AT a hands-on workshop attended by about 30-40 community members on Saturday, June 3, agroforestry educator Dr. Craig Elevitch and members of Northern Marianas College-Cooperative Research Extension and Education Services shared techniques for creating regenerative food forests with participants.
Elevitch explained that agroforestry is a new word that describes farming techniques that Pacific Islanders have been practicing since ancient times.
According to “Breadfruit Agroforestry Guide,” the free-to-download publication he cowrote with Diane Ragone, agroforests “integrate trees, shrubs, and other perennial plants with crops and/or animals in ways that provide economic, environmental, and social benefits.”
Alternatively stated, agroforestry grows useful plants next to each other in ways that benefit each plant and return nutrients into the soil.
Jesus Manibusan Castro says Pacific Islanders have been practicing agroforestry for generations
Photo by Andrew Roberto
“By its nature [agrofrestry] is regenerative. Things get better continually rather than getting worse and worse and worse,” Elevitch said.
Dr. Craig Elevitch, kneeling, right, teaches participants about agroforestry at a recent workshop. Students pictured spent about 20 minutes preparing the garden bed in front of Elevitch. Out of the picture frame is another garden bed.
Photo by Andrew Roberto
In healthy forests, he added, tree roots grow beneath a layer of nutrient dense soil created from the decaying of organic matter like logs, leaves, and fallen plants. On top of that soil are newly fallen green material and other cover that acts as mulch, preventing the growth of grass and aiding in the decay of material beneath it.
Elevitch said part of what participants learned on Saturday was how to recreate the way that plants would grow in a healthy, natural forest.
At the workshop, participants were seen clearing grass and other material from a rectangular plot at the Kagman Ma’afala Breadfruit Plantation.
Photo by Andrew Roberto
Tom Pangelinan clears land to help create the garden plot at the Kagman Ma’afala Breadfruit Plantation
Photo by Andrew Roberto
Photo by Andrew Roberto
Dr. Craig Elevitch, holds a makupa, or mountain apple, tree in front of the garden bed prepared by participants
Photo by Andrew Roberto
Their garden would grow between the breadfruit trees. Participants created an in-ground garden bed, added two different kinds of compost, and then covered the bed with some leaves they had recently cleared. Into the bed, the participants planted different plants that would benefit from being closer together.
They planted makupa, or mountain apple, which grows to medium height, next to other plants that need about 40% shade.
Elevtich said planning is an important step for modern agroforests.
Jesus Manibusan Castro, who grew up on Pagan and is a farmer on Saipan, said he has practiced agroforestry his whole life.
“The picture I’ve been seeing all my life is what is called agroforestry now,” Castro said. “We grew all kinds of fruits, all kinds of vegetables, all kinds of root crops because that’s what our staple is back then. I think that’s why I’m still standing strong because of the food grown in the soil.”
Tom Pangelinan and Harley Eriich have agricultural experience but were at the workshop so they could be better prepared to pass knowledge down to their children.
“Harvesting crops from something that generations planted before, [and] seeing [them] bearing fruits now is something I want my kids to come across,” said Pangelinan who resides in As Teo.
The sentiment was shared by Eriich, who originally learned about tapioca, taro, papaya, and citrus fruits from his mother when he was a child.
He said when he was young, he had to prepare the ground for his mother to plant her crops. His mother “did things at a certain time, she didn’t just plant whenever,” he added.
Eriich said as a youth, this was a “chore,” but now he sees the benefits and wishes to farm on land a friend of his will allow him to cultivate.
He was at the workshop to better his understanding of how and when to plant, as well as the techniques that lead to a bountiful harvest.