What The Flip is Syntropic?Miica Balint 08.06.2024
I first learnt of Rodrigo through dear friend, and contributor of our mag, Dane Harrison. Always fondly referred to as Chief by Dane, Rodrigo implements syntropic systems for various purposes; whether it be to grow cacao for the Mars (bar) family, or flowers in a flower farm. This is precisely the sundry nature of syntropy.
Dane comes from an Australian farming family out west, with a father who taught agriculture and did not wish the industry for his son. Rodrigo is from Brazil’s southernmost state Rio Grande do Sul, which shares invisible lines with Chile and Argentina. Dane is now in IndonesiaIndiaItaly indefinitely, but prior he was working with Rodrigo, who came to Australia seven years ago for the first syntropic workshop in our land down under. Rodrigo has been knowledge-sharing here ever since.
And myself? Well this story has next to nothing to do with me. What I will say though is that syntropic farming was made known to me three-or-so years ago, at precisely the plot of land that many years later I met Chief. Luca, with parents Guiliana and Luis Jnr– who have homed my dog in the orchid-laden suburb of Jundiaí in São Paulo– told me of pigeon peas sequestering nitrogen, of dense companion planting, and of eucalypts, bananas, and cassavas in a system that replicates forest dynamics. I don’t know much, and this is not about me. But I do know someone who does. Chief.
That plot of land I mention is the Paddock, which is a syntropic market garden, roadside stall, and social initiative that employs young people who are living with a disability. The project is situated just before–or after depending–the speed limit change on Mullumbimby road, and home to that large love sign. I mention this only because as my bare feet took note of the mulch and clay soil, I was genuinely made privy of it. ‘It’ being love, in which three separate instances were exchanged to Rodrigo.
We wandered the garden in the wintery afternoon sun for just over an hour, our eyes on native acacias, red dacca and plantain, guapuruvu, mulberry, kiwi, dragonfruit, jackbean, macaranga, blackberries, passionfruit, silky oaks, flooded gums and sydney gums, bangalow palms, brush box, pineapple, ironbark, ginger and turmeric. I really could go on, but I am still yet to introduce the estrela (star) that could reconcile humans with the planet.
What the flip is syntropic farming? And what do I mean by the sundry nature of it? Let me word-nerd out for a moment– etymologically speaking, ‘syn’ is of Greek origin meaning ‘together with, jointly, alike’ or ‘at the same time’. My limited knowledge of Latin languages, which a little research confirmed, sees the correlation to the word-forming element ‘con’ similarly meaning ‘with’ or ‘together with’. Tortilla con cebolla (Española). Um café com leite (Portugûes). ‘Syntrophy’ in biology is a kind of symbiosis in which a mutualistic function is performed by metabolically different microorganisms. The intimate and mutually beneficial relationship between fungi and tree roots, known as Mycorrhiza, is an example of this. Lastly, Miica finally, the root word ‘trop’ is seen to mean ‘to turn’ by Indo, Euro and Proto linguistics similarly, and ‘trophe’ is from the Greek ‘nourishment’.
Syntropic farming uses principles of forest mimicry to create biodiversity. And reforestation. It has been seen as the work of abundance and a turning point in food production. I say sundry because syntropy can be done in any climate in the world, for any purpose, with any species of plant. Put simply, by replicating forest dynamics– densely planting a lot of plants from different families, with different life-cycles and stratifications (light requirements), pruning often, and covering the soil with that variety of biomass-- you will have a very resilient and fertile plot. But I am sure you got all of that from my etymology rant.
Syntropy is a relatively new consideration of agroforestry– agroforestry being any system that combines forestry with agriculture or livestock. I say consideration, because this farming system was developed by Ernst Götsch a little over forty years ago, but inherent to the system is learning from a knowledge base that way out-dates humankind, the forest. Götsch is a plant geneticist who will only ever introduce himself as a farmer, and has been farming since he was three years old in Switzerland.
This farmer, who was working on researching genetic improvement at the Zurich-Reckenholz Institute, packed up his life for South America in the early eighties. He was questioning whether it would not be more productive to improve the conditions of plants, provoking ecological balance, rather than his current work of breeding them to be genetically more pest-resistant. A lot of the knowledge that came to be the principles of syntropic farming, was influenced by the native peoples’ techniques in those densely biodiverse environments he traversed.
Possibly you have heard of a place, somewhere in Brazil that has been completely transformed. Possibly you saw a comparison photo, or some drone footage in the depths of a social media spiral. A once completely barren five-hundred hectares place, which nowadays is considered one of the most fertile and biodiverse fragments of the Atlantic rainforest. And highly productive. A place that is producing one of the finest and most expensive cocoa beans in the world, and now has its own microclimate. If you haven’t come across any footage, find it.
This land, purchased under the title of Fugidos da Terra Seca, translating to dry land, was bought by Ernst Götsch in 1984. Situated in Pirai do Norte of Bahia, Brazil, the farm had been completely deforested by the previous proprietor who owned a sawmill. The biggest challenges Ernst faced early on in the project was lack of water and strong winds. Fast track to now and the reforested area--the size of Monaco--has seventeen natural streams, all with water all year round. The forest dynamics, which are now radiating to the micro-region, has caused an increase in rainfall (much to the surrounding farmers’ delight), and the thought of the soil there turns me on.
And can we go tiny? Rodrigo explains that the smallest syntropic system that can be implemented is one metre by one metre, a small backyard in an urban jungle could do it. That is wild. If you were to implement your own syntropic system, I will be publishing a second part to this, which will follow the basis of what I think you might need to know. It will be informed, and mostly told, by Chief.
To close (for now), a thought from Ernst Götsch to you, and me, but it’s not about me:
“Humans could reconcile themselves with the planet, finding a way to be useful and welcomed in the system. But we don’t realise that because we have disconnected ourselves from life on the planet, thinking that we are the intelligent ones. We can’t see that we are just part of an intelligent system.”
Transcribed from the short film Vivendo em Sintropica/ Life in Syntropy, presented at the COP21 Paris Agreements of 2015.
Resources
Agenda Gotsch
Films, including Life in Syntropy for COP21: https://vimeo.com/channels/agendagotsch
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