Food
Terrace Farming- A clever way to grow greens.
People around the world have discovered clever ways to farm in tough conditions. Their land could be too dry, too wet, too hot, or prone to insects or damaging storms. If the land is too steep, people might try terrace farming. Cultures in Peru, Japan, the Philippines, Mexico, the Mediterranean, East Africa, Yemen, and China have all independently created the concept of terracing. In many parts of India also terrace farming is practised.
How terrace farming is done?
Terrace farming is the practice of cutting flat areas out of a hilly or mountainous landscape in order to grow crops. It is a practice that has been in use from the rice fields of Asia to the steep slopes of the Andes in South America.
Terracing turns a slope into level, benched out steps by moving soil and creating retaining walls. This restructuring allows un-farmable hillsides to become stable, productive farmlands. Some typical crops grown in terraces include barley, wheat, potatoes, corn, tea, olive, grape vines, coffee, and rice. A terrace is typically about 2-3 meters wide and 50-80 meters long. Some terraces flood with rain water, such as those used to farm rice.
A terrace usually has one outlet for water to drain into the terrace below. This lower terrace stops the water and prevents it from gaining enough speed to cause erosion. This way, the water deposits any soil in the downhill terraces as it slows down.
Terrace farming in INDIA
In India, terrace cultivation takes place in the states of Punjab, Meghalaya, Haryana, Plains of Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal. Although terrace farming is not much effective way of farming but its great idea to increase area under cultivation.
Some crops that are grown using terrace farming are – paddy, cereals, fruits, vegetables, flowers, medicinal plants, aromatic plants, dye plants, wheat, maize, rice, pulses, oilseeds, millets, buckwheat, saffron, black cumin, grain amaranth, spices, etc. The major fruit crops are apple, subtropical and temperate fruits including nuts and dry fruits.
Terraces are classified under different categories :
- According to retaining walls: bench terraces and broad field bench terraces, check dams and cross-channel terraces, sloping field terraces.
- Relating to the differences in building materials: soil ridge terraces, stone dike terraces, grass ridge terraces, and soil–rock mixed terraces
- According to rainfall availability and climatic zones: dryland terraces and paddy terraces
- Based on purpose: agricultural terraces, afforestation terraces, orchard terraces, tea-garden terraces, rubber terraces, and mulberry terraces
- As per specific location: hill slope terraces and channel terraces.
BENEFITS OF TERRACE FARMING :
1. Terrace farming boosts water Conservation and runoff reduction: terraces are act as many micro-watersheds across the whole slopes. Therefore, it directly reshapes the micro-topography of hill slopes. These factors enhance the efficiency of rainwater harvesting by changing hydrological pathways. Even, Practice of terrace farming increases soil roughness and creates voids so that water droplets penetrate. Thus, it increases water holding capacity and soil moisture.
2.Soil conservation and Control of Soil Erosion: Terracing weakens rainfall-runoff effects by reducing the water velocity and total amount of debris flow. This leads to an increase in biomass and surface cover. Terraces have embankments or ridges which increases the efficiency of soil conservation
3. Improve land productivity and soil fertility:
Due to the reduction in soil erosion and having high water holding capacity, terrace farming improves soil fertility and land productivity
Example:
In rice terraces, Irrigation is designed not only for supplying water to paddy crops but has various other purposes as well also in addition to the protection of terraced paddy fields, the unique practice of year-round irrigation plays many essential roles, including storing water, maintaining favorable soil conditions for rice growth and providing a habitat for various edible aquatic animals.
4. Ensure food security and crop yield: water scarcity and soil erosion are the problems for the mountain. Terrace farming ensures food security and increases crop yield by water and soil conservation. Thus it reduces soil erosion. In terrace farming, the interaction between water and fertilizer increase results in high yield.
5. Enhances biodiversity and helps in ecosystem restoration and enhances biodiversity: Practice of Terrace farming in mountains or another region where standard cultivation not possible plays an additional measure.This benefits ecosystem restoration and enhancing biodiversity.
6. Enriches recreational options by creating aesthetic landscapes: Many terraces practices in the world classified as “cultural landscape” heritages (UNESCO, 2008). Cultural landscapes, defined as “distinctive geographical areas or unique properties that represent the combined work of nature and man” by the World Heritage Committee.
Challenges in terrace farming:
Terrace farming certainly has difficulties, as well. Terracing requires massive inputs of labor. Creating a terrace requires moving tons of soil and building hundreds of meters of stone walls, typically by hand. Once established, terraces need routine maintenance to continue functioning. Historically, labor was readily available in rural, mountainous areas of the world. Currently, however, young, able-bodied people move to cities to become educated and work higher paying jobs. Older women and men maintain the terraces, instead. This lack of labor results in less upkeep. Once a terrace is abandoned, the retaining walls crumble and nearly all of the productive topsoil is lost to wind and water erosion.
From a natural point of view, steep slopes are some of the only areas spared from human manipulation. In places where all flat areas and small hills have been deforested, steep slopes are important for the remaining wildlife and plants. If terrace farming increases, these remnant ecosystems will inevitably be lost.
Want to cool down down this summer with some scrumptious ice cream? You’d think this delicious-sounding list would be safe to read while eating … but maybe not. From pate to creamed cod to jellyfish-flavored frozen dessert, these crazy flavors require an iron stomach to enjoy.
Raw horse flesh
If you’ve often thought that there is nothing better than the taste of raw horse flesh, then raw horse flesh frozen dessert is that the delightful frozen treat for you! Try a scoop at frozen dessert City inside Namja Town, an interior park in Tokyo. But maybe wait to dig in until after you’ve gone on all the roller coaster rides—it’s hard to imagine that raw horse flesh and stomach-churning drops are a winning combination.
There are 24 attractions within Namja Town, but it might be easy to spend all of it slow pondering the various out-there offerings at frozen dessert City, where cow tongue, salt, yakisoba, octopus and squid are among the flavors waiting to tickle (or strangle) your taste buds.
Gin
At Murphy’s, you’ll get your kids hooked on the taste of gin early by treating them to frozen dessert flavored with the hard stuff. This Irish creamery is known for its wacky flavors. The Murphy’s website even lists the “worst flavor we ever made” (smoked salmon), the “oddest customer request that we actually made into ice cream” (green peas and mint), and also the “tastiest flavors that we couldn’t convince customers to buy” (including spicy clove and licorice).
Mushy peas and fish
Scotland has its famous deep-fried Mars bars, and now England can compete within the disgustingly delicious dessert wars with the fish and chips frozen dessert from Teare Woods Luxury frozen dessert Parlour. it is a scoop of minty side dish flavor and a scoop of fish flavor, topped with bits of battered cod and served with a french fry. And this odd creation isn’t even an artless in England—in 2010, Frederick’s Dairies launched a creamed cod-flavored frozen dessert served in an exceedingly vanilla and pepper batter with potato frozen dessert chips. So … can we order this as a dessert after a meal of fish and chips? Or is that too far?
Jellyfish
Brushing up against a jellyfish within the ocean can bring searing pain, so why wouldn’t you take a look at one and think, “I should put that in my mouth?” Crazy Charlie Francis, founding father of Lick Me I’m Delicious frozen dessert company, apparently had that thought, because he’s created frozen dessert that uses jellyfish protein because the main ingredient. Even cooler: once you lick it, the frozen dessert glows. Unfortunately, jellyfish don’t come cheap—a single scoop sells for quite $200!
Foie gras
French frozen dessertery Philippe Faur combines fatty pate and diet-busting ice cream—how is it again that French women do not get fat? (Probably because they do not eat this ice cream.) This duck-liver flavor was invented by Faur, who says the dessert took four months to perfect. We shudder to imagine what the taste testers had to reject in those trial phases!
Whiskey prune
What are you able to do when all the liquor stores are closed but you continue to have a looking for whiskey … and prunes? Pop into a Simmo’s in Australia for a scoop of whiskey prune. This “secret Irish recipe” mixes mascarpone frozen dessert with whiskey-soaked prunes, then swirls during a whiskey ripple to actually get that boozy flavor.
Avocado
It’s great in sandwiches and burritos, so why not as frozen dessert? discover if avocado’s creamy deliciousness translates to ice cream at Fenocchio in Nice, France. Hey, a minimum of you’ll pretend it’s healthy because it’s made of fruit!
Durian
Durian fruit is known throughout geographical area for its distinctive, powerful smell—a scent that’s been compared to everything from raw sewage to rotten onions. do that unique fruit stateside with a fatty American spin on that at big apple City’s famous Original Chinatown frozen dessert Factory, where it has been became an frozen dessert flavor.
Roasted garlic
Roasted garlic, almond, and ice cream—three great things separately, but combined? Decide for yourself if the mash-up works at Sebastian Joe’s frozen dessert in Minneapolis.
Mint leaves with echinoderm meringues
Portland’s Salt & Straw serves up this herbaceous frozen dessert, steeped in fresh Oregon mint leaves and mixed with meringues made up of sea urchins and Italian espelette peppers. Your move, vanilla.
Mamushi snake frozen dessert
What doesn’t kill you makes an excellent frozen dessert—isn’t that how the old saying goes? that has got to be the principle behind the mamushi ice cream found in Tokyo. For your reference, mamushi is one among the foremost venomous snakes in Japan and it’s actually listed mutually of the ingredients within the frozen dessert. A blogger who tried the delicacy described the experience like this: “My taste buds were fully awake to three parts—garlic, a touch of almond, but the third standout, well, I’ve never had viper before in any form (solid and liquid included) in order that must’ve been it.”
Fasting is a bliss being encouraged by our ancestors since generation by all religions but many are unknown to truly understand this blessing and couldn’t avail it meticulously.
One should not confuse fasting with starvation, the main difference between starvations and fasting is the wiliness. People fast with their will for their god or health purpose on the other hand starving is a term used when related to shortage or lack of food available. Fasting heals the body whereas starving is unhealthy for the body.
There are numerous benefits of fasting in spirituality and for one’s health which is now scientifically proven too.
It’s not far away when even scientists will agree that science is just an extension of spirituality.
Eating all the time without giving proper rest to your body isn’t healthy, our digestive system and body needs rest too.
To understand fasting one needs to understand that being hungry and having an empty stomach are two different things. Our body and our brain work its best only when the stomach is empty because any correction and purification that needs to happen in the body of your stomach needs to be empty. It’s very important. Otherwise, purification on the cellular level won’t happen. You pile up all the things and then you have all kinds of problems. It has been confirmed by Modern Science that fasting detoxifies the body at the cellular level.
Modern science also talks about Autophagy. The body gets rid of its sickest cells. Fasting induces Autophagy where only the healthiest cells survive the extreme condition, while cysts, tumors, cancerous, and all other unhealthy cells (who feed on food) get vanished.
According to Ayurveda, in a fasted state, the body clears the toxic waste ‘Ama’ off the subtest of the body channels called the ‘Srotas’. Ayurveda also states if fasting is done in the correct way it can cure any diseases.
Other benefits of fasting include weight loss, robust digestion, unblemished skin, stronger hair, and improved cognitive ability, this proof that fasting is the ultimate detox which our body wants.
People don’t indulge in fasting because of myths spread by people about it. There are zero side effects of fasting only if done correctly. Some of them include: – fasting should be done with will and shouldn’t be forced to do; it should be done happily without stress. Breaking fast is another important factor that should be taken care of.
Who should not fast?
Pregnant women, children, and extremely low blood pressure people shouldn’t opt to do fasting.
Consider fasting as a process to maintain your body and start implementing it at least once a week for your body, health, and for your soul.
Fast for your body, for your better health, and if you are a spiritual soul you cannot miss it including in your life and making it a part of your habits and lifestyle because going to bed on an empty stomach induces more vivid and lucid dreams. This is because hunger stimulates the production of DMT in the brain. When we eat before bed our body works all night on digestion, which takes away energy from the brain. By producing more DMT naturally, we can achieve deeper states of meditation, a stronger connection with our higher self, and easily tap into infinite intelligence.
Fasting, having an empty stomach works miracles, why don’t you give it a try in a proper manner and feel it by yourself?
