me how to get rid of the security guards. The guy said: “Actually I thought you want to know how to increase your security, now you ask me how to get rid of them”, then I told him I believe security problems can only be solved through communication and not through arms, then he said: “But you cannot communicate with a wall.” I liked the guy, but I do not think Somalis are a wall, and now, since I got to know my neighbors with all their kids and know more words of Somali language so that I could start communicating with the guards I am no more afraid. But I am awfully ashamed of having all that guards, and whenever I go out to some place and they have to follow either walking 20 m behind me or, if going by car they have to follow in another car, I feel so embarrassed about the picture I might give, and I always wonder what local people might think about me, if I am the reincarnation of colonialism or the richest person in town or the foreign minister of my country or –worst of all, that I think they all are murderers, kidnappers or criminals? ….and I would prefer to hide myself in the ground, but thanks to Allah, I have to wear a veil, so I if not below ground at least I can hide myself under that veil. And then I think I would like to go to cinema Thursday nights, and I imagine one policeman sitting on my right side and one on my left side to protect me and what kind of Thursday night fever would that be?

Topsoils, Elephants and Small-Scale Farmers

Actually, I do not know how many books have been written about the breakdown of civilizations due to the loss of topsoils, starting from the Babylonians and Assyrians and their salinization problems due to irrigation, over Phoenicians, Greek, Romans, etc. for everyone you can find resources that their fall is related to the loss of topsoil. I wonder about Somaliland, which problem was first, the governmental collapse or the loss of topsoil. I will find it out soon, especially if I would have aerial photos from the 40s, I think the British must have. What I was told at least is that they had 40 000 elephants living in Somalia around 1980, and all elephants ran away to Kenya due to the war. So probably the topsoil did the same. Anyway, now we all are related to topsoils all around the world. The topsoils which Somalis presently access are actually the topsoils which the Somali diaspora accesses in England, Netherlands or US, and the goods they access in these countries are based on access to topsoils in India, France and South America etc.. So in the age of globalization we all are dependent on all topsoils of the world. So we should care about them. Because the decline of topoils is considered as one of the greatest current threats to mankind, almost or even more than climate change. However, we don’t do. As the International Agricultural Assessment has shown, it is mostly the small-scale farmers with the highest productivity, who also care mostly for their topsoils. Most people, however, do not want to be small-scale farmers. I am not a small scale farmer, although I am an agriculturalist, but I prefer to work at a University. Others have different professions. Most farmers in Western countries are large-scale farmers. I think the problem with the finding that the small scale farmers are the most useful in combating the world food crisis is, that being a small scale farmer requires to reconcile oneself living on a very small income base. It also requires to give up realizing all other talents one has except the agricultural ones – although agriculture requires a lot of talents. I think the best idea in regard to agriculture was given by Gandhi – that one should work half a day as an agriculturalist and half a day as a lawyer, teacher, postman or whatever. Anyway, should I start every afternoon restoring the gully beside my house and removing the Parthenia weeds?

farmers, soils and vetiver

Well, when I was looking down from the plane on the surface of Somaliland, I was a little bit worried where to find the soils I was supposed to conserve. Nothing but stones and gravel, only sometimes interrupted by small strips of brownish maize plots, which possibly could qualify as soils from far. I thought, if that is now the skin of Somaliland, Somaliland must be deeply wounded. Nevertheless, arriving in Borama, I found the situation not that bad, quite a couple of deeper cambisols, vertisols, sometimes fluvisols. But little was left of the parkland-like landscape the British were writing about in the 40s, to be more precise, only on graveyards you find remainders of the probably original vegetation, which underlines the hypothesis, that the landscape suffers where the people suffer and vice versa.

I was wondering therefore, how the farmers would perceive the ideas of soil conservation - considering the fact that most of them have actually been pastoralists - and moreover, what they would think about the introduction of a new grass from Asia called vetiver, which is only there to nail the soil and can not even eaten by animals. In fact, the farmers were a suprise. Most of them were just beginners, who had switched from pastoralism to agriculture due to the reduction of the grazing base. Nevertheless, we found their awareness for soil conservation to be very high and their current practices of soil protection very sophisticated. Actually, almost every farmer uses at least four different methods of soil conservation, most of them stone bunds, earth bunds, ridges, some of them terraces which they renew every year, some do fencing with Aloe vera or stop water flow with branches from shrubs and trees, that I wondered if they even would need the vetiver. Asking them about that, however, actually almost every farmer immediately could identify a place, where to plant the grass, mostly eroding riverbanks, sometimes gullies, sometimes they suggested to try to replace earthbanks by the vetiver, since for the earth bunds they had to sacrifice the topsoil. Unfortunately now the rainy season is ending, and the second generation of the vetiver grass is not sufficiently multiplied, so maybe we cannot start now with bringing the vetiver to the farms, or just we will experiment with the first few farmers who are our friends, so that even a failure will not lead to a loss of credit. So, mainly we will continue multiplying the vetiver at the University campus, the remaining worry regarding the vetiver grass will be, if it will turn out to be economically feasible. 1000 plastic bags for the transplantation costs 100 Dollar, and it will need a couple of thousands for every farm, so if the farmers would invest this money on their own, has to be studied for the  future.