Our approach
Dykelands
Dykelands
Dykelands
Dykelands are historically drained saltmarshses, occuring largely across Europe, North America, and Australia. Cleared for farming, these former saltmarshes exist in the tens of millions, and are largely abandoned and unproductive today.
Drylands
Dykelands
Dykelands
Our drylands focus is on salt-affected farmland around the world, from North America to Africa, Australia and Asia.
Dykelands
Dykelands are historically drained saltmarshes, cleared for agriculture. Globally, over 20 million hectares of saltmarshes were destroyed to make room for agriculture, primarily in Europe, North America, and Australia.
Over time, these dykelands became unproductive and abandoned due to increasing salt accumulation or economic pressures.
NARA helps farmers turn these Dykelands into integrated agro-ecologies, combining saltmarsh restoration with ecosystem-based agriculture so that we can achieve restoration while building green economies at the same time. A win-win-win for climate, farmers, and industry.
The un-draining of saltmarshes goes by many names, such as managed re-alignment and managed retreat. NARA’s approach combines conventional saltmarsh restoration with managed agricultural interventions, getting the best of both worlds.
The dykelands model
Our model
- 1. We buy coastal biomass crops directly from farmers and support them in making agro-ecological transitions that boost crop productivity and make their land eligibile for carbon credit payments. The advantage of this model is that farmers already have these saltmarsh crops growing wild at varying levels on their degraded land. NARA pays farmers for the 'weeds' that are already growing on their land and for land improvements like increased tidal irrigation.
- 2. We create profitable products from this transition of degraded coastal farmland into productive ecosystems and sell them to industry.
- 3. We monetise the carbon credits that accrue in this ‘transition’ process, which stores carbon in the soil and above-ground biomass, increases local biodiversity, and creates incomes from feedstocks where there previously were none.
Our model
We connect farmers to market, while providing them payments for 'waste' that is already growing on their degraded land. This incentive model allows NARA to work with farmers on making land-use changes to improve the conditions of these degraded marshes, capturing carbon and generating additional revenues from the credits.
The offtake model
Waste to value chains
NARA provides a route to market for these ‘undervalued’ feedstocks, creating high-value supply chains by setting up manufacturing and offtake hubs in dense dykelands locations. Throught proprietary processing and manufacturing technologies, NARA develops key green transition ingredients used in a variety of industries, all backed by verified carbon credits that ensure the highest-quality environmental standard for these products.
Drylands
In these dryland regions like Namibia, Australia, Kenya and the American West, one of the main economic activities on these marginal lands is the rearing and production of livestock. This industry in particular is especially threatened by climatic pressures, like drought and the resulting lack of affordable feed. NARA helps farmers, producers, and pastoralists ensure a climate-resilient source of high-quality animal feed and secondary revenue streams through extractives and carbon credits by building large-scale saltmarsh farms on degraded drylands.
Turning the desert green with saltwater
Sand and saltwater
NARA has been working with farmers and communities in dryland regions of the world for many years. Regions such as Southern Africa and Australia suffer from soil and water salinisation. In many parts of the world, groundwater is salty, even though they are often thousands of miles from the ocean. NARA unlocks this immense water resource by helping farmers transition their land from low-productive uses to holistic saline agro-ecologies by building saltmarsh farms in the desert. These crops require no fertiliser or pesticides, and also require no specialised tools or equipment. As seen in the picture above of a saltmarsh farm in Eritrea, basic hand tools is as technical as it often needs to be. We pride ourselves in creating simple, bespoke approaches that works for large-scale farmers in Australia, as it does for communities in East Africa with few industrial resources.
Saline agro-ecologies with livestock transitioning (SALT)
The SALT approach
In these dryland regions like Namibia, Australia, Kenya and the American West, one of the main economic activities on these marginal lands is the rearing and production of livestock. This industry in particular is especially threatened by climatic pressures, like drought and the resulting lack of affordable feed.
NARA helps farmers, producers, and pastoralists ensure a climate-resilient source of high-quality animal feed and secondary revenue streams through extractives and carbon credits by building large-scale saltmarsh farms on degraded drylands.
How it works
The SALT approach was initially designed for inland salt-affected regions which have saline groundwater resources. Millions of hectares of land globally contain salt-affected groundwater, originating from ancient geological reasons, saltwater intrusion, or modern agriculturally-induced salinisation. For whatever reason, inland regions across the world from Malawi to Mongolia are affected by this reality. Farmers drilling wells for freshwater often hit salt-affected aquifers which represents a huge financial loss due to the cost of well-drilling and the loss of land productivity as there is no freshwater to sustain agriculture.
SALT uses saline groundwater and livestock/aquaculture waste to cultivate high-value halophytes that, in-turn, feed the livestock/aquaculture species. This circular model can quickly scale across dryland farms without the danger of polluting soils or waterways as carefully-controlled organic fertiliser application mixed with a predictably low rainfall allows for balanced growth of these desert saltmarshes.
About NARA
Infrastructure
Using conventional agricultural equipment such as centre pivot irrigation systems, drip irrigation systems, and other technologies, vast areas of degraded land can be quickly transformed at low costs between $2,000-$5,000 per hectare at scale.
Livestock applications
In these typical dryland environments, a single cow requires a minimum of 10 hectares of pastureland whereas a single hectare of a saltmarsh field can provide the feed for 15 cattle. This approach can dramatically transform the livelihoods of cattle ranchers globally who are increasingly affected by irregular rainfall, diminishing grazing pastures and access to freshwater. A real highlight of this model is that these perennial species can be left to grow for as long as needed without the seasonal requirement to harvest at a specific time of the year. A compounding harvest annually allows farmers to choose when and how to harvest, use biomass, and transition operations over time.
Integrating ecosystems
NARA uses place-based approaches to design and implement the agro-ecologies approaches. These range from more conventional saline agriculture approaches to more integrated ecosystem-farms that mimic natural coastal wetlands and can include aquacultures and agro-forestry systems into saline agriculture operations.
Water-stressed systems
In places where water, even saltwater, is not plentiful, we employ water-saving agricultural approaches such as the use of drip systems that feed saline groundwater to fields. Mulch, biochar, and substrates are all techniques used to make sure every drop counts.
Water-rich systems
In places where saltwater is more abundant, such as the coast or estuaries, we prefer to use flood systems. The benefit is that more nutrients and sediments are brought on to fields that improve carbon stocks and supply organic fertilisers.