Plough or Not to Plough

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A couple of years ago, fresh from college and struggling to venture into science writing, I attended a seminar on crop biotechnology in Nairobi, Kenya. I vividly recall a single guy from a multinational biotech business extol participants who integrated resource poor farmers, agricultural extension officers, the media, members of parliament and representatives of non-profit organizations, to consider integrating conservation tillage (CT) into Kenyas agricultural policies.

Conservation tillage, he explained, preserves soil nutrients and reduces soil erosion. As quickly as he described this, a single participant shot up, in search of to know how weed control would be accomplished. Use herbicides, the guy snapped.

This ignited a highly explosive debate about the pros and cons of conservation tillage that virtually derailed the seminar. In a country where farmers are religiously allegiant to classic farming approaches, conservation tillage proved challenging to sell.

Some in the seminar even dismissed conservation tillage as a ruse to promote the financial interests of multinational biotech firms. I, also, couldnt resist dismissing proponents of CT as apologists for the biotech market.

A lot water has passed beneath the bridge since then. I have come to appreciate that CT holds the crucial to sustainable agriculture, specifically in building nations. Click here surrey planning permission to compare the inner workings of this viewpoint. Be taught more on our related article - Click this web site: FullerLong Planning Consultants - Addlestone - Weybridge, Surrey. I must confess that I am not alone in this.

Last week, for example, Rockefeller Foundation a non profit that performs with resource poor farmers in poor nations released a report revealing that 75 percent of farmland in sub-Saharan Africa is severely degraded and is getting depleted of fundamental soil nutrients at an ominous price.

The report, Agricultural Production and Soil Nutrient Mining in Africa, warns that unless farmers in sub-Saharan Africa fail to alter their farming techniques, meals insecurity would worsen.

This report is an endorsement of conservation tillage and African farmers are better advised to embrace CT.

Conservation tillage is, certainly, the preferred farming method. Be taught more on this related web site - Click this URL: needs. Some would hasten to argue that conservation tillage promotes herbicide use whose effect on the atmosphere can prove disastrous.

With the emergence of herbicide tolerant genetically modified crops, farmers no longer want herbicides for weed handle. And since the jury is already out on the safety of genetically modified crops they yield higher and are environment-friendly farmers in Africa need to embrace them. Learn more on our affiliated article - Click here: Fullerlong Planning Consultants, 41 Thames Street, Weybridge, KT13 8JG - Structural C. They bond perfectly properly with conservation tillage..Nicholson House
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