New tool supports future of organic farming

A collaboration with Japanese manufacturer Yanmar, the Kyoto Institute of Technology, the SUGAR Network, and Design Factory Melbourne (DFM) has created a time-saving product for organic farmers.

Students Melanie Calleja, Melanie Phillips and Ethan Lankshear, with colleagues from New Zealand and Japan, designed a product for organic farmers to transport, spread and dispense compost in a single action.

A soil supplement spreader, Nu-tan reduces the time and physical labor required for soil bed preparation on organic farms.

"The organic farming industry faces many challenges in upscaling production, including access to land, soil quality, infrastructure and labor. This creates enormous opportunity for new products and services in the organic sector," says Ms Calleja.

For the 2018-19 academic year, Yanmar proposed a design focus on supporting organic farming for fruit and vegetables. The challenge to students was to research user needs and desires, to develop a new product that provides quality and a holistic user experience for organic fruit and vegetable farmers. This approach aligns with the SUGAR Network's focus on human-centered design.

Students visited local organic farms and researched organic farming experiences and processes to identify opportunities that improve the daily lives of farmers, workers and farm productivity.

 

"The challenge was to create a solution for small scale organic farmers of ground grown product that keeps them connected to their crops. We wanted to reduce physical labor and maximize output for organic farmers by making soil preparation efficient and enjoyable," explains Ms Phillips.

Nu-tan is designed to evenly distribute and spread a variety of soil supplements during bed preparation, combining dispensing and spreading of supplements which saves farmers time and physical effort.

"It gives organic farmers time to do the crop handling activities they enjoy," Ms Phillips says.

"There is a lack of agricultural machinery suited to small scale organic farming. It's very labor intensive and time consuming. Nu-tan addresses this gap in the market. No two organic farms are the same. Nu-tan adjusts to farmers' needs and specific farm configurations, so farmers don't have to change their farm to suit the tool. It also allows farmers to move and spread heavy loads easily," Ms Calleja says.

 

The Nu-Tan team tested and validated their ideas at organic farms. They found organic farm bed preparation is labor intensive, and time consuming; and achieving and maintaining soil quality free of pesticides and composting is very important.

Composting and bed preparation is often outsourced due to time and labor considerations and farms are unlikely to use heavy machinery due to the impact on the land and increased carbon emissions.

The team traveled to China to launch the project and traveled to Japan to work together. The final proof of concept prototype was presented at a SUGAR Network EXPO in San Francisco.

Yanmar selected Nu-Tan as its favored product idea and DFM is confident that Nu-Tan will be developed by Yanmar in support of the organic farming industry.

In 2016-17 DFM students collaborated on a product idea called, Wheebo, developed in collaboration with Yanmar and Kyoto Institute of Technology. Recently launched as a Yanmar start-up, Wheebo is a jet-powered watercraft that allows users to move on the water with agility allowing 360 degrees of movement.

ORGANIC AGRICULTURE AND THE NEW BIOTECHNOLOGY

Of all the questions that were up for debate in the development of organic standards in the 1990s, the most contentious was likely the use of modern biotechnology and genetic engineering techniques. Early efforts to introduce genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and their products to organic farming and food systems throughout the world were not well received. In the United States, the question was hotly debated by the then-new National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) and culminated in a recommendation not to accept the technology. In 1997, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) proposed allowing specific applications of genetic engineering and asked for public comment on a blanket allowance. Public comments in response overwhelmingly opposed allowing recombinant DNA techniques and the release of GMOs on organic farms. In 2000, the final National Organic Program (NOP) rule prohibited genetic engineering in the form of “excluded methods”.

Transgenics

Since that time, both organic agriculture and biotechnology have continued to develop. New techniques to manipulate genetic information have been developed in recent years and are now in the process of being commercialized. Instead of transferring genetic information from one species to another—a process known as “transgenics”—many of the new techniques rely on modifying the existing genetic structure within the species. These include editing, deletion, multiplication or manipulation of genetic sequences as well as new techniques to induce mutations. The proponents of the gene editing describe the technology as being more precise than previous methods of genetic modification.

CRISPER

One of the new techniques that has received attention is known as CRISPR, which is short for “Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats”. Cas9 is the CRISPR-associated protein 9, which is an enzyme that can be used identify sequences, cut and splice them into different sections of a cell’s genome. The technique can also be used to silence (turn off) genes, delete them entirely, or duplicate them. Some claim that, because the technique does not involve the transfer of genetic material between species, the same modifications could result naturally from random mutation, at least in theory.

Another genome editing technique is known as TALEN, which stands for Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases. While commercial applications thus far are limited, the technologies are receiving a lot of attention, funding and investment in academic and industrial settings because of the perceived potential for the new technology to replace classical breeding techniques. The question has come up in the organic community as to whether there might be any applications of gene editing technology that would be compatible with organic farming systems.

Excluded Methods

In April 2016, the USDA’s National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) determined several gene editing and targeted genetic modification techniques, including CRISPR-Cas, zinc finger nuclease (ZFN) mutagenesis and oligonucleotide directed mutagenesis (ODM) to be excluded methods. Gene silencing, reverse breeding, synthetic biology, cloned animals and offspring, and plastid transformation were also included in the NOSB’s findings and recommendations.

Cisgenesis, intragenesis, and agro-infiltration were later added to the NOSB’s list of excluded methods in November 2017. These are widely accepted to be excluded methods in organic production and handling systems and recommended that the USDA issue a clarification. The NOSB noted unanimous public comment that supported adding these three techniques to the excluded methods list. The USDA did the same for cell fusion techniques in 2013. The USDA has not yet responded to these NOSB recommendations. Those who were involved in responding to the first proposed rule find themselves in familiar territory. “I see history repeating itself,” said former NOSB Chair Michael Sligh. “Whatever promises the new technologies have, they are unlikely to reach their potential given the lack of a holistic approach and the larger issues of who owns the technology, who decides how it will be applied and who pays when it goes awry.”

Mandatory Labeling

The USDA has also developed mandatory labeling regulations for bioengineered foods. The status of foods developed using these new techniques is still an open question. If the foods can be developed through conventional breeding technique or are found in nature, then they are not subject. Similarly, foods where bioengineering techniques cannot be discovered are also exempt. However, it is currently unknown whether novel foods not found in nature and developed with these new technologies could be developed with conventional techniques. Different laboratories indicate that the ability to detect foods made from the new techniques will be possible given reference material that has the “fingerprint” of the bioengineered food. Companies that develop such food are considered by laboratories and USDA Accredited Certifying Agents to be likely to use a marker or identifying sequence to be able to protect their intellectual property before they commercially release such products.

Gene Editing

Academic and industry sources claim that gene editing has several advantages over earlier recombinant DNA (rDNA) techniques, such as precision and predictability. However, such advantages are not obvious to various farmers, seed companies, and others involved in the organic community, who have expressed skepticism in their public comments. The companies that introduced the earlier techniques made similar claims that turned out to be inaccurate, at least in some cases. While there are some organic farmers who think that there may be potential benefits someday, no known existing applications are accepted. As before, the proponents claim equivalency with existing classical breeding, while at the same time distinguishing it from classical breeding in terms of novelty, speed, and ability to modify the organisms to get certain specific traits. Among plant breeders, the distinction between the two approaches is starker.

International Implications

The new technology is expected to have international implications. The European Court of Justice ruled in July of 2018 that CRISPR-Cas is a form of genetic engineering and food produced by it is subject to the European Union’s (EU) GE food labeling law. The international organic network IFOAM-Organics International published a position paper on the Compatibility of Breeding Techniques in Organic Systems. The paper documents the potential for new genetic disruption caused by the release of the technology. As in the US, the subject of the use of genetic engineering techniques has been the subject of a polarizing debate. Monika Messmer of the Research Institute for Organic Agriculture in Switzerland, a plant breeder who is one of the authors of the position paper, said in an email, “Organic breeders are very much against mutagenesis and any type of genetic engineering; conventional breeders claim that they need the newest tool to combat climate change and  growing population.”

Marker-assisted Breeding

One exception is the use of marker-assisted breeding. Classical plant breeders find the gene mapping to be a useful tool in the selection of varieties suitable for organic farming conditions. By having a greater understanding of plant genomes and using classical breeding, it would be possible to accelerate the development of varieties that are compatible with organic farming systems. The NOSB has recommended that marker-assisted selection not be considered an excluded method.

Use as Diagnostic Tools

These new techniques are applied to more than plant breeding. More applications are related to human health and pharmaceutical research. CRISPR and other related technologies could conceivably be useful to organic farmers as diagnostic tools for soil health. “We know more about the surface of the moon than we do about life in the soil inches beneath our feet,” said organic farmer Klaas Martens. “CRISPR and could give us insights to better manage these ecological systems.”

The use of cisgenic techniques in the modification of animal traits has several ethical, as well as health and environmental concerns. However, animal cloning is not considered compatible with the current organic standards, at least by consensus of the NOSB and USDA’s Accredited Certifying Agents. Other applications may involve the use of gene editing to enable greater confinement and higher stocking densities in Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). One exception to excluded methods in the organic regulation is the use of animal vaccines. While the regulation allows for the use of genetically modified vaccines, the status of specific vaccines is unclear.

Gene Drive

Another new technology that has been introduced since the first proposed rule is the gene drive, which uses gene editing techniques to delete functional genes and manipulate a wild population to carry a uniform or single allele. The technique may be used to introduce insect pests or weeds that would produce sterile or otherwise non-viable offspring or seed, potentially displacing the native population in a few generations. The concern is that gene drive technology permanently and irreversibly alters ecological systems. Once released, a gene drive organism can no longer be controlled and has the potential to become a pest or weed that it is intended to displace. Organic farmers are concerned that the presence of gene drive organisms will can migrate to organic farms and undermine stable and resilient systems of ecological pest and weed management.

Long Term Implications

Several of the sources interviewed for this story raised questions about the long-term and broader ecological implications of the new biotechnology. Organic agriculture is a holistic system, and biotechnology techniques are based on reductionist methods. Single-gene resistance is used as one example. Breeding for vertical resistance—complete immunity based on a single gene—fails when the pathogen evolves to overcome that plant’s immunity. Multi-gene or horizontal resistance may not provide the absolute immunity of single gene resistance, but the resistant variety will be more resilient against subsequent mutations and the evolution of strains of the pathogen that overcomes the plant’s immune system. Another aspect that is not understood is what effects the new technology will have on the soil biome.

Proponents of the technology acknowledge that risks are involved, but claim they are minimal and do not warrant any additional regulatory oversight. Others are skeptical and point to how the government has reassured the public for years that regulatory oversight has prevented risky applications of GMOs from being commercially released into the environment. Off-target effects may take years to discover. “We are already seeing unintended consequences from these new technologies” said Sligh.

Modern farming is harming the planet. Tech-driven permaculture could heal it

Healthy soil leads to healthy humans. Sir Albert Howard, one of the forethinkers of organic agriculture and composting, explored this link in the early 20th century. Sir Albert recognized soil as a living organism, not just as an exploitable commodity, as we do nowadays.

Current agriculture, which consists of monocultures and extensive use of fertilizer, pesticide and herbicide, has caused a significant loss of biodiversity, has decreased soil quality and has polluted the environment. Due to rising awareness of these issues, researchers are now exploring alternatives, such as vertical indoor farms, hydroponics and cultured meat.

However, there is a clear divide in approaches towards future agriculture. Technologists rely on a predominately tech-centric approach, while organic farmers rely on natural methods such as polycultures, mixed farming with livestock and crops, and composting. Even though the two camps do not have much in common, the pareto-optimal solution for humanity and the environment may lie in the middle - tech-enhanced permaculture.

Why agriculture has to change

Over the last three decades, 75% of insect species have become extinct, due to extensive use of pesticide and herbicide in modern monocultures. Our soil is losing its fertile humus layer, which is resulting in even more fertilizer use. These negative trends are accelerating climate change, leading to more wildfires, droughts and floods.

Modern agriculture and our industrialized way of life, focused on scalable and highly specialized production methods, are core drivers of these changes. Our foods are becoming less nutrient-rich and are contaminated by pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. Global conventional agriculture also has negative social consequences, including land-grabbing, unfair working conditions and excessive waste.

It is becoming obvious that our current approach is highly destructive. We need to find more sustainable ways to nourish a growing global population. Since permaculture has a positive impact on the environment, it is worth considering.

Permaculture: a very short introduction

It’s not just an organic farming technique, but rather a philosophy that teaches respect for the environment and a reflective approach towards modern capitalist consumption, locality and food, more in sync with nature. Permaculture’s goal is to nourish humans while enhancing biodiversity and increasing soil quality by adding humus.

Nevertheless, its approach is often criticized as too labour-intensive, complex and hard to scale. Several of these issues could be solved with technology, enabling a more widespread use of permaculture as a viable option for future agriculture.

Issues and solutions

The usual argument against permaculture, and against organic agriculture in general, is that it can’t sustain humanity while remaining affordable, due to lower yields per acre. But data analysis, artificial intelligence, robotics, sensors and advanced breeding techniques could solve this dilemma.

The goal is to develop sustainable means of agriculture that are scalable, affordable and that produce sufficient yields to feed a rising population, while increasing biodiversity, soil quality and reducing overall use of agrochemicals. This is not in line with the original philosophy of permaculture. But the environmental problems in today’s agriculture require innovative, out-of-the-box thinking and compromises.

While researching publications from innovative farmers, permaculturalists and homesteaders, it became obvious that they often faced the same issues in their early years. They simply did not know which plants would grow symbiotically on their land, which breeds were best adapted for their local environment, and how to maximize total output without exploiting the soil. This exploration phase could be reduced by using sensor-based soil and data analyses.

A publicly available, geographically clustered knowledge database would need to be created, comprising all relevant farming techniques (e.g. milpa, permaculture, monoculture, agroforestry); seed and species directories (e.g. endemic heirloom species, modern natural breeds, GMOs); and soil composition and further relevant environmental parameters (e.g. rainfall, hours of sun, temperature, humidity). This open database would be added to by local farmers, who would make it more granular with their own soil composition analyses, applied farming techniques, yields per acre, local produce demand and other relevant parameters.

Academic and private publications would also be integrated into this knowledge database. Analogue publications, describing traditional and organic farming techniques, could be digitalized using natural language understanding and computer vision algorithms, enriching the digital knowledge base. Machine translation could lead to global accessibility and usability for literate people, while text-to-speech systems could make the base accessible to illiterate users.

Using this global base of data and knowledge, recommender systems could be trained and refined in order to assist farmers in species selection, irrigation planning, composting and other important aspects of their daily routines, that they would otherwise need to explore themselves on a trial-and-error basis. Since recommendation systems have already been developed and proposed in the context of agriculture (e.g. optimal pest treatment, crop recommendation), it seems viable to create a green recommendation system focused on optimizing sustainability, not just yield.

And it’s not just the environment that would profit from such a recommendation system - consumers would also enjoy more variety. Forgotten breeds, chosen for their taste not just their productivity, could be offered again, enriching culinary experiences.

Another issue when working with polycultures, which are key to the principles of permaculture and agroforestry, is that modern machinery is better suited for planting, cutting and harvesting monocultural structures. This issue could be solved by robotic systems that could navigate and work in polycultures. Drones could be used to capture data about plant growth, plant health and livestock well-being. These robotic solutions could solve the conundrum around the scalability of polycultures, enabling large-scale agriculture after the principles of permaculture.

Sensors could analyze and monitor soil composition, humidity and temperature, automating efficient drip irrigation that also considers rainfall forecasts. The data gained about nutrient density in the soil could be linked to the required nutrients of each plant from the aforementioned database, generating recommendations about which compost should be applied at what time.

Tech is not a panacea

Technology alone will not solve all our environmental problems. A holistic approach, political innovation and more sustainable consumer behaviour is also needed. Decisions around where we buy our food, and the quality and quantity we choose, are crucial. Regional and seasonal purchasing habits could significantly decrease our expenses, with the savings being used to pay fairer prices for organic produce, incentivizing a sustainable agricultural revolution.

By combining technology, permaculture, sustainable policies and consumer behaviour, we could heal our planet, reduce our blood pressure and feed 10 billion people.

Digging up the dirt – could soil contain the answer to food shortages?

As water shortages, high temperatures and rising greenhouse gas emissions threaten food production, countries around the world are looking somewhere new for solutions – the soil.

For decades, farmers wanting to boost their yields have focused their attention on fertilisers, technology and new seed varieties.

Instead, they should be looking under their feet, according to experts, who warn that years of erosion and degradation of the soil through intensive farming have created the conditions for a global food production crisis.

“Data suggests that if we do not restore global soil health, it is highly likely the consequences within 10 years will be many, many millions facing food and water insecurity,” British soil expert John Crawford told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

This could lead to “civil unrest, mass migration, radicalisation and violence on an unprecedented scale,” said Crawford, until recently a science director at the world’s oldest agricultural research institute, Rothamsted Research.

Much of the problem is caused by erosion, which strips away the highly fertile top layer of soil. An area of soil the size of a soccer pitch is eroded every five seconds, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

While soil erosion occurs naturally, human activities such as intensive agriculture, deforestation and urban sprawl have significantly increased the rate at which it is happening.

Nearly a third of Earth’s soil is already degraded. At current rates, that will increase to 90% by 2050, the FAO forecasts, warning that pollution from human activity such as mining and manufacturing as well as erosion are to blame.

There are signs the world is beginning to wake up to the issue, which Crawford said it had only about 10 to 15 years to sort out.

Soil is “one of the most important regulators of global climate” because it stores more carbon than the planet’s atmosphere and combined, he said.

“If you fix soil, you mitigate a whole bunch of other risks,” added Crawford, now professor of technology and strategy at the Adam Smith Business School in Glasgow.

Whole Foods, the upscale US retailer that made its name selling organic food, has put “regenerative agriculture” – farming that focuses on soil health – at the top of its trends for 2020.

Low-cost testing

From Iowa to the Ayeyarwady delta region of Myanmar – known as the country’s rice bowl – farmers are trying to figure out how to make their soil healthier and more productive.

In a remote village in the Ayeyarwady delta recently, a group of farmers sat cross-legged on a wooden floor and discussed why their once-thriving farms had become less productive.

The men had started testing their soil for the first time with the help of Proximity Designs, a business that designs low-cost farming products.

The company only began offering low-cost soil testing services in Myanmar in 2018 and by last October it had already sold more than 7 600 tests at $17 each, highlighting farmer interest.

“We didn’t have anyone to teach us (about soil). We followed suggestions from others, thinking they might work,” said Win Zaw, 44, who grows rice twice a year on his six-acre (2.4-hectare) farm.

“We knew something was wrong, but didn’t know what to do,” he said, looking down at neatly-typed sheets of paper detailing the levels of nitrogen, phosphate, potassium, acidity and organic matter in the soil.

All the farms were showing very low organic matter, which is produced by decomposing plants and is key to good soil health.

Proximity Designs’ agronomists said this was likely due partly to the warm climate, which degrades organic matter more quickly, and partly to local farming practices.

Their recommendations were relatively simple: leave crop residues after the harvest to retain the moisture in the soil, or sow cover crops – those planted to protect the soil between rice plantings rather than for commercial reasons.

When it came to fertiliser use, the recommended amount was much lower than what the farmers were using.

“Applying farming practices without knowing what’s happening in the soil can lead to crop failures, soil degradation, environmental damage and ecosystem breakdown,” said Proximity founder Debbie Aung Din.

‘Ally or enemy’

In Iowa, a state in the US Midwest known for its cornfields, farmers are increasingly seeking to improve soil health, said Richard Cruse, a professor at Iowa State University’s agronomy department.

“We see increasing numbers of cover crops that are being planted. We’re increasing the rate of no-till adoption,” he said, referring to a 

“I’ve talked to several (farmers) in my area who are saying, ‘We have to do something different’.”

 But many lack the expertise and skills, while farmers who rent say it is not worth investing in land that they do not own.

“In Iowa, more than half of the farmland is managed by farmers that don’t own the land,” said Cruse.

“I’ve had multiple farmers tell me, ‘conservation practices on land that I rent is a cost’.”

Ronald Vargas, land and water officer for the FAO and secretary of the Global Soils Partnership – a key player in pushing this issue – said farmers had to be given advice and incentives.

“Soil can be your ally or your enemy,” he said. “But in many countries, farmers are left alone. There is nobody advising them.”

National Policy Framework : Incentives for youth to take up agriculture

One of the major problems impeding the economic advancement of Sri Lanka is the backwardness of its agriculture, particularly the paddy sector. This has resulted in retarding the growth of an internal market and in a failure to release workers (apart from women, freed by herbicides from their traditional task of weeding) to the labour market.

Underemployment

Low labour productivity has dogged Sri Lanka’s agricultural sector, a few years after the British Occupation became entrenched, following the Colebrooke-Cameron Reforms (from which historians, conventionally, date the so-called ‘Modern Era’ of Sri Lanka).

The expropriation of common land under the Crown Lands (Encroachment) Ordinance and the later Wastelands Ordinance, removed from the peasantry their access to a marketable surplus. Their consequent position as subsistence farmers became entrenched when they became enmeshed in debt traps to usurious trader/moneylenders. Despite the Paddy Lands Act and Land Reform, the average holding size remains uneconomic, and farmers do not have the wherewithal to introduce labour-saving technologies.

The dichotomy of rural under-employment combined with a labour shortage is not unique to Sri Lanka. The peculiarities of paddy cultivation cause it to be a problem, even in richer countries such as Thailand, where a lack of land reform has resulted in a shortage of labour for its export-based manufacturing industry.

Policy framework

The newly-elected Government’s National Policy Framework (NPF), the summary of which saw the light of day on December 14, envisages the solution of the agrarian crisis though a mixture of structural changes, welfare measures and technological fixes. It hopes, to make the country self-sufficient in agricultural products.

It has mooted introducing a ‘New National Agricultural Policy’, after an in-depth review of the present policies. One hopes that this will revisit the structure of the subsistence paddy economy.

The measures stated in the NPF suggest modernising agriculture, by introducing environment-friendly farming, economising water use and promoting solar-powered pumps, introducing high tech agriculture, and promoting the cultivation of other food crops.

Incidentally, the NPF reveals one of the major shortcomings in Sri Lanka’s development thinking, by suggesting the import of tax-free solar powered water pumps and solar cells. Why import, when the agricultural sector should be providing a market for locally-manufactured farm machinery? Sri Lanka has a developed pump-manufacturing industry, which could be encouraged to produce solar-powered pumps locally, and manufacturing solar cells is not rocket science any more.

This is especially relevant because the NPF depends on garnering the “energies and capacities of universities, research institutes and private sector” in developing the agricultural sector.

Progressive

One of the more progressive measures the NPF suggests is to expand agriculture production by providing good seed and planting materials, introducing a ‘domestic seeds policy’ to produce international-standard seeds, compulsory certification of imported seeds, and establishing a seeds bank under the Ministry of Agriculture to ensure seed safety. Although the document does not include a policy on genetically modified organisms, no doubt the seeds policy will address this controversial topic.

One may also laud the plan to promote and popularise organic agriculture, by converting traditional farming villages to exclusive organic fertiliser use, developing two million organically-fertilised home gardens, producing bio-fertiliser and organic fertiliser of high standard –using the forests and wetlands – and initiating a proper waste management system. The NPF advocates introducing an internationally acceptable organic product certification system,by improving the Sri Lanka Standards Institute to secure the certification.

One of the major problems faced by consumers is the high level of produce wastage in harvesting, storing and transportation. The NPF seeks to tackle this by combining public and private sectors in a program of action and expanding the role of railways in transporting produce, introducing new rolling stock and improving railway infrastructure.

A major issue facing the sector is the disinterest of the younger generation in cultivating paddy or other crops. The NPF envisages incentivising them by promoting youth agricultural entrepreneurship and providing tariff benefits and low-interest loans for the budding agri-businesspersons.

Farmers’ problems

The truly progressive side of the NPF’s agricultural policy comes out where it does take on the problems faced by the farmers.

A key issue they face is uncertainty, in the face of the vagaries of the climate (exacerbated by global warming) and of cycles of shortage and glut. The NPF seeks to mitigate these uncertainties by introducing a new, attractive insurance scheme as well as a new crop insurance scheme.

The proposal to re-establish the pension scheme for farmers would, of course, remove the uncertainty over the income that farmers have in their retirement.

Given the small size of the average paddy land holding, land productivity has crucial importance for paddy farmers. The NPF deals with this issue as well, by introducing a methodology to bring lands to productive uses as well as an integrated soil fertility management system. It also envisages introducing an Agriculture Crop Management System, which would optimise output.

It also proposes a revolution in the use of Fertiliser, by replacing the existing fertiliser subsidy scheme with an alternative system, providing both inorganic and organic fertiliser free of charge to farmers. Costs will presumably be reduced through its proposal to initiate a programme to produce all essential fertilisers domestically.

The real bite of the NFP, as far as agriculture is concerned, is nestled unobtrusively in various locations throughout the text.Breaking the mould

The crucial issue confronting Sri Lanka’s agrarian sector, both paddy and other crops, lies in the structure of subsistence farming. Farmers are enmeshed in debt, often to buyers of their produce, and are subject to the stranglehold of middlemen.

The NPF seeks to deal with the problem of usury, by introducing a simple, low-interest agricultural credit scheme for farmers. This would have the advantage for the government of bringing part of the black economy into the white, by eliminating agrarian ‘gini poli’ (usurious interest, getting its name from the defunct British ‘guinea’ currency – interest being a shilling on a pound, or a guinea return for a pound loan, 5%).

The proposal to promote a pre-contracts system along value chains would also benefit farmers. Prices would be stabilised by a combination of controlling import of agricultural products, setting up different guaranteed prices for a kilogram of different varieties of paddy, and expanding the role of the Paddy Marketing Board to purchase paddy without delay.

It also intends promoting co-operative farms at regional level. The country gained considerable experience in farming co-operatives during the 1970s, with a unique system of farmers holding their land, but pooling all their other resources. In developing the new agrarian policy, the government should take note of such experiences.

The agrarian policy should also take note of the experiences of other countries, which have broken out of the rural underdevelopment mould and transformed into modern agricultural economies.

It should observe, particularly countries such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) advanced their agriculture through land reform (the maximum holding being 1-4 ha, compared to 10 ha in Sri Lanka), mechanisation and outsourcing of industrial manufacture to farmers (enabling them to use their leisure hours for income generation).

One of the major problems faced by consumers is the high level of produce wastage in harvesting, storing and transportation. The NPF seeks to tackle this by combining public and private sectors in a program of action and expanding the role of railways in transporting produce, introducing new rolling stock and improving railway infrastructure.

Organic Farming Practices Affect Soil Health Long-term

Prior organic farming practices and plantings can have lasting outcomes for future soil health, weeds and crop yields, according to new research. The study also breaks down how specific components of soil health – such as the abundance and activity of soil animals and soil stability – affect crop productivity.

“With growing interest from farmers in being able to harness and exploit soil health, this research really helps us to get to the point of being more and more prescriptive about it,” said Kyle Wickings, associate professor of entomology and co-author of the study.

Also, the study reinforced our understanding that soil animals, such as mites and other tiny critters living in soil, play critical roles in soil health and crop productivity.

Soil animals are known to break down crop litter while indirectly affecting microbial communities in the soil. The researchers’ new findings suggest that measurements of soil invertebrates can inform assessments of soil health.

“When I think about crop management, nutrient amendments are not going to be the limiting factor for farmers in the U.S.,” said Ashley Jernigan, a graduate student in Wickings’ lab and the paper’s first author. “Really, we need to be optimizing these biotic processes in our soil and focusing more on biotic measurements.”

The study is important because unsustainable farming practices are depleting soils of biological activity and nutrients, leading to widespread concern about farmers’ ability to grow enough food to keep up with global population growth.

Meanwhile, sales of organic products in the U.S. exceeded $50 billion in 2018, and New York state ranks first in terms of acres of certified organic field crops, according to the 2016 Certified Organic Survey by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service.

In 2005, researchers started the Cornell Organic Grain Cropping Systems Experiment at a Cornell research farm in Aurora, New York. The experiment compared four cropping systems that varied in fertilizer inputs, tillage practices and weed control. Then in June 2017, the entire site – including the alleyways between plots – was plowed and seeded with sorghum sudangrass, to understand the long-term effects of previous management practices. By September that year, the researchers were gathering data on such things as soil invertebrate abundance, community structure, and weed and sorghum sudangrass biomass.

“The study highlights changes in weed populations, soil chemical, physical and biological properties, and crop productivity after 12 years of different types of organic crop and soil management practices,” said Matthew Ryan, associate professor of soil and crop sciences, principal investigator of the cropping system experiment, and the paper’s corresponding author.

Overall, they found that past nutrient inputs, how much soils had been disturbed, weed management and the preceding crop all produced lasting effects. For example, plots that had been managed with a reduced tillage system generally had better overall soil health, especially when looking at microbial activity. And plots under an enhanced weed management system had less impressive soil health, but better weed control.

“If weeds are adequately suppressed, reducing tillage in organic cropping systems can regenerate soil health and increase crop production,” Ryan said.

They also looked at the alleyways between plots, where the soil health was very good due to a lack of soil disturbance. That led to a very high diversity of soil invertebrates.

Jernigan developed and ran statistical models to examine relationships driving future crop productivity across all the cropping systems. While strong science informs farmers about proper nutrient levels needed for crops, modeling results revealed that crop production is limited by factors such as microbial activity and soil aggregate stability (the ability of soil particles to stay clumped together for retaining air and water). The model also showed that soil invertebrates play important roles possibly by grazing on microbes, thereby stimulating microbial activity in soils.

Organic farming is proving a big plus for climate-hit farmers

As climate change brought less predictable weather, farmers Deepankar Mandal and Sanjib Mandal used to struggle with growing uncertainty about whether they would get a crop each season.

“Rains have become erratic, insufficient or wrongly timed,” said Deepankar. “The crops failed, the water table got lower each year (and) there were newer pests attacking our paddy and vegetables.”

In recent years, they have tried a new way to cope: producing biogas from cow manure to provide clean energy at home, and then using the leftover slurry to improve the soil in their fields.

The change has helped them save money by cutting out costly chemical fertilisers. It has also reduced deforestation and allowed them to restore the earth so it now holds more water, helping them through droughts, the farmers said.

Moreover, with biogas to cook at home, “we do not have to wander for hours here and there in search of firewood from nearby forests, said Chobi Mandal, Deepankar's mother.

These benefits are the result of a three-year push by Susanta Mukherjee, an agricultural scientist who works with the Indian government's Agricultural Technology Management Agency (ATMA), to help farmers in the village adopt organic farming as a way of coping with more challenging climate conditions.

In Ichapur, 50 farmers, working on 20 acres are now using the organic farming system, with another 40 planning to join by mid-year. Under the effort backed by ATMA, farmers are each given a cow and support to set up a home biogas production system.

After water and manure are fed into a digestion tank, the methane produced is captured for use as cooking gas.

Chobi Mandal said the gas was sufficient for her to cook three meals a day — and meant she no longer had to work in smoky conditions over firewood.

The leftover slurry from biogas production, rich in organic nutrients, is dried and used as fertiliser in the fields.

Farmers also have been trained to use earthworms to help produce compost, and to concoct other natural fertilisers and organic pesticides at home.

Less rain, less watering

Deepankar Mandal said he could now go nearly two weeks without watering his fields, even in dry periods, as the soil holds more moisture.

Even on irrigated land, more water is retained and slowly seeps into underground aquifers, helping recharge wells and other water bodies, said Mukherjee.

Farmers are able to produce more crops, more consistently — all without chemical fertilisers and pesticides or big demand on limited groundwater supplies, he said.

Sanjib Mandal, who is unrelated to Deepankar, said rice production had risen 30-40 per cent each year on average since the switch, while costs had fallen by about 35 per cent.

Besides harvesting two rice crops a year, farmers are growing vegetables and cattle feed, as well as crops like oats, sorghum and maize, and getting milk from their cows, he said.

They have also noticed that their plants’ roots seem to hold the soil better, making them more able to withstand harsher storms and strong winds, Mukherjee said.

“There is a misconception prevailing among the conventional farmers that organic farming produces lower yields than the chemically grown crops,” he said.

The project, however, has “demonstrated to them the cost-effectiveness and higher yield of crops in our fields” - and that has led some other farmers to “join our brigade”, he said.