Sustainable Agriculture Begins With The Soil – Minimum Disturbance, Maximum Yield

You are looking at the upper half of the cover of SEARCA's first published Professorial Chair Lecture, by multi-awarded UPLB Professor of Land & Water Resources Engineering Victor B Ella, with the long title, "Conservation Agriculture: A Biological Engineering Approach To Sustainable Agriculture In Support Of Rural Development In Southeast Asia" published by SEARCA with 64 inside pages in 2018. 

Outright, I want to say this is the most intelligent research and report on what Mr Ella refers to a "conservation agriculture" that which I know fits perfect into what I believe is "organic agriculture" – with conservationreferring to the objective and organicreferring to the process.

In the Abstract, Mr Ella says:

Conservation agriculture... is based on the principles of minimum soil disturbance, continuous mulch cover, and diverse crop species rotation.

Without consciously realizing it, Mr Ella has defined the organic agriculture that I appreciate and advocate. As I put it in my title: "Minimum Disturbance, Maximum Yield." The continuous mulch cover provides the organic matter that the soil needs to provide water and nutrients to the crops. The diverse crop species rotated ensures both natural pest control and farm productivity – and therefore profitability – for the farmer.

Mr Ella says other researches in conservation agriculture, CA, in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam, "have provided empirical evidence on the benefits and advantages of conservation agriculture over plow-based crop production systems."

"Minimum soil disturbance" means no plowing, only boring a little hole for every little seed or seedling planted. And yet, as Mr Ella says, the results show that:

Conservation agriculture improves soil quality and crop yield, minimizes leaching of fertilizers and improves soil adsorption of nutrients, improves soil health, saves labor from land preparation and weeding, improves water use efficiency, and provides other socioeconomic and environmental benefits over plow-based systems.

Modern chemical agriculture, MCA, adds to the fertility of the soil but does not improve the quality of the soil. MCA improves crop yield but does not minimize leaching of fertilizer nutrients. MCA is labor-intensive because of land preparation and weeding. MCA does not improve water use efficiency.

It is unfortunate that Mr Ella's literature search is incomplete. I know 2 of the best sources of data and information that he does not include in his list of 42 References – and these are the books written by Edward H Faulkner, pioneering farmer of Nebraska: Plowman's Folly (published by the Oklahoma Press in 1945) and Soil Development (1952). Mr Faulkner's main thesis, in my own words, is that we must first grow the soil before we attempt and grow the crop, so that the soil can grow the crop well for our sake. He decried the use of the moldboard plow, which he said destroyed the structure of the soil first of all – why do you want to destroy the structure of what you want to use? Mr Faulkner's trash mulching gave a continuous mulch cover all over the field and, yes, he advocated multiple cropping.

For Sustainable Agriculture, I salute the biological engineers!@517