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Sustainable Farming in Unpredictable Weather

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Published: 27Jul2011
Word count: 436
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Reports coming in as UK farmers begin to harvest this year's crops suggest that the spring drought has not had quite so serious an effect as was at first feared.

While some farmers are reporting lower yields of various cereal crops, particularly in the worst hit Eastern Counties, others have harvested more than they expected.

In Europe too, French wheat yields are reported to be not as bad as was feared and the Russian crop is expected to rise because the weather conditions have been better than last year, when a severe drought prompted the Government to suspend all exports for that year.

There is some evidence in the farming media that farmers are beginning to look more closely at methods for farming more sustainably in response to the increasingly unpredictable climate.

One farmer is quoted as saying he intends to try techniques he had seen used in South America and in Germany where a layer of green/ vegetable waste is left on the soil after harvesting to help keep moisture in the soil.

There is some evidence from the American organisation Worldwatch that organic farming has held up well despite the recession, with 37.2 million hectares farmed globally in 2009, an increase of 5.7% on 2008 and that the use of inorganic fertilisers is dropping too.

The declining availability of phosphate, one of the three main ingredients in the older generation of chemical based fertilisers, coupled with the climate issue perhaps more farmers will be encouraged to shift to more environmentally friendly farming techniques.

There are already some low-chem, more natural alternative biofungicides, biopesticides and yield enhancers on the market developed by biopesticides developers from natural substances.

The UK's Soil Association has also been running a three year climate change programme in Scotland to a three year skills development programme that will equip 500 farmers and growers from 150 businesses with the skills and knowledge to both improve business sustainability and reduce greenhouse gases. The programme comes to an end in October 2011.

The Association says that being more efficient in resource consumption means reduced energy and water bills, reduced production costs and lower waste disposal costs for farmers. This plainly has benefits for both farmers and the environment.

Despite such initiatives, however, it may be a while yet before these words from one committed farmer that the "dangerous mix of ignorance at Government level and corporate control of the food chain" ceases to compromise both farming and the science that supports it.

Farmers may be opening up to more natural farming aids, such as agricultural products from the biopesticides developers, and to sustainable farming in a bid to combat increasingly unstable weather patterns. By Ali Withers.

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