Unfortunately, we all have to deal with outcome of our actions and there is no hard-reset or factory-reset button we can just hit to be able to undo the damage which our action or inaction has caused in our environment. To place our arms around this problem would be overwhelming and the scope of the problem is so wide that one doubts whether one's actions to help can make a difference or have an impact.
The Organic System of Rice Intensification (SRI) method of rice cultivation uses 90% less seeds, 50% less water and has the potential for yields greater than conventionally cultivated rice plants, Add to this that Organic SRI uses no chemicals or synthetic fertilizers or poisons and you have taken the first step towards rehabilitating our soils. As farmers adopt organic SRI, the soils they practice on will slowly over time gain back the biodiversity they lost as a result of the continued use of chemicals and poisons. This seemingly small and singular act of reviving our soils has a much bigger impact to our planets well being .
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Organic SRI Rice Plants in Zarraga, Iloilo, Philippines 2012
The continued use of chemicals and poisons on our soils has wiped out soil biodiversity and while farmers try to engage the problem of decreasing yields by adding even more synthetic fertilizers into our soils, the lamentable degradation of soil quality and eradication of soil biodiversity is only hastened by our impulsive efforts to attain food self-sufficiency and make profits using input-intensive agricultural practices.
The complexity of this global problem can be more easily dissected if we were to focus on one sole actor in this complicated and complex web of interactions. That is our soils.
It is well known that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) (and other greenhouse gases) have increased markedly as a result of human activity since the industrial revolution. It is perhaps less appreciated that natural and managed soils are an important source and sink for atmospheric CO2 and that, primarily as a result of the activities of soil microorganisms, there is a soil-derived respiratory flux of CO2 to the atmosphere that overshadows by tenfold the annual CO2 flux from fossil fuel emissions. Therefore small changes in the soil carbon cycle could have large impacts on atmospheric CO2 concentrations - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24425529
If we only made ourselves soil-aware, then we will perhaps think twice before we do anything which would affect our soils adversely.
The Chemical Breed of Agriculturists and Farmers
The introduction of synthetic and chemical fertilizers and other agricultural poisons has created three generations of what we may now call the chemical-breed of farmers and agricultural experts. You cannot be an expert Municipal Agricultural Officer or Extension worker unless you are well versed with what chemicals to recommend to farmers seeking assistance because their rice plants are infested with Brown Plant Hopper or Green Leaf Hoppers or Stemborers or have Bacterial Leaf Blight or Rice Blast. Through no fault of their own, they have been made to believe in a system of agriculture which addresses problems or potential problems with a litany of chemical solutions. That this has now become the convention for more than five decades has correspondingly developed a breed of farmers who have institutionalized the religious use of these chemicals in our farms and this culture is now so entrenched that it will take a miracle of awakening and hopefully not a catastrophic global event to have them change their ways.
But with the higher intensity typhoons, floods and intense El Nino events happening and affecting our farming systems, I have heard the farmers acknowledge the fact that climate change and global warming has indeed come to fore and these climate change events are now affecting their farms and their yields.
But who would have predicted that the "Green Revolution" would have such a global effect on our weather systems and our environment. It is only now that we are slowly being made aware that the destruction of our soils' biodiversity is indeed affecting the once known to be "stable" carbon cycle of our planet. Though we all knew that continued use of chemicals and poisons in our farms would destroy the microbes and microorganisms, we had no way of knowing that the microbe populations in the rhizosphere were major actors in our planet's carbon sequestration dynamics and that our soils are instrumental in keeping climate change events at bay.
Transforming these chemical-breed of agricultural experts and farmers into regenerative agriculture agents and practitioners is one other seemingly potent solution for this problem. But countless millions have been invested by the Department of Agriculture on training, knowledge tours, seminars, site and field visits and even organic agriculture projects yet the percentage of adopters has remained low and not yet enough to be able to help in attaining the Department's goals to convert five percent of all agricultural land in the Philippines to organically cultivated agricultural areas.
The list of why there is such a low rate of adoption and even why there is a high incidence of dis-adoption is long and the reasons I am sure are discussed by the experts in focus group discussions, conferences and the likes. To spend even more time discussing these factors here would just be rehashing something which has been discussed over and over and over again without any viable solutions in sight.
But just for the sake of muddying up the waters even more, here are some common beliefs or perceived reasons on why the transition to organic agriculture is mulish at best. There is the widely known concept that Filipino farmers are more inclined to do something or try something out if there are dole outs or there is some economic advantage to be had in exchange for their efforts. There is another concept that farmers have this wait-and-see attitude towards new technologies and would rather see the results based on first time adopters efforts first, before they will embark to try on their own,. Then there is the perceived notion that organic agriculture is more labor-intensive and takes a lot of time and men to accomplish the tasks. And finally there is the concept that the transition to organic agriculture will result in the lessening of yields in the first several years and that yields equaling conventional farming methods can never be attained on first try. All these are valid notions and have merits towards finding solutions based on the priorities we apply but one thing about organic agriculture is that - new practitioners or early adopters who were successful in their first forays into organic agriculture will have a greater probability of continuing the project and based on the degree of success, will eventually increase the area devoted to organic crops.
Indeed there will be cases of the dogmatic and passionate few who chose to carry on despite failing at their first try but these are definitely farmers who could stand to lose in the first or second or even third years and not suffer so much from the setback. For the small farm landowner, this is not an option and only by ensuring that their first tries at organic farming are successful or even just approximating the yields of conventional methods, will they be inclined to continue.,
This slogan "Success at First Try" became the overriding initial consideration in starting an organic SRI Initiative in the Island of Panay , Philippines. Please stay tuned for more.
Note: This Blog was written months back and upon reading through it prior to publishing, it seems like nothing has changed and what I wrote back then still holds true till now. I publish this now in celebration of the first year anniversary of the small-farmers group practicing Organic SRI in the Municipality of Zaragga, Province of Iloilo, Philippines.
