Restoring the Soil - Canadian Foodgrains Bank

14Existing Green Manure/Cover Cropping Systems Around The WorldGreen Manure/Cover Crops Systems are WidespreadGm/cc systems are surprisingly common around the world. This fact is understandableif we take into account all the advantages listed above. During the 1990s, theNGOs CIDICCO (International Center for Dissemination of Cover Crops) andCOSECHA (Consultants for a Sustainable, Ecological and People-Centered Agriculture)in Central America each compiled a list of known gm/cc systems in about 45countries. The lists were admittedly incomplete. One list included 96 gm/cc systemsand the other 51 systems. 9 Statistically, if we assume that the definitions of gm/ccsystems in the two lists are identical and that each list was a random sampling of theworld’s existing systems, a simple mathematical extrapolation indicates that over 500gm/cc systems probably exist around the developing world.16. Indonesia. Our lunch at a roadside restaurant,which included three gm/cc species, in a countryin which many agronomists had assured me nogm/ccs were being used.Time and time again, in more than 30developing countries, I have found thatgm/cc systems are thriving where localagronomists were absolutely sure they didnot exist. For instance, Indonesian agronomistsassured me that because Indonesiansdo not eat beans, gm/cc systems wouldnot exist in their country. However, onmy first day out in the field in Indonesia,we ate lunch at a small roadside restaurant(Photo 16). The lunch included threelegumes, all of which we later foundfarmers using as gm/ccs. None of theseleguminous foods were actually cooked asbeans, per se: the soybeans were served astofu, which was in the soup along with green cowpea pods, and the mungbeans hadbeen made into some delicious sweet cakes. In the following four days, I observed sixdifferent gm/cc systems in just a very small area of southern Sumatra.Characteristics of Known Green Manure/Cover Crop SystemsOf the known gm/cc systems that have been implemented by farmers around theworld for at least five years without any subsidies, over 70% were basically developedby smallholder farmers themselves. This fact, perhaps more than anything else, showshow appropriate these systems can be for smallholder farmers, and how interestedsmallholder farmers are in finding and adopting alternatives to both fallowing andchemical fertilizers. (Data on adoption and abandonment of these systems would bea much better indicator of farmer interest, but such figures are not available in mostcases.) It is also surprising that over 100 species of gm/ccs are used, with new onesbeing discovered all the time.9Bunch, Roland and Milton Flores, Unpublished lists.