FEED THE WORLD
Why organic farming must replace industrial agriculture.
OVER THE PAST year, much attention has been focused on encouraging the
governments of the G8 nations to 'Make Poverty History' by ensuring fairer
trade, increasing aid and cancelling debt. While the aims are clearly
laudable, insufficient attention is being given to what form the aid should
take and what model of economic and agricultural development countries
in Africa should pursue.
A fairer and more equal distribution of resources will not be enough
if we do not fundamentally rethink the way we farm, in richer and poorer
countries alike. The culture that has given us industrial agriculture
is changing climate globally and destabilising even the little that remains
of the biosphere's natural ecosystems. If this trend is not checked, the
likelihood of the re-emergence of sustainable agriculture that can continuously
feed the world will be drastically reduced.
The Kyoto Protocol is a timid attempt to reduce the impact of climate
change. But even that attempt has been rejected by the United States of
America, the country that causes a quarter of the total magnitude of climate
change. What chance has life got of continuing as we now know it? Very
little.
Assuming that we can curb climate change, we can solve the problem of
achieving sustainable food production only by adopting agricultural systems
that can maximise the biomass that we require, while at the same time
strengthening the homeostasis of the agricultural ecosystem. Will organic
farming do this for us?
The answer is 'Yes', but only if we take it seriously and do all the
necessary research and development to bolster rather than bypass the natural
cycles that improve the functioning of the ecosystem as a whole, including
those parts of it that are not cultivated.
CAN THIS BE done? Why not? Previous farming communities have been doing
it for thousands of years. With our increased knowledge, we should do
even better.
Some farming communities in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia, have started to
practise sustainable organic agriculture and are obtaining reassuring
results. These communities started working on severely degraded land.
They carried out physical soil-erosion control activities (terraces, check-dams
across gullies, and trench bunds). They restricted free-range grazing
to small areas, and cut and carried grass and other leaves to feed their
animals. Trees and grass cover then returned fully to the land. This was
all traditional practice to them, but the breakdown of their local community
organisations had prevented them from acting collectively to use this
knowledge. Encouraged to revive their community organisations, they agreed
a set of bylaws to enable them to do that. These organisations were then
trained in how to prepare and use compost, and latterly, in transplanting
their long-season crops (finger millet, sorghum, maize) to ensure a long
enough growing season even when the rainy season becomes short. And the
rainy seasons are getting shorter and more erratic owing to climate change.
Unfortunately, research in the last five or so decades has focused overwhelmingly
on selecting varieties that maximise yields under irrigation and chemical
fertilisers. If a commensurate amount of research were conducted on selecting
varieties that maximise yields under increasing soil fertility from organic
management, I have no doubt that the results would be comparable. But
of course, in contrast to those of industrial agriculture, they would
be sustainable.
Organic farming, I am sure, will feed the world. I am also sure that
unless organic farming re-expands, the human component of the world will
eventually shrink. And if climate change is not curbed, there will be
no biosphere as we now know it, let alone food as we now have it. o
This article is an extract from a speech given to The Soil Association.
Tewolde B. G. Egziabher is Director General of the Environmental
Protection Authority of Ethiopia, and co-founder of the Institute of
Sustainable Development.
