The Leucaena Effect Agroforestry System for Sustainable Development

Leucaena Effect Agroforestry is at the base of all MOTILES programs. Leucaena Effect Agroforestry includes sustainable development, renewable energy, halting global warming, agricultural tourism, ecotourism, tropical food production, soccer, Sports Adventure Tourism,  Caribbean Basin business, sports diversity,  export and international business. To understand Leucaena Effect Agroforestry,  you must understand something about Leucaena, the Multiplier Effect of Leucaena and the use of kenaf in the tropics.  To find out about how your group, your company or your country can profit from Leucaena Effect Agroforestry, read the Special Report. You will also need to know how our planet's  ecosystems work.  The whole planet is one giant ecosystem.  Within the Earth Ecosystem are many different ecosystem types:

The ecosystems each contain organisms in all trophic levels.

Top of Trophic Levels

A.  Trophic Level One - Photosynthesis

However, all of the life on our planet depends on the first trophic level or photosynthesis.  Photosynthesis is the transformation of light combined with carbon dioxide and water to form carbon compounds which can be consumed by animals or burned as fuel.  This reaction also creates the oxygen that gives us life on our Earth.

B,  Trophic Level Two - Herbivores

The Bible says, "All Flesh Is Grass".  There is no truer statement.  All the animals that eat grass transforms the carbon compounds created by plants into meat, blood and other parts of the body of those who eat meat.  Many of these herbivores are ruminants and have four stomachs that enable them to digest the cellulose also created by plants as they create usable food.  All of the beautiful grazing animals like deer, rabbits, buffalo, wildebeest, gazelles, giraffes and other eat only plants.

Because these organisms eat vast quantities of plant materials, they produce large amounts of waste materials.  These remains or manures as they are called are often waster.  In many cases manures are burned, discarded, buried and not made available for further use.  Leucaena Effect Agroforestry includes developing optimal uses for manures, from methane generation to composting to mulching and fertilizing with them.  Managing manures is a vital part of Total Use Agroforestry.

C. Trophic Level Three - Carnivores

These are the descendants of the ancient animals of our nightmares, our fairy tales and our myths.  These are the flesh eaters who tear the bodies of herbivores to pieces and eat them.  Because our earlier ancestors had no weapons to fight off these great predators or carnivores, we learned to fear, even hate them. As a result, until recent times we have hunted many of these, even into extinction.  We fear the wolf, so we seek to eliminate him.  

People are being killed by tigers as our ever increasing populations encroach even on the reserves we have set for them. We kill the lions by taking over their grassland habitat and using it for cattle and then hunting and killing the lions for eating them.  The grizzly bear, the cougar, leopard, the cheetah, all the predators are under threat.  Yet we do not know what role they play. 

D.  Trophic Level - Scavengers and Carrion Feeders

These are the organisms many people find abhorrent but are vital parts of the ecosystem.  These are the animals that sneak up on the predators we admire and steal what they have caught.  

These are the animals we speak of with contempt as sneaky, cowardly dishonorable creatures. Yet the hyenas, the vultures are the cleaners of the ecosystems.  Without their willingness to eat  the dead and dying carcasses of the kills of the predators or organisms that die of old age or natural causes, our world would be reeking with stinking carcasses.  They clean up the kills and remove that which pollutes our world.

D.  Trophic Level Five -Decomposers 

This is one of the most important levels of the ecosystem. Decomposers break down dead bodies, waste products, wastes of all kinds.  Without this level, our planet would be knee deep in bodies, wastes and debris.  These important organisms include earthworms, insects, invertebrates, bacteria and other organisms. They follow in the footsteps of the Scavengers and are the major recycling agents for minerals and other nutrients that are tied up in the bodies of animals who die. 

The minerals thus released from the bodies are taken into the soil where they are incorporated into the plants that form Trophic Level One.

Return To Top of Trophic Levels

Before the advent of civilization, natural forces maintained the natural balances through the above trophic levels.  IN North American plains, 50 million Buffalos grazed, dropping their manures on the vast prairie.  The prairie grew deeper and deeper as grasses 20 feet tall met the skies.  All was in balance.  The Native Americans who lived were just another part of the ecosystem. They used herbs and plants to control the number of young.  Since the young needed to move with the tribe, a mother could not have children closer together than 6 years.  That was so the young could keep up with the tribe when pursuing their nomadic way of life before she could have another.  Their numbers remained small, controlled by natural forces.

Only when European Man came to the Western Hemisphere was this balance destroyed, culminating in the dust bowl. The buffalo were destroyed, replaced by cows, goats and sheep in numbers to large to be supported. They ate the grass down to its roots.  At the same time, the steel plow cut the earth, destroying grasses that were hundreds of years old.  The balance was destroyed and the Earth rebounded with the Dust Bowl. 

It is time for us as a species to get back to our true role in the ecosystems, coming back into harmony and stopping the need to destroy, defeat and control nature.  Leucaena Effect Agroforestry is MOTILES's name given to returning to old plants species used before the modern  age of agribusiness. Before the age of fossil fuels, agriculture and forestry were the source of the products used for people’s need.

About 150 years ago, fossil fuels (i.e., coal oil, gas), because of their greater energy potential and ease of storage and transportation, displaced wood and other plant materials as the main source of heat, electricity and industrial raw materials. Furnaces replaced wood stoves, plastic replaced wood and glass, polyesters replaced cotton and wool, synthetic rubber replaced leather, etc.

The fossil fuel economy was highly productive, but with a high cost. Smog, oil wastes, landfills, leaking toxins into groundwater, all led to severe environmental problems which gave rise to the environmental movement. 

The cost of oil has skyrocketed. The Gulf War and present world unrest has revealed our vulnerability to imports of fossil fuels. We are no longer willing to pay the high cost of a fossil fuel economy to our security, our health or our quality of life.

That is why alternative agriculture or as the Leucaena Production Society prefers to call it, "Total Use Agroforestry"  is going to be the Eco-entrepreneurial focus of the 21st century. 

Leucaena Effect Agroforestry involves: 

a)  Multiple use of agricultural raw materials such as kenaf

b) Reuse of waste materials as well as processed products

c)  Agricultural and forest residues  recycled into products

d) Leaves, small branches, straw, wheat bran, wheat stalks, rice stalks, corn stalks, coffee husk, oil palms husks, banana husks and other agricultural and forestry  resources are available  transformed into livestock feed, or fertilizer

d)   Sugar cane bagasse, molasses and other usable feed raw materials  manufactured into high quality feeds

e)  Inedible portions formed into briquettes for use as fuelwood and energy generation

f)  Forest wastes, agricultural fibrous waste, and kenaf combined with Leucaena to produce multi-fibre paper.  

g)  Using fast growing nitrogen fixing trees with multiple uses, thus Leucaena prevents the destruction of old growth forest. 

h)  Leucaena Effect Agroforestry includes alternative agriculture but expands it to include the production of food, feed and fibre through multi-use of raw materials

i)  Reclamation of formerly discarded agricultural and forest residues through FitoRemediation

j)  Use of fast growing nitrogen fixing trees such as Leucaena as a nitrogen sources for livestock feed as well as composting and fertilizer

k) Growing of alternative crops such as adzuki bean, vegetable soybeans

l) Development of rural agroindustrial centers (RAICs) based on the above components

m)  Export development based on sustainable development of plant and animal resources into small scale as well as Leucaena ecoindustrial projects

n) Generation of energy from biomass energy, biodiesel, solar energy, wind power and other renewable sources

Two very vital parts of Leucaena Effect Agroforestry includes SATReal Analysis and ECOSAT Design.

How will Leucaena Effect Agroforestry be developed and training in this system made available?  Leucaena workshops will be held in Honduras every month beginning September 2005.  In the fall of 2005, Dr. Cross will be opening the LEEAF Way School in La Esperanza, Honduras.   Contact Dr. Carol Cross for more information.

The fact is, Leucaena Effect Agroforestry based rural community development can spur local economic development in agricultural areas while reducing the public’s growing environmental concerns. Leucaena  products offer safer and more responsible alternatives to non-degradable plastics, fossil fuels, and non-recyclable materials. 

And the best part is, these Leucaena  products may not only alleviate depressed economics, and lessen human impact on land and water but also may offer a wide range of profitable opportunities to farmers, researchers, entrepreneurs and investors.

MOTILES is developing Leucaena Effect Agroforestry as an integral part of the Sustainable Economic Development System (SATSEDS).

Some Leucaena Effect Agroforestry projects could include:

Need More Information About Leucaena?

More information on Leucaena is available to you from exportfacs@aol.com. Our Leucaena web site is http://www.satglobal.com/leucaena_entry.htm.

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Dr. Cross Can Be Reached In Honduras after March 15, 2007

Mailing Addresses after March 15, 2007 - Dr. Carol Cross, Barrio Lempira, Frente ADEL, Contiguo Papelitos.com., Intibuca, Intibuca, Honduras.  honducopa@yahoo.com or exportfacs@aol.com Telephone 504 - 783 - 2293 or 504-783-0199.

You May Also Contact Dr. Cross Through Dr. Ramon Dario Argueta, CODET, Farmacia Galenica, Barrio El Morera, Frente Bazar Reyna, La Esperanza, Intibuca, Honduras, Telephone 504-783-0054 Email exportfacs@aol.com .  Come share information on the COPA HonduAfric in March 2007 and The AfroCarib Cup in November 2007.

To obtain soccer gear and talk about soccer visit MOTILES, S.A. in Barrio Lempira, Intibuca, Intibuca, Honduras. MOTILES is the owner of Guerreros de Relampago, a team with designs on the Intercontinental Cup.

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Dr. Carol Cross, Director

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