Restoring the Soil - Canadian Foodgrains Bank

Choosing The Right GM/CC Cropping System For A Specific Area21How to Achieve the Adoption of Green Manure/Cover Crop SystemsA great deal of discussion centers on the levels of adoption or abandonment of gm/cc systems around the world. In general, evidence indicates that many traditionalgm/cc systems are gradually being abandoned as Green Revolution technology (forexample, using chemical pesticides and genetically modified organisms) has spread, astraditional foods have become unfashionable, as chemical fertilizer has become morewidely available, and as professional extension workers have criticized farmers fordoing things that aren’t recommended in university textbooks. This gradual process ofabandonment has apparently affected such widespread systems as the maize/cowpeaand maize/rice bean systems that once existed from Mexico through Nicaragua, andthe scarlet runner bean/maize system that once stretched from the northern U.S. toChile.At the same time, some other gm/cc systems have spread widely and quickly right upto the present time. One of them is the maize/mucuna system that has spread spontaneouslythrough Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras over the last 60 years. Sothe question persists: will gm/cc systems become sustainable, or will they, after muchblood, sweat and tears, become just another footnote of history?Quite frankly, a soil fertility crisis is approaching. It will affect the whole world, butthe lowland, drought-prone areas of Africa will be the hardest hit. Population growthhas drastically diminished the amount of land per family. Approximately 80% of smallholder farmers in Africa have less than two hectares of land. Therefore, most peopletoday have to farm every inch of what little land they have in order to survive; there isnothing left for fallowing. Thus, for the first time in history, most of Africa’s lowlandfarmers can no longer fallow their soils. In addition to this unprecedented problem,farmers’ animals have decreased in numbers (because grazing lands have also beenswallowed up by cultivated farms), chemical fertilizers have increased dramatically inprice because we have used up all the world’s cheap fuels, and global warming is alsotaking its toll. Because of this “perfect storm” of factors, harvests in much of lowland,drought-prone Africa are dropping by 10 to 15% a year. Within the next five years, wecould witness widespread hunger across much of Africa that will be among the worstin recent history, with the livelihoods and productive capacity of tens of millions ofsmallholder farmers severely damaged.Most of the smallholder farmers of lowland Africa know something is terribly wrong.In hundreds of villages that I recently visited, the people are intensely worried. Theirfood supply is diminishing at a rapid rate, and they know of no way to solve theproblem.For years, a large majority of African farmers really weren’t very interested in gm/ccs.But now, I can honestly say that I have never seen farmers as interested in gm/ccs asare the farmers today in most of the Sahel and lowland southern Africa. I think agenciesworking in the Sahel and the rest of lowland Africa will find that the farmers havemuch more interest in improving their soils than ever before.