E-Kantipur

In early August this year, I observed a regular ‘plant clinic’ in Bhandara, Chitwan, run by an NGO promoting ecological agriculture. These clinics were run as a way of educating farmers about the complexity of farm ecology. It was assumed that, most often, the use of chemicals and poisons was a result of the general ignorance of this complexity.

I cannot shake off the picture of a young man in his late twenties, with a gaunt face, eyes sunken deep with dark circles, who’d come for some advice. The Rampur Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science-educated “plant doctor,” who was part of that plant clinic gave him some advice about how to prepare soil for his upcoming winter vegetables. “What should I do to kill the germs in the soil, then?,” the young man asked the “doctor”. Incredulity on his face, the doctor asked the young man what he used to do. “I would thoroughly soak the seedling beds with Malathion,” the young man answered. “Kitandu ta marna paryo ni, hoina ra sir?” (The germs have to be killed, right sir?). The “plant doctor” tried to explain to him that soil is full of life and that the microbes and fungus in there are crucial for enhancing soil health. Later on the road, we agreed it was a tall order. I am not sure if that young man is growing seedlings for this year’s winter vegetables in a new way.

For quite some time now, especially in our “modern agriculture belts,” farmers like him—old and young, indigenous or non-indigenous—have gotten counsels from our agricultural experts, who told them to “clean” the soil of kitandus (germs) by using ausadhi (medicine). Protesting a bad company or a bad project, although very important, is limited when it comes to actually promoting ecologically sensible and productive farming practices. Just because we know a company such as Monsanto is in the business of bad business, or some specific development projects are promoting bad agriculture, this does not mean we have an adequate grasp of what constitutes good farming practices. Transition from poison-chemical-based farming into saner practices is a really daunting task. It requires remaking our relationships with the non-human world.

Understanding and accepting the immense complexity of the ecological system has to be at the centre of this realignment. Ecological agriculture is based on intensive knowledge on farm ecology. The knowledge it requires is place-specific. It rests on the assumption that soil is a live entity and that farming is an enterprise in enhancing life. It requires approaching land and everything that constitutes it in a non-adversarial way. In conventional chemical agriculture, all a farmer is supposed to do is to bring in a packet of seed, chemical fertiliser and poisons. The tractor (they call it raato goru or red

ox in Chitwan) ploughs the field. The farmer then spreads out the bagful of chemicals and sows the seeds. When pests attack, he or she has an arsenal of poisons handy. No matter where the farmer is, there are some very standard instructions supposedly applicable throughout the world. That is why experts in Washington or Brussels or Delhi or Kathmandu have a very high level of confidence when they prescribe what the farmers need to be doing to raise productivity and feed the world. The knowledge is standardised for the world. Farmers learn they have to “clean” the soil of “germs”.

That had been the major assumption of agricultural development projects throughout the world.

That is the kind of agriculture that institutions like Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) promoted throughout the world for several decades. In May 2011, the same FAO came out with a report titled, “Save and grow: A policymaker’s guide to sustainable intensification of smallholder crop producer,” in which it argued that the only path ahead is that of ecologically sane and productive agriculture. This report was based on a comprehensive assessment of different agricultural practices throughout the world. It read: “A review of agricultural development projects in 57 low-income countries found that more efficient use of water, reduced use of pesticides and improvements in soil health had led to average crop yield increases of 79 percent. Another study concluded that agricultural systems that conserve ecosystem services by using practices such as conservation tillage, crop diversification, legume intensification and biological pest control, perform as well as intensive, high-input systems.” In other words, a key to sustainable small-holder intensification is not done by bringing in a package of external inputs—whether market-derived or state-subsidised. It is done thorough deepening of knowledge about the ecological context of a farm. A vibrant forest is the model of an ecologically sound practitioner.

A healthy forest is a wild forest—not a timber plantation. Has anybody brought any input from outside into any wild forest for it to be vibrant? Its vibrancy comes from a very complex process through which relationships among so many diverse elements such as animals, trees, shrubs, microbes, vines, birds, ants, fungus, and many other elements are enacted in a specific climatic and hydrological context. It is true that wild forests are not human-centres. But humans can mimic the system to design farms for producing stuffs for human use. The conventional agricultural training in most of the formal institutions overlooks this complexity. It is this complexity that is the basis for ecological agriculture. Understanding the complexity is a very skilled work and very local. In that sense it is perhaps the most skilled work on earth. In other words, the switch to ecologically sound agriculture requires re-education at a very deep level. It requires more science. We have had the “germ-cleaning” operation for far too long.

   anilbhattarai@gmail.com

Post Your Comment

Please note that all the fields marked * are mandatory.
* Full Name
* Address
* Email Address
* Comment
* Captcha	Get another CAPTCHA code
Note:	Comments containing abusive words or slander shall not be published.