Conservation Agriculture Isn’t One-Size-Fits-All

The kind of conservation agriculture that works in the United States isn’t necessarily a good fit elsewhere in the world, research finds.

Because of its success in the US and other countries, conservation agriculture, or CA, has been widely promoted as a way for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa to increase yields while also making those yields more resilient to changing climate conditions.

The new research, however, finds that the benefits of CA are not consistent around the world.

“The farming technique—which consists of low or no tillage of fields, leaving crop cover in place after harvest, and rotating grains and legumes—has been extremely successful in the US, Canada, and other industrialized nations. In fact, the vast majority of crop acreage in these countries is now farmed using conservation agriculture,” says Jeffrey Michler, an assistant professor of agricultural and resource economics in College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Arizona.

“It also has a number of climate-smart properties, including reduced greenhouse gas emissions, reduced fertilizer use, and improved resilience of yields to rainfall shocks stemming from climate change,” Michler says.

The efforts of groups such as the African Conservation Tillage Network were initially successful. In 2008, 40 percent of smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe used CA to grow five main crops—maize, sorghum, millet, groundnut, and cowpea. But by 2018, a majority of farmers had abandoned the practice, with only 17 percent still using CA.

“It takes a long time to realize these benefits,” Michler says, explaining that it takes several years for CA to positively affect yields by rebuilding the organic matter in the soil. “But we thought maybe we could show that there is a resilience story—that we can say yes, in a typical year, you might have lower yields, but in a bad rainfall year you’ll have higher yields, and that might be a reason to adopt CA.”

To that end, the researchers studied four years’ worth of farm production data from Zimbabwe. The data covered 4,171 plots from 729 households. Researchers used the data to estimate how crop yields responded during periods of high and low rainfall shocks.

The team found that during years of average rainfall, farmers who used CA techniques did not benefit from increased crop yields, and in some cases, actually experienced yield losses compared to conventional practices.

During years with extremely low rainfall, yields increased.

“You have to have a really bad rainfall season—once in 10 years bad—for CA to really give you strong benefits. It can’t just be a little bad, it has to be a lot bad,” Michler says.

“So are you going to do this thing that for seven or eight years gives you slightly lower yields, but on the eighth year, you’ll get the higher yields? Probably not. If you’re a poor farmer in Africa, you’re not going to wait several years to get positive returns. You’re just worried about getting through this year.”

While the study shows that the advertised increases in yield did not materialize for Zimbabwe farmers, the benefits of CA as a climate-smart agricultural technology are apparent, Michler says.

“We’re trying to make farmers in Africa simultaneously more productive, but also more climate-smart,” says Michler, who conducted the research as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois.

“CA looked like a way that we could do that, but it’s a technology that doesn’t lend itself to small, unmechanized farms, and therefore it’s not helping these farmers. It’s not delivering the benefits.”

“I think the technology is sound,” he adds of conservation agriculture techniques. “What failed was our ability to adapt the technology to small farmers in Africa in such a way that it makes it profitable for them and has positive spillovers on the environment. If we want them to use these climate-smart technologies, we’re going to have to find a climate-smart technology that still helps farmers make a living.”

The study appears in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.

Kenyan farmers embrace zero-tillage system to improve yields

Agricultural experts are lauding the steps Kenyan farmers are making in adopting a no-tillage system of farming that increases yields, but warn that failure to implement it quickly could lead to chronic land degradation and soil erosion that will ultimately threaten food production.

The no-tillage system entails planting crops into soil that has remained unploughed after the harvest of the previous crop. Such cultivation has proven to have the potential, if carried out in conjunction with other appropriate farming practices, to improve food production, cut down labour cost in the farm by up to 20 per cent and stabilise threatened rural livelihoods.

Constant tillage threatens the health of the topsoil, which is paramount for better crop yield since it provides a habitat for organisms, including billions of beneficial microbes, nitrogen-fixing fungi, nutrients and earthworms whose digestive tracts transform the fine grains of sterile rock and plant waste into fertile soil.

On average, the earth is covered with little more than three feet of topsoil. Estimates from the Food and Agriculture Organisation have indicated that the world loses about one per cent of its topsoil every year to erosion, mostly caused by agriculture.

With scientists insisting that the topsoil cannot be made overnight since it is regenerated at a very slow rate of an inch or two over hundreds of years, farmers are being urged to adopt the no tilling method as a means of protecting the topsoil and improving food production.

“When a farmer tills, it means they are removing weeds, mixing in soil amendments like fertilisers, and shaping the soil into rows for crop plants and furrows for irrigation,” says Dr Kaheria Muriuki, a scientist from the Tegemeo Institute of Agriculture who is actively involved in pushing for no-tillage farming. “This results in adverse effects like soil compaction and death or disruption of soil microbes and other organisms, while washing or blowing away topsoil through erosion. No-till farming avoids these effects,” he says.

In Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, for example, zero tillage has reduced the demand for water in rice and wheat farming on almost a million hectares of land. While rice and wheat are important for southern Asia’s food security, yields had been stagnating and soil quality deteriorating.

But a ‘rice–wheat’ farming system, which has a summer ‘wet’ crop of rice - during the monsoon season - and a winter ‘dry’ crop of wheat, gave scientists the leeway to introduce no-tillage farming there in 2009. The wheat seeds germinate in residual water left by the rice crop, saving up to a million litres of water per hectare. This farming technique has been widely hailed for cutting down land degradation by 50 per cent.

A major problem with the zero tillage system is the over reliance on herbicides, as farmers try to clear weeds in otherwise untilled land, which may affect the quality of the crop.

“It is impractical for farmers to weed manually on their big pieces of land,” says

Zipporah Ndeti, another scientist pushing for the adoption of no-tillage in Kenya. “We are still looking for innovative and less laborious ways of doing away with weeds. We crack that and zero tillage farming will define farming in Kenya.”

Business Daily Africa

UN report reveals overwhelming benefits of eco-farming

by Brigid Darragh

The latest report out from the United Nations reveals farmers in developing nations can double food production in ten years' time by simply transitioning from the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to ecological agriculture.

The report points to the success in eco-farming projects in 57 nations, where adopting natural methods for soil enrichment and protection against pests has resulted in an average of 80% in crop yield.

Olivier De Schutter is the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and author of the report, Agro-ecology and the Right to Food.

“We won’t solve hunger and stop climate change with industrial farming on large plantations,” De Schutter said in a press release. The solution lies in supporting small-scale farmers’ knowledge and experimentation, and in raising incomes of smallholders so as to contribute to rural development.”

He points out that agriculture "is at a crossroads," and growers will have to implement methods that allow continued crop yield in a time when industrial farming — heavily dependent on oil — is simply not sustainable, nor affordable, for many farmers in developing nations.

"If food prices are not kept under control and populations are unable to feed themselves...we will have increasingly states being disrupted and failed states developing," De Schutter explains.

And because the cost to produce food is so closely linked with the cost of oil, the agriculture system as we know it is in a certain and long-term state of threat...

Industrial farming is the way of life for most developed nations, where farming methods rely heavily on oil.

The report details why these nations will eventually need to shift to agroecology to sustain crop production — and to increase farms' resilience to the natural disasters (floods, droughts, a rise in temperature and sea level) projected as a direct result of climate change in coming years.

"Sound ecological farming can significantly boost production and in the long term be more effective than conventional farming," De Schutter told Reuters, going on to mention methods like increasing the use of natural compost or high-canopy trees to shade coffee groves.

Just take a look at twenty African nations, where eco-farming projects have resulted in overwhelming results. Crop yields doubled within three to ten years of implementing ecological practices...

The report sites specific recommendations for governing bodies to ensure sustainable agriculture in their nations...

...making reference to agroecology and sustainable agriculture in national strategies for the realization of the right to food and by including measures adopted in the agricultural sector in national adaptation plans of action (NAPAs) and in the list of nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs) adopted by countries in their efforts to mitigate climate change;

...reorienting public spending in agriculture by prioritizing the provision of public goods, such as extension services, rural infrastructures and agricultural research, and by building on the complementary strengths of seeds-and-breeds and agroecological methods, allocating resources to both, and exploring the synergies, such as linking fertilizer subsidies directly to agroecological investments on the farm (“subsidy to sustainability”);

...supporting decentralized participatory research and the dissemination of knowledge about the best sustainable agricultural practices by relying on existing farmers’ organizations and networks, and including schemes designed specifically for women;

..improving the ability of producers practicing sustainable agriculture to access markets, using instruments such as public procurement, credit, farmers’ markets, and creating a supportive trade and macroeconomic framework.

As well as providing examples of just how farmers are swapping conventional farming methods for ecological methods:

Thousands of Kenyan farmers were planting insect-repelling desmodium or tick clover, used as animal fodder, within corn fields to keep damaging insects away and sowed small plots of napier grass nearby that excretes a sticky gum to trap pests.

De Schutter explains other parts in the world that stand to benefit are Latin America and parts of Asia.

And aside from the obvious benefits of crop yield, sustainability, and a transition from oil reliance, ecological farming allows for genetic diversity — a key factor missing in many genetically modified seeds and crops...

Sustainable and organic farms offer a diversity of crops that improves nutrition among those who eat them, as well as builds a resilient food system.

Genetic uniformity lends itself to crop failure from climate changes and disease that can affect a harvest...

De Schutter discusses the general need for crop diversification around the globe; the importance for farmers to shed their reliance on wheat, corn, and rice in diets.

For eco-farming to really take hold around the globe, education and training are necessary — especially in parts of the world where industrial farming and the use of genetically modified seeds have been enforced for generations of farmers.

But where there's a will, there's a way. And many farmers, especially those in developing nations, are eager to shift from industrial farming and regain ownership of their seeds and farming methods.

De Shutter's study highlighted success among rice growers in Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Vietnam, where "Farmer field schools" by rice growers resulted in a decrease in insecticide use between 35 and 92 percent.

You can read the full UN report here.

Green Chip Stocks

Zambian extolls the virtues of conservation farming

by Kieron Humphrey


Elleman Mumba makes an unlikely celebrity. He is not a singer nor a footballer - he is a 54-year-old farmer from southern Zambia.

Yet he has appeared on the front page of a national newspaper and been interviewed for numerous radio and television programmes.

What explains his fame?

Mr Mumba grows maize and groundnuts on his small plot of land in Shimabala, just south of Lusaka. Feeding his family used to be a problem.

"The yield was very little. We were always looking for hand-outs; we had to rely on relief food."

Like many farmers, Mr Mumba had no oxen of his own to plough his field. He had to wait in line to hire some, which meant he often failed to plant as soon as the first rains fell - with disastrous consequences. Researchers say that for each day's delay, the potential yield shrinks by between 1% and 2%.

Then, in 1997, Mr Mumba suddenly found himself in the vanguard of a quiet agricultural revolution. His wife had been given free training in a system called conservation farming, and persuaded him to try it.

Conservation farming is about doing less to get more. Instead of ploughing entire fields, farmers till and plant in evenly spaced basins. Only a tenth of the land area is disturbed. This reduces erosion and run-off - where soil and nutrients are washed away by rain.

"That season I had 68 bags of maize - enough to feed my family and buy four cattle," he says, blazing with pride at the recollection.

Using just a wide-bladed traditional chaka hoe, Mr Mumba had dug a series of shallow rectangular planting basins in his field during the dry season. It was a tough job to break the sun-baked soil, but he persevered, and was ready to sow his seed with the first rains.

Punctual planting was not the only reason for Mr Mumba's bumper crop.

The basins had punched through the layer of compacted earth created under the topsoil by repeated ploughing. Roots and rain no longer struggled to penetrate this "plough pan."

The crop flourished in spite of low rainfall and some of Mr Mumba's neighbours regarded his success with suspicion. "They said I was using juju in my field. I felt very bad, but I knew I wasn't using witchcraft. I told them: 'In CF there's no juju. It's just that you conserve water, so even when the rains are light, you are able to get something.'" Now many of those who called him a witchdoctor have followed him into conservation farming.

It is a growing trend. Across the country there are more than 160,000 farmers using basins or other minimum tillage methods, including large-scale commercial farmers.

For big or small, the principles are the same:

*disturb the soil as little as possible

*use natural processes as well as fertiliser to replenish its nutrients

*leave crop residue in situ rather than burning it off

*rotate crops





Musango (acacia) trees act as an organic fertiliser through leaf shedding

And the benefits?

"I pay for my children to attend school," says Mr Mumba, a father of six, "I can pay for the grandchildren to go to nursery school. So when I die, they will be able to excel on their own."

Mr Mumba also enjoys the reduction in his workload. The basins are always sited in the same place, so digging becomes easier with each successive year. Weeding takes less time because fertiliser has been applied only to the basins and not the whole field.

His crop is as high and healthy as ever this year, but it has cost him less effort. In the future it will cost less money too.

Protruding at regular intervals above Mr Mumba's crop are the thorny branches of young musango trees. Also called winterthorn or ana tree, this unusual acacia sheds its leaves just as the first rains fall, creating a nitrogen- and nutrient-rich carpet.

When mature, Mr Mumba's musangos will act as an organic fertiliser factory, and reduce his expenditure on artificial inputs.

Zambia's Conservation Farming Unit is not just promoting the musango's potential for fertilising the soil.

It says the tree could play an important role in combating deforestation, both through planting programmes and by reducing the need for farmers to slash and burn new areas to access fertile soil.

Dissenters say there is not enough empirical evidence to support the promotion of conservation farming as a magic bullet for sub-Saharan Africa's food shortfall.

But several countries in the region are investigating its potential, hence the stream of visitors to Mr Mumba's door.

They want to see if an average farmer really can produce such good results with just his hands and a hoe.

Giggling at all the attention he is getting, Mr Mumba is pleased to say yes, he can.

BBC

Poor rains dash farmers' hopes in Zimbabwe

Garai Hokonya, 53, a smallholder farmer in Chivhu district, about 120km southwest of Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, has resigned himself to the unpalatable truth that the 12 hectares of maize he planted by hand are being devastated by an unseasonal and prolonged dry spell.

"I have written off the crop and am driving the cattle and goats to graze in the fields," Hokonya said. "This is painful, because my family used zero tillage [no ploughing] to prepare part of the land due to a shortage of draught-power," he said.

A decade of food insecurity - which reached its zenith in the first quarter of 2009 when nearly 7 million people, or well over half the population, needed emergency food assistance - has taken a heavy toll on livestock. Working animals were sacrificed for food in the lean times, decimating the draught-power that small-scale farmers need to plough their fields.

In response to the shortage of animals, "and on the advice of agricultural extension workers who told us that [manual planting] was going to boost our yields", small-scale farmers dug shallow holes and planted seeds manually as a substitute for ploughing. This method was seen as ideal, as fields that have lain fallow retain nutrients and so do not require large amounts of fertilizer.

Hokonya was filled with optimism. "When we started planting, the weather was good because the rains were coming steadily [in October 2009] and there was no reason to think the situation could turn as bad as it has done." But by late December he and the neighbouring farmers were anxiously scanning the blue skies for clouds, and hope turned sour.

Zimbabwe's Meteorological Services Department has forecast the chance of good rains in the coming weeks, but Hokonya is sceptical about replanting because "these forecasts are mostly wrong, and it is now too late to think about planting a new crop."

However, even before the adverse weather, relief agencies were forecasting that about 2.2 million Zimbabweans would require food aid between January and March 2011.

The latest weather hazards assessment for Africa by USAID/Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) indicated that Zimbabwe was among several other southern African countries experiencing poor rainfall.

"Since December, below-average precipitation and above-average temperatures continue to help strengthen seasonal moisture deficits across central Mozambique, southern Malawi, southern Madagascar and southern Zimbabwe," FEWS NET said in its assessment.

Renson Gasela, a farming specialist and the former agriculture secretary of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said: "The crop situation across the country is very bad and food security is under great threat." The provinces of Manicaland, Masvingo, Matabeleland South and Midlands are also being affected by adverse weather patterns.

"We had hoped that food imports this year would be minimal, but the weather has dealt the country a big blow and yields are going to be worse than the last main farming season," Gasela predicted. "We would say we have lost about half of what we could have harvested, even though there is need to wait a little longer to get a fuller picture of the damage done."

The Crop and Food Assessment Mission of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and UN World Food Programme projected a cereal harvest of 1.3 million tons in 2009, compared to 690,000 tons in 2008.

It was too late to replant in most parts of the country, "and even in areas where it is possible, there is no guarantee that the rains will last for long," Gasela said.

Denford Chimbwanda, president of the Grain and Cereal Producers Association (GCPA) sad, "We are heading for disaster if we don't start receiving rains within a week. It is very unfortunate, because most farmers had done their best to prepare their farms and plots."

He said most farmers got fertilizers too late, at a stage when they could not apply it because of low soil moisture. "Because of the little rain that has fallen so far, farmers cannot top-dress their crops, yet this is vital."

Innocent Makwiramiti, a Harare-based economist, said the spectre of another poor harvest was already being seen in the maize price. "Traders have already started speculating and are responding to the looming drought by increasing the price of maize [the staple food]."

He said, "A 50kg bag ... that used to cost around US$9 is now selling for US$15; this could also push up the price of mealie-meal [maize-meal] in shops, regardless of whether it is locally produced or imported." 

IRIN

Conservation agriculture gaining ground in Zambia

by Busani Bafana

Not even the least alert of drivers can miss the sign along the busy road 30 kilometres south of Lusaka: "Look, Conservation Farming Pays!"

Touted as a solution to food insecurity and an adaptation mechanism to climate change in Africa, conservation agriculture (CA) is giving farmers like Sinoya Phiri, from Zambia, a reason to smile in their fields and all the way to the bank.

Phiri, who has a small holding in Kafue district, a major maize growing area in Zambia, says curious motorists have stopped to ask about the farming technique when they see his tall maize crop, a stone's throw from the sign.

"I tell them that this is a way of farming that has changed my life," Phiri told IPS, pointing to two hectares from which he expects two hundred 50 kilo bags of maize per hectare this year, doubling last year’s harvest. All thanks to conservation agriculture.

"There is a difference in yields, the cobs from the CA field are bigger than the cobs from the field I planted using a tractor. I have a lot of food. I do not buy mealie meal anymore."

For Phiri, the practice has secured him good income from better yields. Apart from supporting a family of 10, including his mother, aunt, brothers and sisters, he has even installed a satellite dish and bought a generator.

A few metres from his house, 50 pigs root contentedly in a row of pig sties. Phiri breeds pigs which he sells to supplement income; the manure is used in the fields.

Conservation agriculture was introduced in Zambia over ten years ago. The government says at least 180,000 small holder farmers are using its principles, which focus on minimising soil disturbance, maintaining a permanent soil cover and promoting crop rotation. In addition, farmers use low cost tools and traditional crop varieties without herbicides or herbicide-tolerant varieties.

Phiri, a father of four, has figures to prove the benefits of conservation agriculture. While it would cost him one million kwacha - roughly equal to 181 dollars - to hire a tractor for two hours of tillage, he spent $45 on labour to prepare his field this year.

Christian Thiefelder says his organisation, the International Maize and Wheat Research Centre, has promoted CA through demonstration plots and achieved large scale adoption in Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Some challenges still remain in adapting CA for Africa, Thiefelder admits. These include weed control, lack of animal draft power, affordability of appropriate machinery and tools and the need to changing mindsets.

The plough has become the symbol of agriculture and many, including farmers, extension agents, researchers, university professors and politicians have difficulty in accepting that agriculture is possible without tillage.

Conservation agriculture's emphasis on minimising soil disturbance and keeping soil covered at all times, allows the soil to hold water far longer and facilitates deeper rooting of crops.

Proponents of CA say that the practice lowers crop vulnerability to drought by reducing water requirements by up to 30 percent. This makes better use of soil water and facilitates deeper rooting of crops. In extreme wet conditions, CA facilitates rain water infiltration, reducing soil erosion and downstream flooding.

Collins Mwinga, a farmer from the Mwachisompola area about 70 km from Lusaka, has used a ripper - a tool which causes minimum disturbance to the soil - since learning about conservation agriculture.

"Using the ripper, I was able to plant earlier and noticed a difference in the yields between the time I used the plough and the time I have used the ripper," Mwinga said.

"This year I expect to get 97 bags (4,850 kg) per hectare. With some of the proceeds from my maize, I am building a new house and bought two cattle. I even helped pay lobola for two of my children and I am paying school fees for my nine children."

Despite its lauded benefits, there are those who are not convinced. Ken Giller, a professor at the department of plant sciences at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, published a critical article titled "Conservation Agriculture and Smallholder Farming in Africa: The Heretics' View". Along with three colleagues, he argues that conservation agriculture is being promoted so strongly by international research and development organisations that critical debate is stifled.

"Claims for the potential of CA in Africa are based on widespread adoption in the Americas, where the effects of tillage were replaced by heavy dependence on herbicides and fertilizers," writes Giller.

Giller and his colleagues say it cannot be automatically assumed that CA will bring benefits to the farming system and rural livelihood as a whole simply because benefits are shown at the plot level. A farming system consists of many interacting components, they point out, and is subject to a range of bio-physical, socio-economic and cultural constraints.

The researchers argue that there is no clear and consistent empirical evidence to back claims that CA increases yields or reduces labour requirements and costs of production. Their findings point to the opposite: decreased yields, increased labour requirements when herbicides are not used - this added labour is typically shifted to women - and a shortage of mulch due to poor productivity and prioritising the feeding of livestock with crop residues.

"We conclude that there is an urgent need for critical assessment under which ecological and socio-economic conditions CA is best suited for smallholder farming in sub-Saharan Africa. Critical constraints to adoption appear to be competing uses for crop residues, increased labour demand for weeding, and lack of access to, and use of external inputs."

Giller argues that CA is but one of option amongst others for addressing the critical problem of raising agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa.

CA has its sceptics despite its lauded benefits, says Collen Nkatiko, the manager (field operations) at the Conservation Farming Union (CFU) a technical unit of the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) established in 1995.

Farmer and conservation agriculture advocate, Peter Aagaard demurs. "The most important policy is that CA must be pursued in perpetuity. It took 15 years in Brazil before it took off, it can be done in Africa," says Aagaard.

IPS

New cowpea cover crops look promising

Cowpea cover crops, such as the field shown here, are cost effective because they increase soil nitrogen, control weeds, build soil quality and control pests.

By Bob Johnson

Over the last decade a large and growing number of farmers have taken up the practice of growing cover crops--to improve soil quality and reduce erosion and runoff.

But now the value of the "green manure" in legume cover crops is making them even more attractive.

The higher costs of fertilizer have increased interest by conventional growers in legume cover crops, which have the ability to fix nitrogen from the atmosphere and put it into the soil.

"Sharp increases in synthetic fertilizer prices have helped to fuel interest in planting legume cover crops by non-organic growers," said Jeff Ehlers, University of California, Riverside, grain legume plant breeding specialist.

Ehlers is one of the UC researchers who are working feverishly to find or develop cowpea cover crop varieties that serve multiple uses.

Some of the more useful cowpeas are exceptional at controlling weeds in particular time slots. Others help control nematodes or crop diseases. And there is even hope that a cowpea variety from Africa will produce a strong enough dose of a biofumigant to reduce symphylans, the persistent garden centipede that feeds on the roots of tomatoes, asparagus, leafy vegetables and other crops.

But all of the cowpea cover crops increase the nitrogen and organic matter in the soil.

"Cowpea cover crops are cost effective because they enrich the soil with organic matter and over 100 pounds per acre of nitrogen, and can reduce pest populations such as root-knot nematodes," Ehlers said.

He has been testing a new, improved version of the standard summer season cowpea cover crop.

"The cowpea cultivar most widely used as a cover crop is Iron Clay," Ehlers explained. "Iron Clay produces the abundant amounts of organic matter and nitrogen needed to enrich the soil, resists common forms of root-knot nematode, and grows well in our desert summers with moderate irrigation."

But when Iron Clay is grown in California, the pods open up and seeds cannot be produced.

UC Riverside is releasing a new and improved cowpea cover crop variety, labeled CC 36, that remedies the seed production problem. The new variety also has broader nematode and Fusarium wilt resistance than its predecessor.

CC 36 is intended to provide weed control, and to increase soil fertility for the subsequent cash crop. The seed for this variety must be produced in warmer areas of Southern California. But that means that CC 36 will give a larger biomass yield when it is used as a cover crop in other areas of the state.

UC Cooperative Extension legume specialist Steve Temple is continuing to work with an African cowpea cover crop variety that was very successful for years in tomato rotations in the Sustainable Agriculture Farming Systems program in Davis.

"This was used after early harvest tomatoes in the sustainable program," Temple said. He is continuing his farm trials of this cover crop with both dry bean and tomato growers.

The major advantage of this variety is that it puts out a canopy very quickly and continues to produce biomass with little water from August until late November or even early December. This cover crop crowds out weeds and adds nitrogen and organic matter to the soil. It also has resistance to some root-knot nematodes.

This African cowpea was the major cover crop in a mix that prevented weed germination in a tomato rotation all the way through February, according to Temple.

But the most intriguing cowpea cover crop trial could be the attempt to find a variety that produces a natural fumigant in intense enough concentrations to reduce populations of symphylans, a destructive and persistent soil pest. Symphylans are extremely difficult to control because they can hide in small spaces deep in the soil, where it is nearly impossible to reach them with insecticides.

Researchers say that the Mucuna bean could prove to be an important tool in controlling a range of soil pests.

The Mucuna is an African cowpea that has an extremely high content of L-Dopa, a natural biocide.

"There's definitely high amounts of L-Dopa in the seed, and there may be in the root material as well," said Margaret Lloyd, the UC Davis graduate student in plant pathology who is conducting the trial at the Davis test fields.

The Mucuna or velvet bean is native to West Africa, according to Lloyd. But varieties of the Mucuna were commonly used in cotton rotations in the southern United States in the early decades of the 20th century.

People do eat Mucuna in some parts of the world, according to Lloyd. But they are very careful to boil them thoroughly to get rid of the L-Dopa before they eat the beans. And it is highly unlikely that anyone in the U.S. would eat the Mucuna beans, she said.

But the bean could prove to be an important tool in controlling a range of soil pests.

"There's been a good amount of research with Mucuna controlling nematodes," Lloyd said. This cover crop is extremely vigorous and has also been shown to control some weed varieties.

According to Temple varieties of Mucuna have been used successfully in many areas to increase soil nitrogen, control weeds, build soil quality and control pests. The first step in the attempt to learn the possibilities in California is to find out which varieties of Mucuna can be efficiently grown here.

"We're growing them out here to see which will flower and produce seeds," Lloyd said.

Once the more promising varieties have been selected, they will be grown in Southern California locations to learn if seeds can be produced.

California Farm Bureau Federation

Zambian farmers urged to adopt conservation farming as fertiliser prices soar

As fertiliser and petrol prices zoom and threaten food production in Zambia, farmers are being urged to adopt conservation farming.

The price of a 50kg bag of fertiliser has shot up from US$30 in December 2007 to $70, while the pump price of diesel has risen from $1 to about $2.80 per litre over the same period.

"Both diesel and fertiliser are among our major resources for farming, just like electricity," said Guy Robinson, president of the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU). "It is therefore our concern that the prices of fertiliser and diesel have risen three-fold ... this means that our farmers will not be in a position to produce as much crop to feed the nation as they did last season [2007/08]."

The Zambian government provides fertiliser subsidies to vulnerable famers, such as those headed by women and the elderly, and recently announced it would subsidise about 80,000 metric tonnes (mt) of fertiliser for small-scale farmers under its fertiliser support programme.

In the 2007/08 farming season fertiliser was subsidised by 60 percent, but in the 2008/09 season the government will pay 75 percent of the cost of fertiliser.

"The only way forward for Zambia is to ensure our farmers grow more food [to avoid imports]; food has a critical role to play in a country's inflation, and if we can't grow enough then the prices of food and indeed all commodities are likely to be even more expensive next year."

However, the ZNFU said the government's criteria meant few farmers had access to the subsidies, intended for the most vulnerable farming households, and maintained that most small-scale farmers - 70 percent of the farming sector - would not be able to afford the inputs.

"With these subsidies, the number of our vulnerable but viable farmers benefiting from this programme will increase from 125,000 in 2007 to 200,000 next season," said Agriculture minister Sarah Sayifwanda.

Robinson commented: "Whereas we appreciate the government's decision to provide more fertiliser under the support programme, there are still many, many small-scale farmers who will not benefit from the programme. This is why we are now encouraging our farmers to go for conservation farming as the best practice at the moment."

Conservation farming, or minimum tillage, discourages using heavy equipment like tractors and promotes the planting of nitrogen-fixing crops rather than using chemical fertilisers.

"As ZNFU, we have conclusively proved that conservation farming can produce wonders. If we can produce at least 2.5 tonnes per hectare then we would be feeding the whole region, and conservation farming is able to guarantee that. At national level we are currently producing 1.3 tonnes per hectare," Robinson said.

Sina Luchen, programmes officer of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Zambia, said his organisation has been trying to help small-scale farmers adopt conservation farming. "We have helped 6,000 farmers so far and we hope to help 80,000 farmers over the next five years."

In the 2007/08 farming season, Zambia almost met the annual requirement of 1.2 million metric tonnes of staple maize, after severe floods battered the agriculturally rich southern region for most of the growing season. The yield translated into a surplus of 143,000mt when added to stocks reserved from the previous season.

But according to Food Reserve Agency executive director Anthony Mwanaumo, government has since sold off 458,000mt of maize to local and foreign markets "to clear off bank loans and other drafts that were outstanding".

A sharp global increase in the price of fuel in the last year has pushed up the production costs of agricultural inputs, such as fertiliser, which have been passed on to farmers.

"The only way forward for Zambia is to ensure our farmers grow more food [to avoid imports]; food has a critical role to play in a country's inflation, and if we can't grow enough then the prices of food and indeed all commodities are likely to be even more expensive next year", said Henry Chipewo, a local economist. "I think this is the right time to start thinking of alternative means of production."

The FAO's Luchen said programmes to provide universal access to subsidies, as in Malawi, would only increase dependence. "It is better to capacitate small-scale farmers to boost their production with alternative farming methods such as conservation farming."

IRIN

New research re-iterates benefits of no-till in retaining tropical soil nutrients

Tropical soils often behave differently than temperate soils when being farmed. In tropical regions, soils lose nutrients quickly when cultivated.

With food shortages looming and soil quality declining rapidly, new farming techniques are needed to make tropical and sub-tropical farming more productive and sustainable. New research from Agronomy Journal shows that no-till management combined with a winter cover crop is most effective in retaining nutrients in tropical soils.

An international team of scientists from Brazil, France, and the U.S. studied the impact of different cover crops, crop rotation, and tillage on soil organic carbon storage after 19 years of crop production on a tropical soil in southern Brazil.

The results, published in the July-August issue of Agronomy Journal, show that no-tillage management combined with crop rotations including winter cover crops with high amounts of crop residues returned annually to the soil, will most likely maintain soil organic carbon stocks, and most likely mimic natural forested condition for tropical and subtropical areas.

This crop management, if adopted by farmers in tropical and sub-tropical regions, can help to keep land productive and sustainable.

Scientist Bill Hargrove from Kansas State University said, “These results have broad implications for agricultural production in tropical areas in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. We can manage soils in ways that allow profitable crop production while mimicking natural vegetative conditions under which land is not degraded at accelerated rates.”

View the abstract at http://agron.scijournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/100/4/1013.

A peer-reviewed international journal of agriculture and natural resource sciences, Agronomy Journal is published six times a year by the American Society of Agronomy, with articles relating to original research in soil science, crop science, agroclimatology and agronomic modeling, production agriculture, and software.

Innovations Report

No-tillage farming improves yields, reduces soil erosion in Lesotho

The poor, cracked soils and frequent long droughts that characterise the high plateau of Lesotho have long been the despair of farmers and advisors. But a new approach - not ploughing the soil - has yielded dramatic results.

"We have some soil that has not been ploughed for 15 years," enthuses Reverend August Basson, who has championed this no-till farming system, or conservation agriculture (CA) approach. "This is the best we have, and we have reached six tonnes of maize per hectare on one of these fields."

Coming from such depleted soils, and achieved during the worst drought in three decades, the yield is even more remarkable: proof that the no-till farming system has found a foothold in one of Africa's poorest countries, one whose agricultural future has been threatened by climate change and HIV/AIDS.

The spread of CA in Lesotho has been promoted by, among others, the World Food Programme (WFP), anxious to source grain for its national feeding programme from local farmers and avoid the high transport costs and grain prices in the region.

'Food for training' schemes have spread the methodology to 1,800 farmers living in the most food insecure areas, raising harvests and enabling the WFP to buy over 7,000 tonnes of surplus maize from Basotho farmers in 2007. One group of 20 farmers from Mohale's Hoek, for example, sold eight tonnes of surplus maize to the Programme, earning US$2,800. This year, they are expecting to sell over 30 tonnes.

"The most difficult challenge is to change mindset; people are scared of change. It is difficult to accept that you do not need to plough your soil," says Basson, a missionary who has championed conservation agriculture in Lesotho, and whose Growing Nations organisation is a key partner in the training programme. Farmers are taught to make planting holes for seed and fertiliser, rather than the usual ploughing and ridging.

Minimising disturbance of the topsoil helps to protect it from Lesotho's heavy rains and preserves organic matter. Both hybrid and open pollinated varieties are planted, depending on what a farmer can afford, and weeding is done by hand or occasionally by herbicide. Where possible, planting holes are covered with compost or manure, but insufficient supply means that most farmers must also use chemical fertilisers.

Buying maize from the group at Mohale's Hoek was an historic moment for the WFP in Lesotho, its first direct purchase of grain from small-scale farmers in the country. With a saving of US$45 per tonne compared to grain bought in South Africa, the Programme is keen to expand local purchasing. The government is supporting that effort, with a US$4 million budget to subsidise larger producers using CA techniques.

August Basson's efforts are also continuing, persuading the Ministry of Education to add conservation agriculture to the school curriculum and establishing a new training centre for Growing Nations in Maphusteng. "We are at a point where the method is getting a life of its own," he says. "People are developing it as they see fit. Some people fall out, others join."

While the efforts of August Basson and the WFP have focused on maize production, NGOs such as CARE and Send a Cow have been popularising intensive, no-dig horticulture plots as a way of increasing vegetable production. Known as 'keyhole gardens', these are circular raised vegetable beds built from layers of soil, grass, ash and compost, contained within a rock wall some four feet (1.25m) high. Watering is done through a basket, placed at the centre of the garden, typically using the family's daily wastewater; plants grown include leafy vegetables, root vegetables, legumes and onions. With the plants growing at waist height and needing only a single watering each day, keyhole gardens are particularly suitable for the elderly and chronically ill, as well as wheelchair users.

Many have now built their own keyhole gardens; in Lenkoane, one community has built a garden and small dam for every household. With each garden only two metres in diameter, even the smallest plot can be highly productive, potentially transforming diets and making the most of scarce water resources.

With declining soil fertility and low crop yields a demoralising trend in Africa's smallholder farms, August Basson believes that his CA training model could offer lessons to other countries.

Growing Nations, in partnership with the National University of Lesotho, is developing a hands-on science curriculum for secondary and tertiary levels, which includes CA and agroforestry. Intensive training for 30 'lead farmers' in Maphusteng, followed by farmer-to-farmer exchanges, monthly refresher courses and regular monitoring, are all planned. These will feed into the writing of a manual for use in other parts of the country. Education programmes are also being developed to target extension officers and policy makers.

Both CA and keyhole gardens are rooted in a 'no dig' philosophy which many still regard with scepticism. Success in one of Africa's most eroded farming landscapes, however, could unlock the door to widespread adoption.

New Agriculturalist

Low soya output to increase Zambian stockfeed prices

The reduction in soya bean production for the 2007/2008 will have a negative impact on the livestock industry because prices of imported stock feed will increase substantially, Zambia National Farmers Union(ZNFU) executive director, Songowayo Zyambo, has said.

Mr Zyambo said Zambia’s soya bean requirement was between 70,000 and 80,000 tonnes but the fact that only 56,839 tonnes had been produced was bad news for the livestock industry which would be subjected to import soya cake which was landed at $800 per tonne.

Mr Zyambo said the situation had been exacerbated by the fact that the southern African region as a whole does not have enough soya bean or soya cake and had to look outside the region for the commodities. “This has resulted in high stock feed prices which the industry is failing to absolve, in the last two years farmers have been moving away from soya bean production because of sub-economic prices,” he said.

He said the average yield for maize for the 2007/2008 season at 1.31 tonnes per hectare was too low. Zyambo said there was need for farmers to adopt conservation farming in order to be more productive.

“As you know small-scale farmers practicing conservation farming have produced as high as five tonnes of maize per hectare even in drought years,” he said.

Although the union has been promoting productive farming practice through the Conservation Farming Unit and the Golden Valley Agricultural Research Trust (GART), more concerted efforts were needed.

Mr Zyambo also commended the ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives for the timely release of the crop production figures.
Agriculture and Cooperative Minister, Sarah Sayifwanda, announced that the country had recorded a crop reduction of 40.6 per cent in the 2007/2008 farming season due to the devastating floods that affected most parts of the country.


Times of Zambia

Land degradation takes its toll on Lesotho

Overgrazing of marginal land by cattle is a main contributing factor to the reduction of plants that retain topsoil when the rains come. Flash floods are common in the summer. Incorrect farming techniques also contribute to soil erosion, a greater conservation threat to the environment than drought: seasonal rains come and go but soil erosion never ceases.

Only 10 percent of Lesotho's 30,000sq km of mountainous terrain is classified as arable, according to the June 2007 report by the Lesotho Meteorological Services.

"Much of the land of Lesotho is vulnerable to extensive soil erosion," noted the 2007 Lesotho Drought Flash Appeal made in July by UN agencies. Several of them are involved in conservation programmes, without which agricultural production would remain compromised and food assistance from international donors would become a perpetual necessity.

According to Lineo Mdee, Sustainable Development Advisor at the UN Development Programme in Lesotho, continuing degradation of the natural resource base and the impoverishment of the soil are key factors in food insecurity. Two long-term developments have contributed to soil degradation: a region-wide process of desertification, which has turned stretches of arable land into marginal land, and a decades-long mismanagement of land.

"The original vegetative cover has disappeared, and invasive species that cannot retain moisture and which deplete the soil are increasing," said Mdee. "These are plants originating from outside Lesotho and Africa. Now, with the drought and Lesotho's usual fierce windstorms, the topsoil is blown away. When we do get rain it comes in torrents, and it makes gullies and dongas."

Harvesting scarce indigenous trees for firewood also poses a problem, exacerbated by people's poverty. Other fuel sources are unaffordable, and few people in rural areas are connected to the nation's electrical grid.

"This is a cold country. People need fuel; people are burning wood, and also crop residue. The few trees are going and, instead of ploughing back into the earth the crop residue to assist the next year's crops, there is nothing left," said Mdee.

Counteracting land mismanagement tops the conservation programmes initiated by UN agencies. "We need to find crops that really suit the soil types of this country and weather. Because of traditional customs, people grow maize and sorghum, though these are not the best crops for our conditions. We have declining productivity of the land as a result," Mdee commented.

Hassan Abdi, Programme Officer for the WFP in Lesotho, said training farmers to make the most of their land would boost harvests and preserve the environment. "We are advocating conservation agriculture as a way to halt further soil erosion and make more productive what farmland there is. We are encouraging people to get into environmental management."

Rather than burning crop residue, like maize stalks, during winter, or using it as cattle fodder, conservation agriculture requires farmers to leave it on the ground to nourish the soil.

"We assist communities to build earth dams and, in some cases, concrete dams, and at the same time we are reducing runoff by building retaining structures," said Abdi. Throughout the lowlands, barriers in dongas and hillocks of stones or layers of rocks held by wire mesh are built to retain soil.

In another WFP-sponsored programme, communities plant trees in dongas to rehabilitate the environment. "These are able-bodied persons who are unemployed, and because it is a community initiative the people have a sense of ownership of the project," said Abdi. "We give them some food as an incentive so at the end of the day they do not go home with empty stomachs."

IRIN

Zero tillage reduces water demand in rice, wheat farming

Zero tillage has reduced the demand for water in rice and wheat farming on almost a million hectares of land in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.

Scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Rice Wheat Consortium for the Indo-Gangetic Plains — a network of scientists and nongovernmental organisations — carried out the investigation.

Their work is highlighted in the World Bank's 'World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development', published on 19 October.

This is the first time in 25 years that agriculture's role in development has been the focus in the World Bank's annual development report. It calls for increased funding for agricultural research and for making agriculture central to the development agenda.

Rice and wheat are important for southern Asia's food security, but yields have recently been stagnating and soil quality deteriorating.

A 'rice–wheat' farming system has a summer 'wet' crop of rice — during the monsoon season — and a winter 'dry' crop of wheat.

The scientists introduced zero tillage — also known as conservation tillage — to farmers in the region. Zero-tillage involves planting seeds into soil that hasn't been tilled after the harvest of the previous crop. The wheat seeds germinate in residual water left by the rice crop, saving up to a million litres of water per hectare.

Atique Rehman, an agricultural student at the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan, said, "In the conventional method, soil needs to be soaked, which requires much more irrigation water. In zero tillage, soaking irrigation is skipped as sufficient moisture is available after the harvesting of the rice crop."

With zero-tillage, farmers can produce higher yields and reduce production costs by up to ten per cent. They also save on diesel fuel for tractors, and the fertility and structure of the soil improves.

The report also highlights researchers' efforts to produce drought-tolerant maize for Africa. Creating new varieties can take decades of research, but these are now reaching farmers and yields are stabilising.

The report warns that the production of improved crops is a lengthy process and cannot be undertaken without proper investment.

SciDev.Net

African agriculturalists visit Iowa farms

Northeast Iowa farmers and Iowa State University Extension staff recently joined hands with African agriculturists week to share information on how people farm in the mid western US state.

Representatives from Sasakawa Africa/Global 2000 came to Northeast Iowa for a banquet to honor Norman Borlaug, who is president of their organization.

The group toured the John and Kay Reis farm at Cresco and the Northeast Iowa Research and Demonstration Farm at Nashua. They also visited Golden Grain Energy at Mason City and saw Borlaug's boyhood farm at Protivin.

John and Kay Reis and their son Jason and his wife, Jen, raise corn, soybeans and hay and feed cattle on their farm northwest of Cresco.

John Reis said he tries to no-till as much of his farm as he can because it helps in conserving soil. It also saves trips across the field. He said that since he has no-tilled, earthworm activity has increased dramatically. "A big issue for me is to preserve the soil," he said. "There is also a cost savings with no-till, as far as the equipment you need and the time involved."

The Reis family sell corn to an ethanol plant, and they buy back DDGs (Dried Distillers Grains with Solubles) to feed to their cattle.

Tareke Berhe, who lives in Ethiopia and is regional director for rice programs for Sasakawa-Global 2000, said soil conservation is important in Africa, where soils are shallow and torrential rains can wash those soils away in a day.

"We're all about promoting improved agricultural production," said Wayne Haag, Sasakawa-Global 2000 regional director for quality protein maize in Mozambique. "We promote no-till in Africa for the conservation, but also because they do a lot of tillage by hand and much of that falls on the women. No-till reduces the labor load and the weeding burden."

Sasakawa also promotes value added ventures like livestock production and small scale processing.

"In Africa the farms are 5 to 7 acres so even if production increases, the standard of living is pretty low," Haag said. "We are looking at ways for farmers to come together in cooperatives to feed livestock, buy inputs, market crops or do some processing."

Uganda's Kayayo and Marcel Galiba, Sasakawa Africa country director in Mali, said they marveled at the productivity of Iowa farms. Africa also has good land, water and people, but government policies have prevented agriculture from thriving.

"A part is missing to make it happen, but I still have a lot of hope," Galiba said. "I have hope that one day we can make it happen, to bring our people out of poverty."

Fran Mueller, president of Self-Help International and a Waverly farmer, told the group about work Self-Help does in Ghana with Quality Protein Maize in cooperation with Sasakawa/Global 2000. Through the nutrition program school children drink a corn beverage and eat corn cakes each day.

"After two years there has been a significant increase in growth rate and disappearance of the orange hair and listlessness that come with being malnourished," Mueller said.

The mission of Sasakawa Africa-Global 2000 is to promote the scaling up of modern agricultural technologies that increase the productivity and incomes of resource-poor smallholder farmers in Africa without harming the natural resource base.

Agri News

Kenyan leaves employment to teach farmers conservation agriculture

Pascal Kaumbutho, a Kenyan agricultural engineer, suffered bouts of frustration as a lecturer at the University of Nairobi’s Department of Agricultural Engineering that eventually led to his exit from the teaching profession. His frustrations went beyond the university classroom and his students.

"I was frustrated because of my inability to help small-scale farmers who were doing so much for the country and getting little in return," he says. Furthermore, most of his students remained jobless for many years after graduation. "I felt that I wasn’t doing much for them," he says.

This called for a break to rethink his life and career. "Did I want to earn money yet be unable to improve the lives of my students or farmers?" he asked himself. After much soul-searching, he resigned. His decision shocked his closest friends.

He joined hands with a Dutch company that taught farmers better ways of harnessing their animals. He formed the Kenya Network for Dissemination of Agricultural Technologies (Kendat), an NGO he runs. He started Kendat to demonstrate the equipment to farmers. "Since they could not travel all the way to Nairobi, we decided to reach them wherever they were," he says.

At Kendat, he developed a three-pronged approach that covered conservation agriculture, poverty watch and better care of animals, especially donkeys.

...farmers also learnt about EurepGAP regulations...through Kendat the farmers were encouraged to use donkeys to fetch water.

"They had never imagined using donkeys before," he remarks. Due to the water shortage, people used to go for water as early as 3am and carry it on their backs. We have also taught the farmers the drip irrigation system to water the plants," he says. "Farmers were also taught about mulching and agricultural conservation."

Apart from running Kendat, Kaumbutho is also the co-ordinator of a Government project known as Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (CA-SARD).

"For the Government to let a person from the NGO world to run its project, it shows that the person is good in whatever he does," he says. "This is an honour for me." He, however, points out that some Government officials imagine there is a lot of money in NGOs and hence they should get their cut.

Kaumbutho is a fulfilled man. Through his efforts many farmers no longer need to plough or weed frequently.

"What we teach the farmers is about labour saving," he says. The technologies they have taught the farmers enable them to have higher outputs for limited efforts.

The Standard-Kenya

Conservation agriculture holds promise for subsistence farmers in southern Africa

While increasingly grim forecasts predict agricultural declines in southern Africa due to climate change, Conservation Agriculture (CA) is showing promise for subsistence farmers who are already struggling with poor food security.

A recent study by economist William R. Cline predicts a 39-47 percent decline in agriculture in southern Africa by 2080 if greenhouse gases escalate at their current pace. That is potentially deadly news for farmers in southern Africa, where the population threatened by food shortages almost doubled from 3.1 million in 2006 to nearly 6.1 million in 2007.

"We're losing 400 million tons of soil every year," said James Breen, the regional emergency agronomist for the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "The production of this year's food crop is shockingly low and it's going to get worse with global warming. We really are facing a meltdown," he added.

The FAO and an increasing number of NGOs and regional governments have started promoting CA as an answer to years of conventional farming methods that have left vast areas of soil utterly depleted.

CA is a method of farming that minimises soil disturbance, applies more precise timing for planting and utilises crop residue to retain moisture and enrich the soil.

Over the past 50 years in southern Africa, overall soil fertility has dropped while erosion has increased. Heavy ploughing and repeatedly growing the same crop on the same plot eventually strips the soil of nutrients and allows wind and water to wash away nutrient-rich topsoil. A downward spiral in food production follows

But Breen sees conservation farming as a way to improve food security, and early harvest statistics are promising. "We're pushing CA as hard as we can... It's one of the ways we can scratch back from some of these losses."

"It's simple," said John Weatherson, emergency coordinator for FAO in Swaziland. "In certain areas this year, it was very, very evident that crops produced using CA inter-cropping methods were much more successful than crops produced using conventional methods."

Weatherson said the most effective way to spread the CA message was to have farmers look at the results elsewhere. He recalls a recent visit to a farmer in Tanzania who had been using conservation techniques for 10 years. When the farmer began, he was harvesting three bags of maize per acre. Two years later, three became five and today, Weatherson said, the man was reaping an average of 25 bags from his dark, fertile soil.

"What we need here [in Swaziland] is a 10-year programme with funding and it will take off," he said. The funding would go toward the basic tools - hand planters or plough-like implements called rippers - and enough personnel to train farmers. Ideally, more drought-resistant seeds and fertiliser to revive and enrich the soil would be available for the first few years.

In southern Africa the conservation farming techniques have best taken root in Zambia and Zimbabwe. At Zambia’s Golden Valley Agricultural Research Trust, a joint research and training programme with the government and the national farmers union, researchers designed the ‘Magoye Ripper’, similar to a plough but causing minimal soil disruption.

In Zimbabwe, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) recorded harvest figures for the 2004-5 and 2005-6 seasons from farmers using conventional methods and a CA method that involves digging basins that capture water. In seven out of eight districts it was tested in during the first year, the basin tillage system provided a higher yield. By the 2005-6 season, 11 districts were being monitored and every one reported larger harvests from basin tillage methods.

In 2005-6 in the Hwange district in the North West of Zimbabwe, maize yields were 1,700 per hectare with conventional farming methods, compared to 2,500 kg per hectare when CA methods were applied. In 2004-5, farmers yielded approximately 790 kilograms per hectare with conventional farming and 1,100 kg per hectare with basin tillage.

CARE, a humanitarian NGO, has been conducting CA training in Zimbabwe and reported that 154 farmers began using conservation techniques in 2004 in the South Eastern Masvingo district. Their substantially improved yields have convinced others to try and now there are 1,081 farmers using CA in Masvingo. Tafadzwa Choto, press officer for CARE Zimbabwe, said the number of people needing emergency food assistance in the area has dropped dramatically in two years.

"We'd like to see more farmers getting involved," said James Bedell, a UN World Food Programme (WFP) field officer in Lesotho. "Some are still sceptical because it's a different way and digging the holes for the first time is labour intensive because the ground is so hard. So we try to provide food assistance while they are preparing the fields."

Bedell said WFP is also considering a ‘crop insurance’ program for next year where the organisation will guarantee a minimum amount of maize that will be grown if a farmer agrees to try CA methods.

According to Breen, there is an effort to establish a regional committee to promote CA. "We're trying to make people aware of the benefits of it," he said. "I believe we're living in a period of extreme complacency about food security in the world. We have to go and increase conservation agriculture practices not just here but across the world."

FAO is currently training farmers in Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho, Angola and Namibia. CARE and other NGOs are also teaching CA methods throughout southern Africa.

"Those people who've been at it for a few years are doing well," said Weatherson. "There is light at the end of the tunnel."

IRIN

World Food Programme pleased with local aid-maize purchase in Lesotho

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has reported that its purchase of maize directly from small farmers in Lesotho, who used conservation to produce a surplus amid the country's worst drought in 30 years, is having a beneficial effect on local communities.

By buying the maize directly from a group of small-scale local farmers rather than in neighbouring South Africa, WFP saves $45 per ton and helps stimulate the local agricultural economy.

"This is a win-win situation," WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said. "It helps provide income for small-scale farmers while saving money for WFP."

In the first ever direct purchase in Lesotho, WFP paid 20 farmers from the isolated and impoverished district of Qacha's Nek around $2,800 for eight metric tons of their maize - a considerable sum in a country where more than a third of the population lives on less than $1 a day.

"WFP is committed to buying locally whenever possible because - as this historic deal proves - even a small purchase can have a huge impact on the lives of small-scale farmers," Ms. Sheeran said.

The maize will help feed thousands of children attending primary school in Qacha's Nek.

On 9 July, Lesotho's Government declared a state of emergency following an unprecedented period of hot, dry weather between January and March, which devastated the maize crop across the country.

Despite the drought, the 20 farmers in Qacha's Nek were able to produce a surplus of maize by following conservation farming methods picked up through a WFP-assisted food-for-training programme.

Some 400,000 people in Lesotho need immediate humanitarian aid - a figure that could rise to 550,000 during the first three months of 2008.

WFP plans to distribute food to about 260,000 people in Lesotho from now until the next maize harvest next April. The Government and other humanitarian organizations are aiming to reach the others in need.

So far this year, WFP has bought 7,000 tons of food in Lesotho at a cost of $2.3 million.

allafrica.com

Forest farming proposal raises a storm in Kenya

The recent announcement that the Kenyan government was considering lifting a ban on cultivation in its forests has proven to be controversial.

Environment and Natural Resources minister David Mwiraria said the re-introduction of non-residential cultivation was a cheap way of replanting depleted forests, adding that this would benefit both government and local communities. He explained that his ministry’s small workforce could not plant and effectively look after the trees with its small budget.

But the suggestion has elicited stiff opposition from conservationists, who have warned that the shamba system posed a threat to natural biodiversity.

Environmentalist and Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai dismissed the minister’s assertion that farmers would only be allowed to cultivate on the periphery of forests, where lantana, a wild flowery weed akin to the water hyacinth, grows. She insisted that the system was vulnerable to abuse.

“Natural biodiversity cannot be protected if human activity like growing of farm produce is going on,” she said. She dismissed the Government’s strategy to use free labour as colonial mentality that should be done away with. “The Government does not provide money for the management of forests. Instead, it relies on free labour from farmers. This is an ancient way of doing things and is retrogressive to efforts to conserve the environment.”

But squatters applauded the minister’s announcement. Mr. Samuel Muhoro Gachoka, the chairman of Ragati Squatters Association, said forest cultivation would improve food security. He said he had farmed in the Ragati area of Mt Kenya Forest for more than 15 years and had inherited the forest plots from his fore fathers. “Since the Government threw us out in 1989, we have been living by the road side,” said the 39-year-old father of two. “The rest live on road reserves and rely on relief supplies. Children have dropped out of school and families live in squalor,” the squatter lamented.

Mr Fred Ogombe, the Central Province forest officer said the re-introduction of the shamba system would benefit the squatters. He lauded the system as a noble idea that could help the landless earn a livelihood but had been misused by politicians to woo voters.

The officer explained that politicians pressured the provincial administration to carve out larger chunks of land than agreed, resulting in destruction of indigenous trees.

“The families were allowed to plant annual crops such as maize, beans and potatoes but not perennial ones. But as the families expanded, the system became untenable due to the increasing demand for land,” he explained.

Prof Maathai has promised a long and hard battle against the re-introduction of the shamba system. Her Greenbelt Movement plans protests and tours to educate the public on the dangers of the system. “No amount of legislation will prevent politicians from abusing the system. People need to understand the importance of protecting our biodiversity and stay out of the forests,” she said.

Daily Nation

South Africa's Woolworths supermarkets assists schools permaculture programme

South Africa's Woolworths supermarket chain is sponsoring a project to establish school food gardens based on permaculture principles. The EduPlant initiative, a Woolworths Trust social investment project, is co-ordinated by NGO Food & Trees for Africa. In April EduPlant trained 5430 educators for the project at free workshops.

Trained educators teach the children to design and establish food gardens in the school grounds. That includes setting up recycling, water harvesting, companion planting, creating natural pest-repellents, composting, energy-saving and attracting birds and other useful creatures to their school environment activities, all in line with the principles of permaculture. No chemical fertilisers or pesticides are used on the vegetables and fruit grown.

FAO project promotes Brazilian technology for low-tillage agriculture in Africa

A new FAO project seeks to boost agricultural production in Kenya and Tanzania by encouraging a shift to conservation agriculture (CA) techniques, which optimizes the use of farm labour and could also help reduce widespread land degradation. CA techniques include reduced or no-tillage (NT) of the soil, and the use of permanent soil cover.

The project will forge links between farming communities in the two countries and Brazilian firms specialized in production of equipment used in CA. Under the three-year, German-funded project, up to 4,000 farmers are to be trained in CA practices through participatory field schools.

Conservation agriculture is based on three principles: (1) minimal soil disturbance, to preserve soil organic matter (2) permanent soil cover (cover crops, residues and mulches) to protect the soil and suppress weeds without the need for chemical herbicides and (3) diversified crop rotations and associations to promote soil micro-organisms and disrupt plant pests and diseases.

Since dedicated CA implements - such as knife-rollers and direct seeders - are not widely available, the project will take Kenyans and Tanzanians to Brazil to study CA technologies and will design strategies for developing a sustainable equipment supply chain in the sub region. Lessons learned will be "up-scaled" and disseminated throughout Africa.

The FAO says conservation agriculture offers Kenyan and Tanzanian farmers a pathway to sustainable agriculture and rural development, which hinges on sustainable land management and better use of available farm labour. In Tanzania, where the economy is based mainly on small-scale farming and livestock, an estimated 44 percent of the rural population lives below the poverty line. In neighbouring Kenya, the incidence of rural poverty is around 50 percent, despite strong recent growth in the farm sector.

In both countries, land degradation is a major constraint on the productivity of labour and other external inputs. The reduction in farm labour availability due to migration, HIV/AIDS and other diseases has forced farmers to abandon traditional methods of land preparation and other farm operations. Many now plant seed directly into unprepared land immediately after the onset of rain.

"While farmers and extensionists often regard such practices as a poor way of farming, planting without ploughing uses less human labour and animal power," says Josef Kienzle of FAO. "Far from being a mere 'coping mechanism', no-tillage cultivation has the potential - if carried out in conjunction with other appropriate agronomic practices - to become an important part of strategies to improve food production and stabilize threatened rural livelihoods."

The benefits of no-tillage on small farms are well known in Brazil, which has pioneered conservation agriculture in tropical and subtropical farming systems. The first prototype NT seeder and a prototype knife-roller for residue management were designed in 1985. In 1992 a provincial government launched a large-scale evaluation of CA systems and ordered 50 seeders and other equipment from a local manufacturer.

Direct seeding was soon recognized as an excellent means of natural resource conservation, which attracted financial support from the federal government for a programme that encouraged farmers to adopt the innovations.

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