Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

 "The Greener Revolution"
http://www.biotech-info.net/greener_revolution.html
Editorial New Scientist
February 3, 2001

IT SOUNDS like an environmentalist's dream. Low-tech "sustainable
agriculture", shunning chemicals in favour of natural pest control and
fertiliser, is pushing up crop yields on poor farms across the world, often
by 70 per cent or more. But it's no dream. That's the claim being made in
the biggest ever survey of green-minded farming (see p 16). The findings
will make sobering reading for people convinced that only genetically
modified crops can feed the planet's hungry in the 21st century.

The gains are greatest among poor farmers. This is not surprising. The
high-tech green revolution that has doubled global food production in
little more than a generation was always designed for big mechanised farms
on the best land, using capital to buy pesticides and fertilisers the new
high-yielding plant varieties need. It was never a blueprint for working
the poorer land, or helping illiterate farmers with plenty of labour and
ingenuity but little capital.

Yet over the past 30 years, these farmers have been pushed into
half-heartedly adopting this revolution. While some have gained, this
hand-me-down technology has not served them well.

The survey shows there is a better way. A new science-based revolution is
gaining strength built on real research into what works best on the small
farms where a billion or more of the world's hungry live and work.

For some, talk of "sustainable agriculture" sounds like a luxury the poor
can ill afford. But in truth it is good science, addressing real needs and
delivering real results. For too long it has been the preserve of
environmentalists and a few aid charities. It is time for the major
agricultural research centres and their funding agencies to join the
revolution.