Soil Fertility Maintenance in the Tropics

The post from Mike Mahowald below is just one more confirmation of the necessity of the Vetiver System for tropical agriculture - soil and water conservation, fertility maintenance, ground water recharge, forage etc.


I remember when I worked in the World Bank in the 1980's the director of one of the CGIAR international research institutions visited me and told me that his main objective was to find a way of dealing with slash and burn agriculture which can be translated into soil conservation and soil fertility. I told this new director that we had a very good solution - vetiver grass hedgerows. Some 20 years later we area still waiting for these and other international research institutions that focus on tropical and semi-tropical agriculture to give more attention to the Vetiver System. I suspect that we will wait forever!!.


However people like Mike Mahowald have not waited, his answer is our answer. He has a good solution for dealing with Haiti's agricultural land conservation problems - the Vetiver System. well done Mike.


Merry Christmas everyone!


Dick Grimshaw