This Ancient Grain-Sowing Method Could Be Farming’s Future

The traditional practice of mixing crops was nearly wiped out by industrial agriculture, but maslins are poised for a comeback.

THIS STORY ORIGINALLY appeared on Atlas Obscura and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

When Zamede Asfaw was growing up on a farm in eastern Ethiopia, he soaked up plant lore and other traditional knowledge the way a tree takes in sunlight and converts it to energy. “I knew the crops, and the wild plants, and the fruits and other things,” says Zemede, who goes by his given name. The practical methods he learned covered every aspect of farming: Instead of stone walls or wire fences, plant field edges with darker crops so the bold colors of red sorghum, for example, create a clear border between the family’s plot and that of a neighbor. Leave a few wild olive or acacia trees in the fields to harvest sustainably, over time, for firewood, animal fodder, or building materials. And instead of sowing the seeds of a single grain in orderly rows, spread a mix of grains all over the field, “mimicking nature so crops have random distribution patterns, as in natural forests,” he says. Once harvested, these grain mixtures could be turned into many things: nutritious bread, a kind of roasted-grain trail mix called kolo, beer, and the potent clear spirit known as areki.

Now an ethnobotanist at Addis Ababa University, Zemede conducts field research in northern Ethiopia. The dominant grains grown there are different from those in the region of his youth—his family grew sorghum and maize, while the northerners prefer barley and wheat, better suited to their mountainous highlands—but the principle is the same: “We’ll plant the things that go together and are compatible with each other,” Zemede says. “Our farmers are good at mirroring nature.”

Continues Here