At the start of its activities in Bolivia, the TSF team worked mainly in health. After observing the reality of local communities, we realised that the link between agriculture, the environment and health is undeniable. In order to improve health, it is essential to consider food. That’s why our team now has a programme aimed at improving the nutrition and food security of Bolivians in the Altiplano region.
Andrée Deschênes is an agronomist and farmer from Kamouraska. She sat down with the communications team to discuss her passion for everything to do with the soil, from the elements that enter it to those that grow from it. She will be leaving in June on an exploratory mission with TSF as part of its programme in Bolivia.
Tell us a little about your career in the world of agronomy.
I studied agronomy at McGill University, specialising in soil and plants. From the outset, my approach to agronomy was to see it as directly applied environmental work.
Experience abroad
I had chosen South America as a way of putting myself back in touch with the profession in which I was beginning to want to develop. So I spent 18 months in Bolivia, in Santa Cruz in 1983-1984.
When you spend time in a very different environment, it shakes up your values. And in fact, what’s difficult isn’t being there, it’s coming back here. It’s really the time when, all of a sudden, our own society is thrown in our face. It sharpens our sense of what’s important. And for me that continued to be the environment, how to apply agriculture in such a way as to develop the soil and move towards a more resilient situation.
Skills transfer
As my professional career progressed, it became even more obvious that we could work differently. I gave a lot of lectures on soils to farmers, where I told them to put a small shovel on board their tractors to check the quality of the work they were doing. I’d say to them ‘come on, get out of the tractor, I’ll show you what to look at’.
Testing your hypotheses
In 1998, my girlfriend and I bought some land and decided to test our hypotheses. We worked in Le jardin des Pèlerins for 22 years. We planted a lot of windbreaks because it’s really windy in Kamouraska. What’s more, we’re on very sandy soil, which means it’s very dry and dries out extremely quickly. We really created a different environment. And we quickly realised that everything we know about these environmental notions, well, the results are beyond what we could have imagined. We didn’t think it would be visible for 20 years, but no, after 10 or 12 years, the environment was already more resilient.
How can we make our soil more resilient without being an expert?
It doesn’t take a generation, it takes 2 or 3 crop rotations. A rotation usually takes around 4-5 years. So we’re not talking about 40, 60 or 120 years. It’s still something within a person’s lifetime.
It’s also relatively inexpensive compared to many other methods. Because what’s costly is the delay. You have to improve your soil for a while and the income is delayed.
I’ve worked with mycorrhizal fungi, which make plants perform better. When you study them, you realise that everything is co-evolution. There is always someone helping someone in nature. There’s always someone threatening someone, too. But when you start working, you realise that very quickly you’re evolving together. And when the soil evolves, when a vegetation situation is put back in order, you very quickly see the results.
We are at a time when we are clearly beginning to see climate change affecting the planet. Why is organic farming an eco-responsible option?
One, by working the soil better, we preserve CO₂. Currently, we lose CO₂ that could stay with the micro-organisms, soil organisms, roots. We let it go into the atmosphere, which contributes to climate change.
Today, in agriculture, I apply fertiliser to feed a plant. In organic farming, permaculture and soil regeneration, I apply an amendment. I put something in the soil to nourish the soil and the micro-organisms, which will support my plant. What’s more, soil improvers are not chemical fertilisers, they don’t go through the industrialisation process, which is very costly in terms of greenhouse gases.
A large proportion also goes straight into waterways because the soil has no structure. We produce fertilisers that require a lot of energy, that release a lot of greenhouse gases, and we spread them on soils that are not resilient, that are not capable of absorbing them properly because they are already disturbed and altered.
Here’s some advice: use less fertiliser and check more carefully what you need. Use more crop rotations to avoid always drawing the same amount from the soil, allowing the soil to replenish itself. And promote diversity!
What is the difference between agronomy and agriculture?
These are 2 different professions. The farmer takes charge of his environment, develops it and sells his products, while the agronomist works with a number of people in the same situation.
With agronomists, we start from the idea that ‘we have more enemies than friends’. So we have crop pests, insects and fungi that destroy crops. But agronomy can also go in the same direction as organic farming and create an environment in which we don’t need to worry at every turn.
There are agronomists who work more with livestock too. In this case, it’s more a question of support, they’re not veterinarians. They’re not veterinarians. They look after the conditions in which the animals are reared, the buildings, the feed, and so on.
Agronomy is the study of the conditions of all the parties involved, not only the animals but also the soil.
Could you explain the similarities and differences between farming in Quebec and in Bolivia?
Bolivia is 2/3 tropical, which people don’t really realise!
On the Altiplano (where the assignment took place), there are certain similarities too, because the conditions aren’t exactly simple. We’re in an environment where the growing window is relatively short, even if it’s almost the same all year round. There isn’t water all the time. The organisation of agricultural production is full of constraints that in many ways are similar to ours. Not because of the cold, snow and frost, but because of the vagaries of the climate throughout the year.
There are a lot of differences in terms of land tenure, and the type and size of businesses. Here, we’re left with huge, relatively unproductive areas. Over there, they’re often stuck with small areas. I think that’s one of the big differences.
What’s also very similar, I think, is that the market issue is becoming more important than the issue of feeding the community. That’s very similar because here we produce according to the state of the market. And I think that over there, there’s been a lot of development towards this kind of approach, so a little less towards food crops and diversity on everyone’s plate and more towards export crops.
What are your objectives for this first exploratory mandate? Why send a Quebec agronomist to Bolivia?
The first objective is to make contact with the team there. But at the same time, my aim is also to act as a catalyst. Sometimes, when you’re working on a project as a whole, the people involved no longer see the big picture, and the person who arrives with a different background and a different world will see it more clearly. Through discussions with the team there, we can identify where we are now? And what are we doing? And then see what your plan of action would be. But as a first step at least, a sort of snapshot of where we are now.
Why did you decide to commit to a mandate with TSF?
I thought that the Terre Sans Frontières approach seemed environmental and respectful of people. And I think that’s what was really important. You can be respectful of people in all sorts of ways, but above all by working with them, and I find that really interesting. You don’t just work to drop something off, then bye, I’m off again. I think it’s interesting to work in a more humble way, but directly with people and directly with people who also want to, who are curious about the world they live in, and who want to make a difference.
If you had one wish for the future, what would it be?
I hope that each and every one of you will one day have the pleasure of smelling living earth. As much as possible, and all the better if it comes from your own farm, your own fields, your own garden or flower bed. And to realise just how much we can help heal our environment by understanding it better and working in partnership with trees, plants, animals and micro-organisms.
Soil health in agriculture is crucial to ensuring better health for the people who live off the food produced by that very soil.
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