Agricultural group visits Angola

ANGOLA, Ind. -- An agriculture group from Brazil has been visiting Angola to better understand farming and conservation practices used in northeast Indiana and northwest Ohio.\nThe visit was organized by The Nature Conservancy, which is working with farmers in the two states to establish environmentally-friendly land-use practices, particularly along Fish Creek. The creek is home to some 30 mussel species, including two that are on the endangered species list.\n"Some of the farmers around here are some of the best in adapting agriculture. The Nature Conservancy in Brazil wanted to implement some of these strategies," said Larry Clemens, director of the Upper St. Joe River Project office. "I think we have things to offer them and that they can offer us."\nThe visitors included members of Brazil's Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Environment, as well as a farmer and the president of a no-tillage program in Brazil's Cerrado region.\nThe 500-million-acre savannah in the central interior represents roughly 25 percent of the country's total land area, according to Laurenz Pinder of the international arm of The Nature Conservancy.\nThe area is considered one of the 25 global hot spots because its biodiversity is threatened, and it also contains the least remaining protected areas, Pinder said.\n"We faced the same challenges in regard to conservation," Pinder told the Herald-Republican for a story Wednesday, "and we wanted to tap into your conservation and watershed management."\nMembers of the Brazilian group also aimed to share some of their own experiences with people in Angola in the far northeastern corner of Indiana. They discussed the similarities and differences in climate and growing season for the two countries.\nThey also discussed the extent of the erosion problem in Brazil and how farmers there are working to overcome the problem.\n"Over the years we invited a group of farmers and others who I thought might be interested to learn of our work in Brazil," Clemens said. "The way agriculture is growing there, and the way the habitat there is being destroyed at such a rapid rate, we were trying to accelerate the conservancy of species and natural resources"