some thoughts

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while.

Here are some thoughts I’ve had recently.

I really want to take a soil management for agriculture class. I want to know how to conserve soil, how to know what kind of crops are good to plant where, how to build up the organic matter. A focus on soil quality is the basis of all kinds of sustainable farming practices. No soil, no food. It would also help me a lot in the field to be able to communicate with my field advisors. It always amazes me how much the soil can change from farm to farm (keeping in mind these farms are very small, 1 or 2 acres, compared to in Canada). It even changes from corner to corner of the farm and the crops perform really differently.

I want to do an internship on an organic farm to learn actually how to farm. I need to learn if I want to continue to work with agriculture, food security, food systems, economics and policies of food. There’s no way I can work in such areas without actually knowing, at least a bit, of actual farming. Plus, I think I would love the hard, but rewarding, work. Maybe when I return home, I would take a season off and volunteer at a farm. But I’m hoping it’s going to be a ‘progressive’ farm where they experiment with methods of farming that works with the environment.

The other day, I had to deliver some chemicals for spraying bean and soya crop (to control the aphids). It smelled horrible. And on the box it said “Handle with care. Harmful to marine environments.” Or something to that extent. It really struck me that the agriculture I’m helping promote isn’t the best for human or environmental health. At the same time, I’m so conflicted. I’m an environmentalist, but I also understand that no one who can’t get enough food in their stomach or get their children into schools would put the environment as their first priority. As the system is currently set up this way, the bank would never lend to high risk agriculture (that’s not fertilizer and pesticide controlled). The farmers are also super happy because the fertilizer really does make the crops grow beautifully (I’m guessing especially because the soil is still healthy; the farmers had never been able to afford large amounts of fertilizer before). Are we to deny these farmers the opportunities that farmers in the developed countries have had? Organic/biodynamic/conservation/etc farming requires a lot of knowledge; it can’t be simplified to input packages (3 bags of fertilizer, 3 bags of seeds, 1 pesticide spray) like we do. How can we provide all that training to so many farmers? Plus, organic farmers have a high risk of crop failure. One season of bad crop can cripple many of the farmers we work with. (Of course, there are some really rich people who actually work in Kampala but farm as a side business). Are we to deny them of the chemicals that will ensure they have a good crop?

I enjoy management work, but I love being in the field. I love understanding “irrational” thinking. Every time I finally understand why a farmer does something a certain way, I feel like my world has widen. It’s not just with the farmers, but with people from different cultures or backgrounds. Or really, just people, as we’re all so different.