Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

July 16, 2010
A Conversation About Organic Agriculture with Chuck Benbrook
http://blogs.alternet.org/daniellenierenberg/2010/07/16/a-conversation-about-organic-agriculture-with-chuck-benbrook/

If you dispassionately look at what is needed to promote productivity and 
food security in chronically food short regions, core organic farming 
principles and practices have much to contribute, and certainly far more than 
the GMO and chemical-intensive corn-soybean production system in the U.S. 
corn belt. This is particularly true in restoring soil fertility and 
reversing the steady decline in soil organic matter.

Six core principles and objectives of organic farming must form the 
foundation of sustainable food systems, and hence food security in Africa –

* Build the quality of the soil by increasing soil organic matter;
* Promote above and below-ground biodiversity for its inherent, multiple 
benefits (biological control, more diverse diet, lessening risk of 
catastrophic crop loss, etc);
* Integrate crop and livestock operations to exploit synergies between the 
two;
* Use crop rotations, cover crops, multi-cropping systems, and agro-foresty 
to utilize available sunlight and moisture more fully, especially in the 
spring and fall months;
* Avoid the use of toxic chemicals and hot fertilizers because of their 
potential to burn up organic matter, kill or reduce populations of non-target 
organisms that play valuable roles in food chains ultimately helping to feed 
people, and pose risks to people living in close proximity to treated areas; 
and
* Produce high-quality, nutrient dense products that will hopefully command a 
premium price in the market place, reflecting their true value.

What are some specific innovations, policies and techniques that could be 
implemented to promote organic agriculture while also improving livelihoods?

Obviously, the combination of new practices, inputs, and technologies needed 
will vary tremendously based on local conditions. Nearly everywhere, soil 
quality must be restored, a process that will require a number of years and a 
proper sequence of changes in management systems and inputs. What a farmer 
does in the first three years of this journey will differ considerably from 
common practices ten years down the road.

Early steps will be dependent to a greater degree on fertilizer and organic 
soil amendments from outside the farm, and will often need to be shipped 
hundreds of miles into the region, while in later years, much more of the 
organic materials needed to sustain soil quality will be generated on the 
farm or locally.

Unfortunately, many projects and policy initiatives have delivered uneven, 
unsustainable results because they stopped at just subsidizing fertilizer, 
and failed to support the farmer’s evolution toward more biologically-based 
methods to sustain soil fertility.

It is critical to support this incremental evolution, because the real and 
sustainable economic benefits to farm families kick in only after the 
transition is well along toward systems that have a high level of internal 
self-sufficiency, stability, and resilience.

It would be helpful for researchers and development organizations to provide 
recommendations for cost-effective trajectories of change in soil quality, 
including recommendations for the most cost-effective steps, and investments 
that will promote sustainable progress during each stage of the process.

More efficient capture and use of water, especially through micro-irrigation 
schemes, will also deliver significant benefits in many areas. Diversifying 
rotations to include small plots of several short season vegetable crops in 
various combinations will also deliver multiple benefits. Diversifying 
livestock enterprises to include more small livestock like chickens and 
rabbits is also a promising addition to the development assistance tool kit.

The lack of safe storage and markets for new crops, or difficulties in 
storing and utilizing new foods, often emerges as a major constraint to 
positive changes on the farm, and in terms of the diversity and quality of 
diets. It seems to me that this is an obvious area for development assistance 
programs to to target resources.