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Participatory Learning for Integrated Farming:-2

>> 29 March, 2009

(... After first post.)


It is critical, therefore, that sustainable agriculture does not prescribe a concretely defined set of technologies, practices or policies. This would only serve to restrict the future options of farmers. As conditions change and as knowledge changes, so must farmers and communities be encouraged and allowed to change and adapt too. Sustainable agriculture is, therefore, not a simple model or package to be imposed. It is more a process for learning (Pretty, 1995b; Röling, 1994).

The basic challenge for sustainable agriculture is to make better use of available physical and human resources. This can be done by minimizing the use of external inputs, by regenerating internal resources more effectively, or by combinations of both. This ensures the efficient and effective use of what is available, and ensures that any changes will persist as dependencies on external systems are kept to a reasonable minimum.

A sustainable agriculture, therefore, is any system of food or fibre production that systematically pursues the following farming objectives:

  • A thorough incorporation of natural processes such as nutrient cycling, nitrogen fixation, and pest-predator relationships into agricultural production processes, so ensuring profitable and efficient food production;
  • A minimisation in the use of those external and non-renewable inputs with the greatest potential to damage the environment or harm the health of farmers and consumers, and a more targeted use of the remaining inputs used with a view to minimising costs;
  • The full participation of farmers and rural people in all processes of problem analysis, and technology development, adaptation and extension;
  • A more equitable access to productive resources and opportunities, and progress towards more socially-just forms of agriculture;
  • A greater productive use of local knowledge and practices, including innovative approaches not yet fully understood by scientists or widely adopted by farmers;
  • An increase in self-reliance amongst farmers and rural people;
  • An improvement in the match between cropping patterns and the productive potential and environmental constraints of climate and landscape to ensure long-term sustainability of current production levels.

Sustainable agriculture seeks the integrated use of a wide range of pest, nutrient, soil and water management technologies. It aims for an increased diversity of enterprises within farms combined with increased linkages and flows between them. By-products or wastes from one component or enterprise become inputs to another. As natural processes increasingly substitute for external inputs, so the impact on the environment is reduced.

New evidence on impacts

There is now emerging evidence that regenerative and resource-conserving technologies and practices can bring both environmental and economic benefits for farmers, communities and nations. The best evidence comes from countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, where the concern is to increase food production in the areas where farming has been largely untouched by the modern packages of externally-supplied technologies. In these lands, farming communities adopting regenerative technologies have substantially improved agricultural yields, often only using few or no external inputs (Bunch, 1990, 1993; GTZ, 1992; UNDP, 1992; Krishna, 1994; Shah, 1994; SWCB, 1994; Balbarino and Alcober, 1994; Pretty, 1995a)

A recent study of 86 projects in 14 countries of East and Southern Africa discovered that improvements are now occurring for at least 230,000 farming families (Hinchcliffe et al, 1996). Over 6 million hectares are being farmed with sustainable agriculture, and on average crop yields have more than doubled. All the projects are using resource-conserving technologies and are working in a participatory fashion with local people.

But these are not the only sites for successful sustainable agriculture. In the high-input and generally irrigated lands, farmers adopting regenerative technologies have maintained yields whilst substantially reducing their use of inputs (Bagadion and Korten, 1991; Kenmore, 1991; van der Werf and de Jager, 1992; UNDP, 1992; Kamp et al, 1993; Pretty, 1995a). And in the industrialised countries, farmers have been able to maintain profitability, even though input use has been cut dramatically, such as in the USA (NRC, 1989; NAF, 1994; Hewitt and Smith, 1995); and in Europe (Pretty and Howes, 1993; Reus et al, 1994; Somers, 1996).

But this empirical evidence is still contested. In the USA, for example, some 82% of conventional US farmers believe that low input agriculture will always be low output (Hewitt and Smith, 1995). Two influential politicians have recently emphasised these beliefs. In 1991, the Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, said

we can go back to organic agriculture in this country if we must - we once farmers that way 75 years ago. However, before we move in that direction, someone must decide which 50 million of our people will starve. We simply cannot feed, even at subsistence levels, our 250 million Americans without a large production input of chemicals, antibiotics and growth hormones.

In 1996, Under-Secretary for Agriculture, Eugene Moos, said:

The prospective increase in world population will double food aid needs in the next decade... and it will be necessary for agricultural producing nations to use biotechnology and hormones to meet growing demand.

 

Bangladesh: 5000 farming families

Fish in rice fields combined with integrated pest management technologies and participatory action learning approach; rice yields up 12% and pesticide use cut to zero.

Brazil: 38,000 farming families

  Community-based microwatershed programme, with farmers growing more than 60 species of green manures and cover crops; yields more than doubling and farmers needing less labour for weeding and ploughing.

Germany: 55,400 farmers in Baden Würtemburg

Following the establishment of the MEKA scheme of incentives, farmers have cut pesticide and fertilizer use; extensified grassland systems; increased the use of cover crops and legumes; protected rare breeds; and increased undersowing.

Guatemala and Honduras: 8000 farming families

  Regenerative agriculture based on soil conservation, green manures, farmer experimentation and farmer extensionists; yield increases of 2-3 fold, continued beyond the projects and spreading independently, with sustainable agriculture now the motor for local economic growth.

Indonesia: 400,000 farmers

  Integrated pest management for rice programme with farmer field schools as the mechanism to enhance farmers' capacity to learn about their farming environment and innovate; rice yields have stabilised or slightly increased even though all farmers have substantially cut pesticide use (25% no longer use pesticides at all).

  East and Southern Africa: 250,000 farming families (in Angola, Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe):

  80 community-based projects with 6 million hectares farmed with sustainable agriculture technologies; with participatory learning methods being used to develop farmers' capacity to experiment and develop their own solutions, resulting in an average doubling of crop yields using only regenerative technologies.

USA: 40,000 farmers

  Farmers using sustainable agriculture technologies grow twice as many crops compared with conventional farmers, use 60-70% less fertilizer, pesticide and energy, and their yields are roughly comparable; they also spend more money on local goods and services.

Yet a selection of recent evidence (Box 1) shows quite the opposite. In the USA, some 40,000 farmers in 32 states are using sustainable agriculture technologies and have cut their use of external inputs substantially. This includes 2800 sustainable agriculture farmers in the North Western States, who grow twice as many crops compared with conventional farmers, use 60-70% less fertilizer, pesticide and energy, and their yields are roughly comparable; they also spend more money on local goods and services - each farm contributed more than £13,500 to its local economy.

(.... Continue) 


Bismark Bangali
BSC  in Agrotechnology
  Khulna University.

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