Text and Photos by Phonnie du Toit
C
onservation Agriculture
(CA) is a new concept for
the vast majority of developing grain farmers in
South Africa. In large parts of the
summer rainfall area these farmers
apply conventional production
methods such as mouldboard
ploughing and maize monocropping. CA requires a high level
of management and switching
over to this production system will
take the farmer through various
learning phases. It is an integrated
system built on the following basic
principles:
Minimum soil disturbance Conventional tillage methods
are replaced by reduced or notillage and crops being planted
by adapted planting equipment
Establishment and maintenance
of an organic soil cover in the
form of a mulch
Implementation of crop diversification and rotations, as opposed to mono-cropping
ARC-Grain Crops Institute
Potchefstroom
A lesson from abroad
Although farming conditions in
the South Americas might be more
favourable compared to that in
South Africa, there is one important lesson to be learned from
the recent advances that occurred
on the grain production front of
that continent.
The main actors in all
this, often called “The
zero-till revolution”,
were farmers. It was
the farmers themselves
who pioneered and demanded the development
of a more sustainable
system
During the nineties the practice of
no-till, a key component of CA,
took countries such as Brazil and
Argentina by storm. The lesson to
learn from this is that the main
actors in all this, often called “zero
-till revolution”, were farmers. It
Mr Johannes Simelani of Balfour Mpumalanga, in his
soybean field. Although not yet in a CA system his
crop rotation program will fit well into such a change
in practice.
was the farmers themselves who
pioneered and demanded the development of a more sustainable
system. In 2004 it was reported
that 45% of total land cultivated in
Brazil is now estimated to be managed with no-till. In the case of
land cropped by smallholder farmers (< 50 ha) this figure is even
reported to exceed 80%.
Exploiting the opportunity
Reducing the risk of dry seasons
The impact of CA appears to be
less striking in dry areas than in
areas known for more favourable
climatic conditions. The challenge
to farmers in dry regions is to minimise soil water losses as far as
possible. This will determine the
level of water available to plants,
which in turn will determine the
yield of the crop. The implementation of CA creates such an opportunity. Establishing a cover of crop
residue on the soil surface over
time can make a significant contribution to reduce runoff, improve
A no-till planter in action – used to establish an on-farm
experimental plot in collaboration with a group of farmers in Balfour, Mpumalanga.