Soil Fertility, the forgotten trend

For a farmer to be more successful on a small piece of land, s/he needs to have soil that is fertile enough to avoid the use of chemicals that will make her/him dependent on such.

It is a sad situation in out country where a number of organisations, GOVERNMENT inclusive, are promoting the use of chemical fertilisers year in and year out. Government introduced the fertiliser support programme which is now the Farmer Inputs Support Programme. There is an already pre-determined amount of that input you can get and you cannot get what you need as a farmer. The idea is good, but wrongly placed.

Most of the peasant farmers cannot afford the use, and let alone, the purchase of such fertilisers. Interestingly, they have decided to put aside the farming methods of their fore-fathers that needed no such chemical interferences. Our forefathers were organic farmers. Utilising all kinds of crops and animal residues to make the soil fertile. They were aware that such practices will give them very good yields and the soils will remain fertile and rich in the coming years.

It is very simple indeed. A small scale farmer will get more from his yield by practicing 'conservation' farming and being more organic than when more chemicals are used. There are few things i can point out.

• They have to learn how to harvest rain water
• They must know that BUSH fires destroy soils
• They must remember that CHEMICALS are not only expensive to buy, but COST more when they damage your land, and the dependence that is born from there
• Intercropping is very important. Most farmers do not like crop-rotation, so they would need to know which crops to inter-crop to get the best of results. EG, Velvet beans (cover crop) is good for soil fertility, so are legumes.
• Keep records of all expenses incurred including use of family friends to teal the land or help in anyway, as that is a cost as well.
• Use other crops to fight weeds and pests, and NEVER use weed killers
• Form marketing groups so that they sell their produce in BULK and not as individuals. This also enhances bargain power for the price of the produce.
• Government should graduate from giving the subsidized inputs to more lasting solutions so that the farmers can ultimately be independent in their farming.

In my little experience as a broadcast journalist, I have realised that people still lack a lot of information on best farming methods. What they get are the conventional farming methods from marketers and big companies as government is not really promoting the use of conservation agriculture. it is a known fact that conservation farming produces twice as much as conventional means. When organic farming is used, a farmer literary spends less and the soils get richer. With chemical farming, a farmer spends more with soils getting poorer requiring the use of more chemicals in the next farming season.

Where are out farmers going wrong?