Maart 2014
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Transforming the benefits of
conservation agriculture into
a pro-CA “manifesto”
C
onservation agriculture (CA) is a way of farming in which
producers, as per usual, have to invent, adapt, apply
and learn things within the constraints of their own
circumstances and situations.
Just as there isn’t a universally applicable blueprint for raising
children, so too there aren’t off-the-shelf instruction manuals
specifically suited to each and every aspect of each and every farm
or producer.
When a producer fixes a tractor or assembles a new implement, he
can follow a step by step manual, but when it comes to managing the
web of life-processes that are the ecological engines of both the farm
ecosystem and the economics that measure profitability, sustainable
prosperity and individual satisfaction, farming is a process in which
producers themselves predict their own future by inventing and
improving it on a daily basis. (You can learn from the way they do it
in Australia, but you cannot copy the way they do it…)
While you can manage a tractor in isolation as a vehicle, you
cannot manage a farm as anything but a whole system. Everything
on your farm is connected to everything else. If you perfect your
tillage strategy while neglecting your crop rotations you will quickly
learn that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and that the
elements of what is considered to be the “weakest”, in itself changes
constantly and dynamically.
Under these circumstances all you can do is to keep your focus; that
is, to have a few principles clearly in mind when you choose your
farming strategy and its tactical actions. If you want to know how
sweet the lemon is, you’ll have to suck it to find out. Similarly in CA
farming, you only have a few strategic, but common sense guidelines
– none of which come with perfect instructions tailor-made for you
and your farm.
Thus, it is common sense for you to:
Conserve and not liquidate your natural capital (e.g. soil organic
matter) and your personal capital (your own knowledge and
experience).
Protect your accumulating capital assets, e.g. by maintaining
maximum organic soil cover by planting cover crops, retaining
crop residues and balancing the integration of animal and crop
farming.
Increase and restock your core capital, e.g. by diversifying the
crops used in your rotations.
Build the resilience of your farming system, e.g. by practicing
integrated pest management (IPM) and always being guided
by the common sense fact that a chain is only as strong as its
weakest link.
If you figure out how to do this on your own, in the company of other
smart, natural capital managers and producers such as yourself,
some of the rewards you will certainly reap should include the
following:
Conservation agriculture
1. Is practical for all kinds of producers
CA has all the attributes of an ‘”appropriate” technology because
its principles can be applied at many different levels of farming
“sophistication”. For example, the benefits of intercropping
maize (
Zea mays
) with cowpea (
Vigna unguiculata
), are as
attainable under intensive commercial farming as they are in
smallholder and subsistence farming. Thus, a smallholder maize
producer using only a hand hoe could gain the benefits of (maize
x cowpea) intercropping without this requiring any external
inputs. Similarly, the many tactical options that implement the
principles of CA are amenable to “simple” practical adoption and
implementation and could benefit all producers significantly, but
indifferent ways. See
Photo 1
.
2. Increases net farm income
According to Sorrenson (1997 and 1998) and Lange (2005), net
farm income increases considerably under CA within a period of
ten years, while under conventional tillage (CT), it is calculated to
decrease. Farm income increases are expected to be sufficient
to pay for the CA equipment within two years. The changes in the
returns on capital of CA compared to CT are quite impressive.
3. Yields better returns on investment
If a maize producer cultivates both maize (
Zea mays
) and cowpea
(
Vigna unguiculata
) separately as opposed to growing the crops
in a CA system of phased intercropping or crop rotation, the
producer’s cost outlays are the same, but the returns are not,
because separate cropping or monoculture does not benefit
from the synergy of intercropping or the crop diversity synergy
that is directly translated into better returns on investment. See
Photo 2
.
4. Immediately increases disposable family capital
If less money has to be spent to produce a given level of
(household) food security, the money thereby saved is at the
disposable of the family for other purposes. The benefits from
increased levels of family capital could have qualitative impacts,
such as topping-up children’s school fees and boosting the level
of dignity and pride within a family due to a higher economic
position in society.
5. Stabilises communities
The loss of income and poverty is a powerful process that
puts everybody in the same boat and subjects all to the lowest
common denominator of material well-being. When poverty
“hits” those who are their brother’s keepers, they are the first
line of support and just as reductions in infant mortality impact
ON FARM LEVEL
CA / Sustainability / Guidelines
Conservation agriculture
TONIE PUTTER,
Conservation Agriculture Academy,
HENDRIK SMITH,
Grain SA and
DIRK LANGE,
CA facilitator
