how do you teach farmers to grow food on soil eroded land?

Question

the terrain is also mounationous?, and the area lies right near the hurricane belt.

Answer 1

they must shape, the land to make it receptive to any water that falls on it and to stop any organic matter from leaving it by building terrazes ,from rocks,slightly concave to conserve moisture and fill these up with organic material,
(this you can plant and use as green mulch)

and by putting logs horizontal or plant ¨living barriers ¨one can trap organic matter in levels
this will conserve moisture and help building the soil,and start the worms of ,who do a great part into building soil

plant wind breaks like bamboo on the edges of the terrazes to cut down on wind erosian or drying

THE INCA terrazes have survived 1000 years and are still productive ,it means a lot of workm initially but there after it becomes easier all the time
just maintain the mulching and in a couple of years the soil will return
the assistance has to be heavy in the beginning to bridge the lean start

read about Permaculture,it deal especially with a lot of relevant methods in difficult situations
you can make a garden on bare rocks (i have done it many timers )but it takers tons of mulch and some pionerr trees to provide shade and to break up the hard bottom.

GENERAL NOTES

MULCH
what you do is to cover the ground with mulch which is the same principal as compost but it includes the whole garden surface
the top part of the soil where the topsoil is being produced houses a world or microbiotic life.

Mulch is organic material green or dry that covers the ground,the thicker the better the composting process will turn it in to black topsoil

the humidity is preserved underneath and promotes the devellopment of worms(their exists no better compost than their excrements)and a variety of micro biotic life which together with the mulch produce more topsoil.

the mulch also keeps the ground temperature even and guards against the impact of the rain ,which would other wise brings salt to the surfave if on unprotected land

Mulch also prevents the soil from drying out because of the sun and, lay it open to wind erosian.

WATERHARVESTING

the natural way of nature is to evaporate moisture for clouds and this gets blown to places with less water any way ,what obstruct the clouds from getting to deserts ,tend to be mountains that are in the way,
but generally speaking ,the normal weather patterns spread rain evenly over the planet to balance out the temperatures and humidity.

As far as catching rain is concerned ,we do this all the time ,and have done so already since Babylonian times,and is a part of the more advanced Agriculture,that existed with the Egyptians,Central ,and south American indigenous peoples,and many others ,today we call this water harvesting.

In Permaculture the rule is to harvest water to the point of Zero runoff.
this means that all of the rain that falls on an area is absorbed by the terrain and not a drop leaves it.

by building dams,ponds or swales, with interconecting ditches,
if there are enough of these ;the places ,where before the rain water ran over the ground into the rivers and on to the sea ,(in a matter of hours or days),It now runs into absorbant dams or swales and saturates the ground and eventually reaches subteranean water deposits ,taking many months to do so.
Or it fills up ponds that can be used for Aquaculture.
And so a convex situation that repels water is transformed in a concave ,absorbant one and turning the area in to a sponge.

in Spain and Portugal ,which still display many examples of the conquering Moorish influence,One can find many remnants of Waterharvesting,such as aquaducts and tanks underneath the patios ,which collect the rain water from the roofs ,to be used in dryer times.

in Arabia ,on a large scale ,land has been shaped to catch and lead,rain water into sandy areas or to agricultural lands.sand is almost as good as dams because it absorbs water and holds it.

to find out more about Water harvesting I recomend:
the designers manual by Bil Mollison,which cost about 40 dollars.
and is the best all round book you can get.(tagiari publishing, [e-mail])


Strategy for an alternative nation Source(s) some other writers that are on the internet are
david Holmgren
Larry Santoyo
Kirk Hanson

Masanobu Fukuaka has written ,
One-Straw Revolution
The Road Back to Nature
The Natural Way of Farming
http://www.context.org/iclib/ic14/fukuok...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/masanobu_fu...

Simon Henderson
and Bill Molisson.

a representitive of the concept in USA is
Dan Hemenway at [e-mail]
[e-mail]
http://barkingfrogspc.tripod.com/frames....
http://csf.colorado.edu/perma/ypc_catalo...

Answer 2

In mexico a private consultant, did soil samples, fertilizer suggestion, plant tissue analysis.
Grading of the produce and contract buying was all part of his responsibilty. His costs came off the top from a private company that was contracting to buy the crops.

With corn prices being what they are, farmers will be looking for fallow land to plant.
So to answer your question, incentives were the purchase of the crop, and support was provided in technical and supervision areas.
Use the farm bureau here in the us. USDA extension should provide help too.