ah, a rare natural spectacle in an improved world. the meeting of the loom whale sharks, the remote island of san antonio. ah, it is a testament to the home of the of the islands waters. one of the many success stories from a bastion of biodiversity, saint own, starts november 18th, on dw, with a we all need foods to leave, but millions of people also produce foods to make a living. here in africa,

i recall cia is still to boast. important economic activity, i think provides employment to up to 2 thirds of the continents population. welcome to echo africa. i'm crease a lamps. and i am sandra to interview today on these special edition of our program . we are focusing on rethinking agriculture, and we'll learn about how we can fund more sustainably and keep the world fed. here is a quick look at what is coming up. we see how a former in germany is combating to wait a pre call chip. will also he about a fruit not ask for the black good of side for us. and we learn how tiny helpless a what you to go bought a pesky plant in south africa. we started today shall. righty. in uganda. here in the country, we produce

a wide range of agriculture products like con, suite for the toes. so gum, coffee, and tea to name just a few. but just how those quotes are formed can have a big effect on the hills of the soil, as well as the harvest. as we'll see in our foss, story, with these phones have never looked so closely earth water. does anybody more nutrient rich too? i have always regarded these worms as dangerous. i would not have them in my garden younger whenever i see them. i get rid of them all colace you. what was it? the one you saw was a yellow. but these worms click and hold and roll them to compose plant debris, with their excrement. they enriched the soil to pass on this knowledge, the biologists and fond of an angio for sustainable land use. alita ben deca gives regular training courses like this one this morning. ah,

we are learning about vamp composting. how can we try to amend our sales using ray? do we gloss dat capable of producing for us those soil amendments? the likes of one castings? fertilizer can also be obtained from greenways the liquid is them simply added to water, useful aggregation. it's a very cheap and environmentally friendly fertilizer. and it's training sessions. a leads have been dec explains how elements of nature work in symbiosis. each plant and animal has an important role to play. when look at the food forest system, we have the shot once. then you could see we have the total once, and then we have the under story plants. that means that each one is contributing to each other, where we have the, the natural hedgerow of the vet,

eva it collects and also acts as a hobby, ticked for small essex. that could contribute to beneficial insects. that could deter or that could reduce the population of they didn't get as pests. the farmers need to know how even minor human interventions can upset nature's balance. experts believe it can. we connect the systems and make them more vulnerable to climate extremes. bio diversity in the fields is also better for humans. studies by units of for example, show that small farmers with few cropped varieties in the fields often suffer from poor nutrition. sciences from uganda have confirmed us in african context. you realize that also in the region. yeah. in total people eat what they produce. a deposit is producing one bus and 5 it, but on that 5 acres, what else is there? do you have the legends that you have been on the same farm?

do you have animals on the same farm you have lentils on the same? you have vegetables on this him. if you don't about diversity, we don't about day vested on the fun, which is actually supposed to translate into day vested on the plate. and there's a diversity in the market on the course, farmers learn why it's important to leave trees in the fields or to plant new ones . farmer and ruby as implements of this idea and planted jack fruit trees among his vegetable crops. emmy tina utica into equal anger. why do you have to have the trees? because now crops which grow well and shaylee? marsh, this tree is windbreaker. when i, when use all the plans, are the source of her medicine to treat my family against illnesses like office at that gate. we're like, she could be that that anyone sunk into ali to been decades strained around 200

farmers in the last 3 years. she has also founded a savings group, offering micro credit to members. some can even trade to produce in the community. they ascertain people or may not be interested into funding. but using such avenues, it becomes something that can spark off someone is attention towards farming and then also towards being environmental cautious. food, alita, vendor k is convinced on biodiversity and fields is better for everyone, both for people's home and for nature. wall want uninspiring example more than agriculture. annex report comes from europe. you may never hot of the curb tree, but it is an undemanding plant and also goes in the joint regions. the fruit is eddie ball, but not old farmers know what they're good for. in cyprus, i ang man is following in his grandfather's footsteps and harvests. the 5th was his

met in 2 different products, and it turns out that keeping old traditions alive is definitely worthwhile. every year thiel finance crystal helps out with the harvest. his family taught him everything he knows about the care of the tree. the pants are ground into a powder that's a popular substitute for cocoa. it's used as a sweetener to and also as a natural adhesive. who sto is studying finance? so he knows a lot about markets for decades. karen prices have been low, $0.35 per kilo a, the middle her pure. it doesn't matter because of the war and ukraine. the price of a kilo of cara reached 85 cents this year and is expected to reach one euro per kilo sd at dias. anyone who harvested care of this year will have an enormous

income because you don't spend money on growing care of. you just harvested from trees and transported to mills heidelberg when guns got dikes will are cultivating caraballo, panama, 0 expenses and it's profitable. but i don't get those. karen trees have been cultivated on cyprus for some 3000 years. many local families with their roots on the island own care and plantations like george potty, he's the way that these said please here, which is how nearly all pop out true checked us. we are planted by my grandfather. we'll go buck more than 100 t as a call. once the ponds have been harvested, the farmer takes them to the mill in the coastal town of z, he for centuries, karen ponce known locally as black gold, where one of cyprus is main exports. in the last century, cypress was the world's 3rd largest karen,

producer. these days karen cultivation is no longer as lucrative as it once was. but many families have kept up the tradition. i am the last guy that i show. my children have other jobs. they are not, sir. oh, they don't mind about the i got your crops because they don't pay. but now karen is making a comeback. demand has risen in recent years, not least because the flower from the pod is increasingly used in vague and cuisine, as well as various diets. the plant is versatile and can be used in its entirety from the fruit to the seeds in ano year. in the south of the island, karen products are ubiquitous and a stable at the local market. the government has become more aware of their value to the agriculture minister plans to boost karen production on the island

level middle about anybody she wanted to give me. the blue william cara production is very important for cyprus, because it doesn't mean much insecticide. fertilizer and water is in middle and lovely books given to miguel. this is important in terms of climate change need someone to call the be soon as possible. just wanted to go over the appleton. it's also important because you can create a huge range of products from the care up, but it be not militia was more care can be found in products such as candy syrup and bank goods. and it could, once again become apprised, export and of demand continues to grow. more care of trees will be planted, providing care and cultivation would be an investment in sustainable farming. it was profitable in the past and could be possible in the future. the thing in europe and talking about an ecosystem that is a climate wonder pit lawns are absolutely amazing based or incent amounts of cowboy

in india soil. by the way, the biggest midland in africa is in the dear sea. it is the size of england and wells combined on scores almost $20000000.00 tons of counseling. well the problem is sondra. we are destroying pit lance, at a crazy rate and mostly just to extract resources or plant crops. but, but really this enormous amount of c o 2, the famous there is no need. we can do both, save one of the most effective cop on storage systems in the world and found them at the same time. let's take a look. oh, good. to find out how that supposed to work, we came here a farm in germany's east. all of this used to be conventional so dry farmland, but in 2015 it got turned back into pete lance wet farmland. and this is sebastian pitney. the guy who's in charge of it all,

he re wedded is $107.00 hecht is completely pity, mainly grows much grasses to sell us horse feed, but operating in the wet new need wealth, special equipment. it's a former snow cat used to groom. ski runs it had to be completely rebuilt. we kept mostly, the chains had to be completely replaced them. on a mountain, you had these aluminum bars which are quite aggressive, allowing you to drive up the mountain apple fall. we want to work as gently as possible on the ground, so we installed wide steel struts instead of like the starch digging the valve to keep his feels wet pitifully needed to completely close down his drainage system that runs through his fields. the solution was quite simple. he barricaded the gates with wood, easy and effective, plus, extremely helpful in dry somers. in

the, on the viet tom, it in years like we're having now with this drought, this water here is worth its weight in gold. yes. yes. yes. awesome. so if we retain the water here over a large area, then everyone benefits from n lafond. why am? because in the end the water moves around to the that is also an important function of the bogs. the thing is as all, not only carbon storage, but also as a water reservoir of quote, quote, the quote of white or on over as follows. like, despite the enormous re wedding efforts, the water level here varies a lot from 50 centimeters above ground to 60 centimeters below. during dry summers . this can still lead to c o 2 emissions in pete lens. but how did the glance trap cabin in the 1st place? can we just put this on the ground? and you just grab this piece of earth and squeeze it in can the orange walters can all that and that's basically what makes

caitlin's. so climate friendly the water because below me are thousands of tons of dead plants, but because people are wet, they don't decompose the microorganisms who usually do that, don't have enough oxygen to take care of that. so the carbon remains in the soil. and when all this dries up, the plants suddenly decompose much faster and the oxygen in the air attaches to the carbon in the soil. and you get c o 2. and the scale is mind blowing between 5 and 10 percent of all men made greenhouse gas emissions come from damaged p plans. this new approach of combining agriculture with pete land meadows is called polluted culture. and this also has advantages in terms of productivity. loiter in this way,

i ensure that the degradation of my peet land is as close to 0 as possible. meaning i still have an area on which i can continue farming. my life off auto is im, the other advantage is water attention. that is mean, even in the dry isd years if i can still get a decent harvest inflation wall. one of the fountain cup and hay isn't the only thing you can produce on pete lens. alternatives include common read, and bull rush, which is also grown in these talks here at the university of glass vase, where scientists try to find out everything about growing stuff in wetlands. here they scan roots and measure every millimeter of plant growth with these funky machines. they have x ray vision, but wouldn't it be better environmentally if we'd give pete lens completely back to nature and not found them for the long? well,

as long as routes are being produced and the more wedding this new peach should build up again, is vis. think of most of the thing is the water level, this if the mores where you want it's good for the climate. whether we then farm it or not, it's just a question of what we want to do with it. fog of us when viewed and so you don't need to revert completely to nature to reap benefits from the peak lands. a you case study looked at the climate effects of different water levels in pate lands, raising the water level in degraded pete lens world wide by a few centimeters, would already reduce emissions by 65 percent. that represents 1.3 percent of global c o. 2 emissions sebastian pity also owns 35 water buffaloes. they mature slowly, but every once in a while, he's lot of them and sells the meat. he's been doing this for a fair while now. doesn't pay off compared to intensive conventional farming although i and from a purely financial perspective, no. oh,

but when i think of it as an investment, the future then yes. because i am showing that the land was to be productive in 20 or 30 years time, which dies as yon not to watch off of them, but not hotly. but compared to the revenues of intensive crop farming, the current cost of re wedding heat lands and buying new machinery, most farmers will be better off financially if they stick with intensive families away to make polluted culture more profitable would be that government stop paying for the climate benefits that re wetted pete lens provide this could help get more farmers interested in the idea of polluted culture and it's environmental benefits. something quite helpful when you know that 300000 square kilometers of crop land need re wetting globally. that's the size of italy stain on the topic of rethinking agriculture. our next report comes from an area of

ivory coast, also struggling with severe also some farmers there and are banding together to protect their fields from winged and unpredictable weather conditions. here is the seeks doing your bits ha. oh, how can we protect fields that are exposed to both drought and heavy rain? in north an ivory coast to farmers used to simple methods the small stone walls that building across their fields retain water. the walls stay run parallel, but snake back and forth. they use a level not to check whether the ground is even but to find out which way the land is sloping. the stones are then laid said that they will catch the water,

run off south paramedic fair to the dealers that allows us to fertilize the soil because the compost takes put his shot and the ditches. we have already dug. if you can fill up with water, se boucher promptly ah, they have also planted trees to act as wind brakes. they are regularly pruned to keep them in check. lays out of grown up black. did that my dear per to the trees we planted help to shield the soil from the wind. up to the small walls we are building to distribute to run off as though it is silly loss so that the water doesn't wash away the soil and create deep channels, which would make the land useless in the long run alone there. so ah, the farmers and now feeling more connected to, they realize they can only protect their fields together. and how about you? if you are also doing your bid, tell us about it, visit our website, or send us

a tweet. past ag doing your bit. we share your stories into these mode and interconnected world agriculture. as a big business must the force have probably eaten food that our grandparents never even heard of or had the opportunity to taste. but as a sheep proved use and goods around the world, sometimes other plants and animals go along for the ride. and in some cases, that can cause huge problems in their new homes, as we'll see in our next report from south africa. ah, a green mass where open water should dean for decades. the problem now to base put down in northern south africa has been growing exponentially. the lake is overgrown with water hyacinth, a plant from south america. now clogging bodies of water throughout africa,

the invasive plant grows extremely fast. the ecological consequences are dramatic, combating the plant has been difficult despite intense research high is one of the world's morris to am problematic, classic reads, it's been present on how to pittsburgh dam. since the 1970s, and it's a massive problem, and they've tried to remove it manually, do herbicide applications. but it's still a massive problem. and because it can cover up to 40 percent of the damn survey researchers in south africa have been trying to control the invasive planned for years well sealed off from the environment. scientists are looking for the water hyacinth natural enemies. and they've made a big find that's only 4 millimeters in size. the inconspicuous water hyacinth

plant hopper is also a native of south america. the insect reproduce just as rapidly as the water hyacinth. and the little guys have a big appetite. one of the major concerns we haven't, biological control is that in sick that me release could feed another plant species to remediate that in this facility by testing this candidate insert on various plans species including native species and cropped plants. and we need to do this testing to make sure that the insects that we release odd will be co host specific . this testing is very thorough and sometimes can take years. it's important for this because once it is roneesh, we can't get them back. the tests for the water hyacinth plant hopper are finally complete. the bugs are now being collected and packed for transport together with a leaf of their favorite food, they're on their way to the heart to be sport dam. rosalie smith,

of the center for biological control, sees to it herself that the insects reached their destination. the denser the water hyacinth scro, the better it is for their little enemy. they can multiply here quickly. o approach with releasing the plan's help is, is using them as a green herbicide, sir, as many as releases as possible early in the summer. i that allows their populations to build a cookie and that also just allow same to damage the. * ponce as soon as possible. say that the plans die and expand their growth over the damn water high is since form dense mats that drift across the lake. when they collide, their underwater routes become entangled and block out any light. gradually, a huge dense carpet of plans forms. they can completely over gro bay areas,

which is not only an ecological problem, but in economic one too many people at the damn live from tourism. each year columns of workers removed the plants from the water with long rakes. it's a slow and laborious process that only works on smaller waters in huge areas like this though, the tiny helpers have to step in. the traces of their work can be seen on the water hyacinths leaves. holes and brown areas testify to the success of the organic pest control. the nibbled on and dead plants dropped to the ground and slowly decompose under water. you can also see them from space. within 2 years, the growth on the dam has decreased from 40 to just 5 percent. this is the thought to we, we did frequence inundate of releases of the plans hopper am. and we know they're

here in high numbers because they jump around as i pick up of plans. and what they damage look like is they caused their leaves to become brown. the leaves also, i'm recall on themselves. and so the plans in the sites is heavily damaged and that's basically what we would like for the rest of how to be as put them in the evening light. the success of the operation can be seen particularly well. swarms of plant hoppers fly over the water hyacinths. nevertheless, the plant will probably never really disappear. it spreads too quickly. even so large open water areas have re emerged on the harder baseboard dams since their introduction. this promising result could lead to the plant hopper is being used on other infested waters. rethinking ugly coach and how to use nature or plants in a different way is something that affects everyone around the planet. i hope you

enjoyed an in depth look at the topic. sadly, it is time to say good by already. i am sandra, twin of your in uganda, tuning next time, next week. thanks, sandra. it's also time to say farewell from nigeria. if you want to know more, join us on our social media or right to us. i am chris ellipse ticket. ah, ah. with

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fetch the cello playoff. well, i was the only one. i'm super lucky. user under the swastika starts november 19th on d, w ah ah ah, ah, this is dw news live from berlin. results are coming in from us, mid term elections that will set the course for the next 2 years of jo biden's presidency and the future of the united states. one of the winners is already clear republic and run it to.