Sustainable Farming

The accepted agricultural wisdom is that fertilized fields in which plant residue is left in the field will actually gain soil carbon. Unfortunately, it seems the reverse is true - a study by University of Illinois scientists has shown that in their long term (1876-) test fields, soil carbon levels increased steadily till around 1965, when animal manure was used as fertilizer, and started declining after that, with the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.

With decreasing soil carbon (humus), the soil structure deteriorates, as does the capacity of the soil to hold on to nitrogen. As nitrogen leaches out with water, the land needs more fertilizers to stay productive, creating a vicious cycle.

From the paper Synthetic Nitrogen Fertilizers Deplete Soil Nitrogen: A Global Dilemma for Sustainable Cereal Production

... Overwhelmingly, the evidence is diametrically opposed to the buildup concept and instead corroborates a view elaborated long ago by White (1927) and Albrecht (1938) that fertilizer N depletessoil organic matter by promoting microbial C utilization and N mineralization. An inexorable conclusion can be drawn: The scientific basis for input-intensive cereal production is seriously flawed. The long-term consequences of continued reliance on current production practices will be a decline in soil productivity that increases the need for synthetic N fertilization, threatens food security, and exacerbates environmental degradation.

This dilemma calls for an international effort by agricultural scientists to thoroughly review, evaluate, and revise current cereal production and management systems and policies. The immediate need is to use scientific and technological advances that can increase input efficiencies. One aspect of this strategy would be to more accurately match the input of ammoniacal N to crop N requirement by accounting for site-specific variations in soil N-supplying capacity and by synchronizing application with plant N uptake. In the long term, a transition may be required toward agricultural diversification using legume-based crop rotations, which provide a valuable means to reduce the intensity of ammoniacal fertilization with the input of less reactive organic N.

Recently I came across an exciting new project to improve sustainability and rehabilitate the environment of a group of sixteen villages in eastern Nepal. Called क्रिषिको अाशा or Hope for Agriculture, this is a movement started by Rajeev Goyal (based on his interaction with these villagers as a Peace Corps Volunteer) and Priyanka Bista. Along with a few of the villagers, Rajeev and Priyanka are also going to travel in Nepal and India to learn from various sustainability projects, and we might co-ordinate some of our visits. To plan this trip, they have started a map of such projects in the subcontinent:

I'll be reaching Pune on Tuesday, May 5. The goals of my trip are:

• To set up a network of people interested in spreading sustainable agriculture, esp. in Maharashtra.
• To visit sustainable farms and sustainable agriculture organizations all over India, to learn about their techniques.
• To figure out a strategy for accelerating the spread of environmentally and economically sustainable agriculture in India, and especially the states hit by farmer suicides.

Learning a lot of things and connecting with some very good like minded people at the PDC. Here's something I found out a few days ago:

The Environmental Food Crisis: The Environment's Role in Averting Future Food Crises was released by the United Nations Environment Programme in February 2009. A short summary is in this press release, the whole report is available for download here (15 MB pdf).

Some highlights:

The natural environment comprises the entire basis for food production through water, nutrients, soils, climate, weather and insects for pollination and controlling infestations. Land degradation, urban expansion and conversion of crops and cropland for non-food production, such as biofuels, may reduce the required cropland by 8–20% by 2050, if not compensated for in other ways.
...
Food prices may increase 30 to 50 per cent within decades, forcing those living in extreme poverty to spend 90 per cent of their income on food.
...
Over 80% of all endangered birds and mammals are threatened by unsustainable land use and agricultural expansion.

1. Regulate food prices and provide safety nets for the impoverished;
2. Promote environmentally sustainable higher-generation biofuels that does not compete for cropland and water resources;
3. Reallocate cereals used in animal feed to human consumption by developing alternative feeds based on new technology, waste and discards;
4. Support small-scale farmers by a global fund for micro-finance in developing diversified and resilient ecoagriculture and intercropping systems;
5. Increase trade and market access by improving infrastructure, reducing trade barriers, enhancing government subsidies and safety nets, as well as reducing armed conflict and corruption;
6. Limit global warming; and,
7. Raise awareness of the pressures of increasing population growth and consumption patterns on ecosystems.

The Farm as Natural Habitat: Reconnecting Food Systems With Ecosystems is written by a group of professional farmers, journalist, ecologist and biologists, most of them from the mid-western United States. This is somewhat surprising, since this area is the "corn belt" of America, with vast monoculture plantations of corn and soy-beans, factory farmed animals, and little else. Even most environmentalist consider this area an environmental sacrificial zone, since these vast monocultures are purportedly critical for "feeding the world".

The Farm as Natural Habitat critically examines this status-quo from various angles, and gives numerous examples of eco-friendly and sustainable farming operations in the corn belt that conserve the local land, improve water quality and wildlife habitat, and are highly profitable. Not all of these farms are completely organic, and since they are on the order of hundreds of acres, most of them use machinery to some extent.

The book covers the issue of protecting and promoting biodiversity on farms in four parts:

1. Agriculture as Ecological Sacrifice
2. Restoring Nature on Farms
3. Ecosystem Management and Farmlands
4. Steps Towards Agroecological Restoration

• We should conserve biodiversity not just due to ethical and aesthetic reasons, but also because the natural ecology of an area provides us with tremendous value in natural resources that can not be replaced artificially at any cost once the ecosystems are damaged.
• While the sacrifice is made in the name of "feeding the world", in reality, about 80% of the grain produced is used as animal feed benefiting only the first world. In fact, world hunger has consistently worsened despite increasing monoculture in the corn belt.
• And of course, there are numerous catastrophic effects on human health and on the environment due to the industrial approach to agriculture and the associated diet and lifestyle.

The US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, in an interview with NPR:

Vilsack: You can foresee a future where farmers are paid for reducing our carbon footprint, much in the same way we're currently paying them for conservation. We're concerned about water quality, we're concerned about preserving the soil, and so we're willing to pay people to do things on their land that would be helpful not just to them but to us.

Q: Are you saying you would want maybe someday to pay farmers for doing fertilizer-free farming, or for putting up a windmill that generates electricity in a renewable way, that sort of thing?

Vilsack: Well, there are a whole host of things, but I think it will be tied to the whole notion of offsets .... [there might be a] central distribution system that basically sells these offsets and contracts with the farmers... eventually the farmer gets benefited for doing what is right for the country as a whole and for the globe as a whole, which is to reduce the carbon footprint.

P. Sainath has been a clear and rational voice for India's rural poor, farmers, and lower cast population, . He was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award (considered Asia's Nobel Prize) for Journalism in 2007 (as well as many other awards). His numerous articles (including a series of articles on farmer's suicides) provide an illuminating and sobering overview of issues including small and medium farming, inequities in global trade, government corruption and inaction, etc.

For a quick overview of the issues he has covered, read this interview conducted after he won the Magsaysay award:

...
Q: One hears a lot of people arguing that small and medium farms are simply unviable in the global agricultural scenario. Do you agree? Is there really a model that can work for the small farmer in India, or are we going to see family farms go the way they did in the US?

A: First off, I think they're wrong to question viability in such simplistic terms. If you consciously develop something, and nurture it, then it becomes viable. What we have is a situation where agriculture in India is being made unviable by imposition. Is American agriculture really viable? You have a situation where cotton crop worth 3.9 billion dollars receives 4.7 billion in subsidies. The Europeans are throwing billions of euros worth of crops into the sea. Whose farming is really unviable? In reality, developed world farming is hugely wasteful, not to forget destructive of soils. And yet, the question is asked if Third World farming, especially small and medium farms, can last in the long run.
...

This is the idea we submitted to Project 10¹⁰⁰:

Your idea's name:

1. Obtain funding and determine size and region focus of the project.
2. Build a coalition of experts and leaders in the field of high yield sustainable small-farm agriculture.
3. Identify the methods of sustainable agriculture that are best suited for environmental, cultural, and economic conditions in each region.
4. Identify existing regional training centers, and organize training programs.
5. Identify trainees in local regions - ideally, small farmers who are actively experimenting with alternative methods of farming.
6. Arrange financial support and other resources for trainees to attend training sessions and to implement sustainable agriculture practices on their farms.

1. Number of small farmers identifying themselves as sustainable farming practitioners.
2. Small farm area switched from conventionally to sustainably farmed.
3. Reduction in input costs (pesticide, chemical fertilizers, labor, irrigation, etc.) on sustainable farms.
4. Improvement in local environmental conditions, including air quality, ground cover, and water table.
5. Increase in yield and diversity of farm produce, as well as biodiversity in and around the farm.
6. Improvement in rural health and child mortality rates due to improvements in nutrition.
7. Reduction in small farmer debt and increase in net worth.
8. Reduction in rural medical costs.

In Asia, Africa and South America, approximately 2.5 Billion people depend directly on small farms for subsistence and/or income. The entire population of the developing world - about 5.5 Billion people - depends on produce from small farms for majority of their food. However, small farmers in the developing world face a bleak future, which jeopardizes the long term health, economic, and security scenarios of the majority of the human race.

Traditional agriculture on these small farms is extremely labor and time intensive, and the products are usually of low commercial value. The few farmers who try to adopt modern methods often depend on usurious loans from local moneylenders to buy expensive fertilizers, pesticides, and hybrid or genetically modified seeds.

In India, these situations have trapped a majority of small farmers in abject poverty for the past few decades, despite the Green Revolution. The impractically large debt burdens have pushed thousands of farmers to commit suicide over the past decade. In sub-Saharan Africa, the high prevalence of HIV and other diseases has decimated the work-force, making traditional labor-intensive agriculture extremely difficult, and reducing the area under cultivation.

Ironically, it is well known that high biodiversity, multi-crop small farms produce significantly higher total income per unit area than mechanized monoculture. While there is increasing interest in sustainable agriculture practices in the developing world, the adverse trends described above will continue unless sustainable agriculture practices are adopted widely and rapidly.

We need to create community training centers and programs to popularize these practices.