Agriculture Forum: Hands-on learning in Guyana
Jul. 9—It's difficult to leave northern Michigan this time of year. Long days, beautiful weather and fresh local food are some of my favorite aspects of living in the area. But when certain opportunities arise, it is good to broaden your experiences and your comfort zone.
I'm currently enrolled in a graduate degree through Miami University's Global Field Program, an online program with an international community-based conservation component each year. This summer my field experience took me to the North Rupununi region of Guyana, South America, where the coursework focused on local wisdom and indigenous conservation.
We started by taking small chartered planes to the "Green Heart of Guyana" or Iwokrama Rainforest Reserve, a unique internationally-mandated partnership that is developing sustainable forestry and tourism practices alongside a vast ecological preserve — all of which incorporates the local indigenous community in monitoring and operations. From there, we took a three-hour drive on the single interior road to spend several days in Surama, a village of about 300 people.
While there, each day's hands-on learning session shadowed aspects of indigenous life: farming, hunting, harvest and cultural exchange. The opportunity to spend a full day helping on a small farm in the middle of the Guyanese rainforest was an eye-opening treat.
That morning, our group of 17 students loaded up in the town's Bedford truck — a British military vehicle that served as school bus, public transportation, supply delivery and tourist van — and headed to "Uncle Dan" Allicock's home, a compound of small thatch-roofed buildings dotted with fruit trees, chickens and lazy cattle overlooking the gorgeous savanna landscape. From there we continued onward a few miles to the farm. Uncle Dan, a village elder in his early 60s, followed by bike.
When we arrived at the farm, my first impression was disappointment. This wasn't a farm as I know it, and I was the only person in our group who had any experience in agriculture. I had been the most enthusiastic about the day, and after the bumpy ride and a short but exhausting hike through a thick understory of palms, there we were in a tiny cleared area of rainforest, on a slope, with humidity weighing heavily in the air and the tropical sun blazing.
Not one to jump to conclusions, I listened to Uncle Dan's heavy Creole lilt as he explained that he operates a few small subsistence farms for his family, but needed to let others rest, and that he had recently decided on this space while hunting (with handmade bow and arrows), and that he knew the soil was relatively fertile because of the abundance of wildlife in the area and proximity to the river. He had cut the trees down a few months prior and was slowly working on clearing out the smaller underbrush. We were there as part of a cooperative workday called "mayu" to help continue clearing and to begin planting corn and bananas to prep the soil for a future rotation of cassava, sweet potatoes and other staple crops.
The soil in the Guyanese rainforest was a light-colored clay loam. Narrow hand-dug ditches directed the flow as an afternoon rain shower kept us cool and small, smoky fires scattered around the clearing helped clear the underbrush, tree tops and slowly burnt out the large overstory trees that had once shaded the area. In doing so, it created what Western ag has recently coined "biochar," or a beautiful lump charcoal that was then added back to the soil as an amendment while planting. It was my curiosity about this that tipped Uncle Dan off to my sincere interest in the process.
A bird called the screaming piha called from the trees above us for the next several hours while Uncle Dan and I gathered more sticks and carefully transported coals to create more little fires while my fellow students followed behind another local, planting corn in rows measured with a handmade hoe and a good eye. Others helped plant banana suckers transported over from another Allicock farm, making sure to add a few handfuls of biochar because they wouldn't grow without it, Uncle Dan said. Often found in tropical soils even dating back thousands of years, biochar helps retain water and nutrients as well as increase mycorrhizal abundance and microbial habitats in soils. I've kept in touch with several of the local people who helped that day, and they reported significant growth in the banana trees already.
When the afternoon came to a close, our local partners discussed more about land and property structure in indigenous regions of Guyana, and we came to have a better understanding of the differences from our fast-paced American culture and the nature-based values that are infused into all facets of life there. By the time we left the farm, I was honored to have learned so much firsthand and proud of the work we had accomplished.
In the following days, we learned about indigenous hunting tradition, made our own arrows from scratch, and helped process the staple root vegetable, cassava, which I will share next week.
Samantha Wolfe is the Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program technician for the Grand Traverse Conservation District. She lives in Beulah, where she is a member of 100+ Women Who Care, vice president of the Mills Community House Association and volunteers with North Sky Raptor Center. She currently is pursuing her master's degree through Miami University's Global Field Program.
