The benefits of conservation agriculture

Erosion and climate change have created a food insecurity time bomb for Africa. Palesa Motaung, a soil scientist working for Asset Research, and Themakholo Mathebula, a field officer with the Mahlatini Development Foundation, explained at a recent research symposium how conservation agriculture is helping smallholder farmers face these daunting challenges. Susan Marais reports.

- Susan Marais

“The bottom line is that our soils are degrading at a very rapid rate. [One-third] of the world’s soils are degraded and most of these are in Africa. The main culprit is soil erosion.”

So says Phalesa Motaung, a soil scientist working for Asset Research, an NGO focused on environmental and resource economics. Motaung, who specialises in regenerative agricultural practices, was speaking during a Stellenbosch-based virtual research symposium held on 14 March. In addition to the problem of soil erosion, yields are declining drastically, especially amongst subsistence farmers.

“It’s said there are yield gaps of [up to] 90% between smallholder farmers and commercial farmers.”

Motaung emphasises the duel nature of South Africa’s agriculture sector: a group of large commercial, highly mechanised producers, and hundreds of thousands of smallholder and subsistence farmers who are resource-poor and lack support.

“Both, [however], are dealing with declining soil quality, and part of the reason is that both [groups] are using poor soil management practices [such as tillage and monoculture].”

Motaung stresses that farmers are “the custodians of the land” and “the heroes in our fight against climate change and food insecurity”.

“We need to help them by [giving] them the best armour to go into battle.”

Conservation agriculture (CA), she goes on to argue, should be part of this armour.

REGENERATIVE SOIL PRACTICES AT WORK