Backgrounder
Do you know about sustainable farming? Many farmers are talking about it. It could be a solution to some of your farming problems.
Sustainable farming can also be called long-term farming or farming for the future. It means taking care of the land. In return the land will produce food for many years.
Farming for the future takes careful planning. You must be able to balance the needs of your family with the needs of the soil, the water, the air and other parts of the natural environment. But there are rewards: careful planning will help you to ensure a good harvest this year and for many years to come.
Many farmers manage their farms to get the highest possible yields at the end of the growing season. But that won’t ensure that they will have a good harvest two or three years from now. Sustainable farming requires a different attitude.
How will you know if you are farming for the future? You will know because over time you will see results. If you are just starting to use some of these practices you won’t see results right away. But if you have worked at it for a while you will notice some things.
For example, soil won’t blow away. You will see bees and other insects in your fields, moving from flower to flower to fertilize your crops.
You will have fewer disease and weed problems. You will have good harvests and your yields may increase. Your crops will look healthy.
Your family will eat well and be healthy too. They can look forward to a bright future.
Farming for the future means that you must make the decisions about what happens on the farm — decisions about what crops to plant and how to manage livestock. These are not things that someone else should decide for you.
Long-term farming means that different parts of your farm are linked together. For example, the manure from the chicken pen goes on the vegetable garden. After you harvest the vegetables, the leftover stems and leaves go into the compost pile. When the compost is ready it is used in holes where you are planting trees for a windbreak. When different parts of your farm feed each other this way, nutrients are recycled and there is less waste.
Long-term farming requires long-term planning. It involves putting back into the soil what you take out. When you farm this way you may see the benefits of some of the practices your parents and grandparents used.
But you will use these old practices in your own way, with a modern and scientific outlook.
Acknowledgements
This script was written by Jennifer Pittet, Managing Editor, Developing Countries Farm Radio Network, Toronto, Canada.
Information sources
- “Sustainable agriculture” in Sunrise: a newsletter for the small-scale farmer, Volume 2, No. 5, May 1997. Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre, P.O. Box 30652, Lusaka, Zambia.
- Production without destruction, Helen L. Vukasin et al., 1995. Natural Farming Network, P.O. Box CY 301 Causeway, Harare, Zimbabwe.
- “Indicators of sustainable farming”, in Uganda Environews,Volume 4, No. 2, June 1997, pages 104. Uganda Environews is published quarterly in English and Luganda by Africa 2000 Network, UNDP, P.O. Box 7184, Kampala, Uganda.
- “Organic agriculture has a place in Africa”, by John W. Njoroge, in Ecology and Farming, No. 15, May 1997. International Federation of Organic Movements (IFOAM), Okozentrum Imsbach, 306636 Tholey-Theley, Germany.