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Conservation Agriculture: A Common Cause

A homestead near Arusha in Tanzania.

One of the images burned into my mind from  our trip to Tanzania was the dry rock laden soils of the farms lining the busy roads between towns. It was the month of February, and farmers were expecting the rains to begin at anytime. But there was an air of uncertainty because none of the weather patterns of the last season had followed the usual sequence. Radio stations were taking weather information right out into the rural areas to try and help the rural farmers to predict when to prepare their fields and when to plant.

So while there was so much agricultural uncertainty in the country of Tanzania, inside a hotel in Arusha hundreds of agricultural workers gathered to talk about a regeneration of agricultural principles and practices. The main terminology used for the week and the banner under which all of us gathered was conservation agriculture.

Conservation agriculture has three main principles: minimum tillage, soil mulch covers, and crop rotations. For those of you that are familiar with Farming God’s Way, you will know that these three principles are incorporated into the technology component of what we teach. So in this gathering, we were able to find much commonality of purpose with people from all over Africa.

You may ask why conservation agriculture has become so popular in the Africa agricultural community. It is because we are seeing catastrophic soil degradation and erosion all over Africa. Because of the nutrients lacking in the soil, farmers can no longer guarantee a good yield when they plant their crop. Farming methods will have to change for the future of our natural resources on this continent. Many people assume that the changes in farming methods must be towards the larger scale commercial farmer. This agricultural symposium met with a different mindset. We met to advocate for the small-scale farmer and to propose that small-scale farming can be the catalyst for agricultural reform throughout the world.

The agricultural organization called ECHO was instrumental in organizing this symposium. Their mission is to: Reduce hunger and improve the lives of small scale farmers worldwide. We were very pleased to see the huge support given by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank who paid the expenses of about 100 agricultural workers to attend this symposium.
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It truly was a powerful experience to see people of like mind coming together to tackle such huge issues around hunger and poverty. In the article, “healthy soil is the real key to feeding the world,” the author discusses the most common myths around food production. We saw firsthand through the informative presentations of the conferences and workshop speakers, people on the leading edge of agricultural reform in Africa. We can no longer hold on to the myths and we must begin to change the way we think.

For us personally, we received some valuable education in agricultural value chains, conflicts over resources, the value of legume crops for nitrogen fixing and cover crop situations. We saw demonstrated some unique alternatives to the traditional plough as well as being exposed to many creative ideas for overcoming obstacles.

Why does this all matter? Kerry spent some time getting to know the women who were gathering water at the community tap. When you start to put faces and names to the agricultural picture, you realize it is these women and their children’s inheritance that is at stake. Soil is the very basis of our existence. The world can no longer ignore the importance of responsible and sustainable agriculture.

“It does not make any sense to fight hunger through producing more food, if the basis for that production, the soil, gets lost at the same time,” said Stefan Schmitz, coordinator of the ministry’s initiative called “One World, no Hunger.”

We will remain champions for the cause.

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