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 Ntokozo: We now look at how some farmers make sure we do have food going into the future.
André: Most of us don’t think about how the fruit and vegetables on our tables are grown and we might be surprised to learn that farmers are having to use more fertilizers and other chemicals as well as more water to produce the same quantity and quality of fresh produce as in the past.
Simon: Some produce farmers are going back to basics using less water and fertilizer while caring for their lands.
Jacques: There are currently about 6.8 billion people on earth and that number increases continuously. That means many resources are currently under threat and some may even dry up.But there is one reality ... we all need to eat at least once a day, but for most people two or three times. This and water are the basic requirements for people to survive. Have you ever stopped to consider what you are eating? Where it came from and what its nutritional value is?
Because there is such a huge demand, farmers are forced to produce more and more often at the expense of the soil that they farm. There are clear indications that ‘old’ farming techniques are leading us into a dead-end where the soil gets depleted and we may soon be unable to meet our own food requirements. Bearing all of this in mind we traveled to Musina to meet Flip Nel who is currently involved in the Woolworths initiative “Farming for the Future”. His story is both hopeful and inspiring.
Flip Nel – MD, Oppierandjie Farm: I grew up on a farm, but economic conditions were such that I couldn’t go on farming. So I first went and studied and followed a different career but I always longed for the farm until I finally could get a little piece of land here on the banks of the Limpopo, where I could begin to build something up again.
Jacques: We wanted to know what had convinced him to review his farming methods that clearly have been in his blood for generations.
Flip Nel: We came to a point where our soil was completely depleted in the sense that you till a field and you plant on it, and after a month or two the soil compacts. It becomes completely compact and even water can’t penetrate it and just runs off. If you irrigate more you begin to develop root diseases because the water forces out all the oxygen and the soil can’t drain anymore.
The result was that we struggled to keep crops going long enough to get a proper harvest. Everything indicated that the soil no longer had the potential to deliver proper yields. We then got in a consultant for advice.
Kobus Pienaar – Food Technologist, Woolworths: I began working at Woolworths about four years ago. We saw long ago that our farming methods are no longer sustainable. We started investigating several farming practices to see what was going on.
Flip Nel: He proposed that we begin working organic material into the soil.
Kobus Pienaar: The management of soil’s health is one of the most critical aspects of “Farming for the Future”. That is basically where plants come from. Plants use soil for nutrition, to obtain water and to grow in. If you don’t look after the soil, you will suffer negative effects when it comes to yields. Yields are not just the total quantity, it is also the quality of the food that you produce.
Flip Nel: What we want to illustrate here is the different ingredients of our compost mixture. We use about 35% – 40% what we call green material”
Jacques: This green material is made up of maize cuttings as well as elephant grass that is used for the windbreakers. Both of these ingredients are recycled from the farm itself.
Flip Nel: Here we’ve got ‘kraal’ manure which is also part of what we call the green material.
Jacques: The balance of the compost is made up from dry ingredients like wood chips and sawdust. This is again recycled from plant material that would ordinarily be thrown away. This all gets mixed up and left for 6 – 8 weeks and then is worked into the fields before planting. This compost is designed to maximize the nutrients in the soil and to keep all the microorganisms healthy. In addition a ‘compost tea’ is also made and this goes into the irrigation system to further enrich the soil during the growth of the crop.
Flip Nel: After two years of applying compost we could already see a big difference in the soil. Without it having been tilled the soil became loose deep down. Water penetrated with ease and the plants were immediately healthier because the balance between water and oxygen in the soil was correct.
Kobus Pienaar: One of the most important differences between “Farming for the Future” and other products that are available in terms of sustainable farming is that we don’t expect farmers to apply the same norm in Musina and in the Western Cape. That is unrealistic. Although we use science as a departure point, they have to refine it by applying their own norms on their farms. That is where we come in with measurement instruments, for example the refracto-meter with which we measure the total dissolved substances in plant leaves o ensure that the calcium is at the right level.
Another advantage of following this route is that you have a quick answer, allowing you to make a quick accurate decision, so that you don’t apply too much or too little product to the fields. Erring on either side is detrimental to your crop.
Flip Nel: It’s a very clear indication of where you are. It’s much faster, it’s right here on the farm. Shepard can do all our crops, all our fields in two days. It’s a tool that’s available that’s really cost effective and it gives you very good information.
Kobus Pienaar: It was very important to us to make sure that the norms we use are relevant to each farm depending on the climate, the soil, the crop and the farmer’s farming practices.
If your soil is balanced you will use less fertiliser and you will have to till the soil less. As with any other system we have to test ourselves to determine if we are doing things right and whether is contributes something.
If a system doesn’t contribute to sustainability, why do it? Most important, is to ensure that the farmers get the right information to resolve issues on their farms. Farmers, in their hearts, are some of the best nature conservationists one can get because that is what they love. It’s the environment, it’s their farms.
Love of the soil and the plants is inherent in our farmers. It’s transferred from generation to generation. When we began with the system, farmers quickly grasped that this was a mind-shift that one has to make.
It is how you feel in your heart that determines how you must farm. As soon as the farmers grasped that, we had great reaction from them.
Flip Nel: The farmer is entrusted with a piece of the country as a production resource. Thus it is important that he uses this production tool with the greatest possible responsibility. There is also a great responsibility on the shoulders of the whole farming community not to simply say: “But I’m providing food or fibre to the people”.
The farmer must also strive to provide the best possible quality food to the people of the country or the world.
Fortunately the earth has the capability to heal itself, but that happens over a very long time. With the speed at which population growth increases we have no choice but to be very careful about what we do to this earth.
Kobus Pienaar: At the end of the day we have to ask what we are looking for from this whole system. The answer is very simple. We have to farm in such a way that the farmers can provide for themselves without doing it to the detriment of their descendants that would make it impossible for them to provide for themselves.
That is what it is all about. Sustainability is the most important and it must be based on science.
Jacques: The final result is healthy soil, better produce quality and quantity with less chemical intervention and more biodiversity. A sustainable solution for the future of farming to ensure food for our nation.
We asked Flip what his vision for the future is.
Flip Nel: If I look at my sons, they tell me they don’t want to do anything else but farm. I am proud of them and I think they are doing a great job. What will happen to future generations we do not know.
Ntokozo: That seems like a much better way to farm. Fertilizers have one so much damage causing us to lose good soil into the sea because of erosion over many years.
Simon: What I find very encouraging is that by using these methods, we need less water to grow our crops. Not a bad idea with our rivers being so polluted and our ground water being threatened by acid mine drainage.
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