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November 2015
HENDRIK SMITH,
CA facilitator: Grain SA
FOCUS
Natural resources and energy
Special
Valuable info shared at the 2015
KwaZulu-Natal No-till Conference
T
he annual KwaZulu-Natal No-till Conference took place at
Drakensville from 1 to 3 September 2015. It was attended by
330 participants who experienced a range of oral presenta-
tions and practical demonstrations on conservation agricul-
ture (CA).
Below is a synthesis of the key messages presented at this prestig-
ious event on the CA calendar.
Soil health is the heart of sustainable
agriculture
This idea is echoed in the following quote from Mr Hugh Hammond
Bennett (1950): “Take care of the land and the land will take care
of you.” The conference supported this statement with the mes-
sage that soil health is improved through the quality application
of the three principles of CA, namely minimal mechanical soil dis-
turbance, permanent organic soil cover and crop diversity, includ-
ing crop rotations, associations and the use of cover crops. These
quality CA systems deliver multiple benefits in terms of yield, sus-
tainability of land use, income, timeliness of cropping practices,
ease of farming and eco-system services. It was emphasised that
a change from conventional agriculture, including full tillage (CV)
to CA with low external inputs, will be an incremental change, the
rate thereof depending on the level of soil health, but one that none-
theless should be embarked upon primarily due to environmental
concerns and the cost pressure of external production inputs under
CV systems.
The overseas guest speaker, Prof Richard Teague from Texas A&M
University, explained the transformation of cropping systems from
simple conventional mono-cropping (with negative environmental
and economic impact) to highly diverse, regenerative CA systems.
The latter apply all CA principles with little, if any, need for external
chemical inputs, but it maximises the positive impact of diversity on
soil health through crop rotations, cover cropping, ley cropping and
livestock integration (see
Figure 1
).
Take the lab into the field and into your
own hands
This message was evident from some presentations, particularly
from producers practicing CA, such as Messrs Cobus van Coller (Vil-
joenskroon, Free State), Rene Stubbs (KZN Midlands), Egon Zunckel
(Bergville, KZN) and Anthony Muirhead (Winterton, KwaZulu-Natal),
who have been adapting their CA farming systems through continu-
ous experimentation and close observations of their soils, fields,
equipment and resource flows. By using only a spade and your eyes,
Figure 1: Typology of different grain production systems. This ranges from conventional, tillage-based systems (stage 1), to organic production
(stage 7), with high external input CA being stage 5 and low external input CA stage 6 (
Adapted from: Blignaut
et al
., 2015
)