Farmers can no longer expect to remain profitable without considering sustainable farming solutions to mitigate climate risk and resource wastage, according to experts who spoke at the Nampo Harvest Day gathering in Bothaville, Free State, this week.
They said supply disruptions due to geopolitical tensions, fertiliser supply shocks, fuel price shocks, and other problems will drive farmers to regenerative agriculture solutions, including water reticulation, cultivation of microbiomes, and diversifying crops.
Kudzayi Mazikana, head of sustainability at Nedbank Commercial Banking, said that while climate risk was not new, it had become more volatile. Therefore, regenerative agriculture was a solution that all farmers should seriously consider. “We’re close enough to our farmers to know about the J curve and to know that there are challenges in trying to transition.
“It’s not very easy for farmers, obviously, because their cash flows do suffer a bit. What we’ve done, though, is to look at this in two parts… We already have a set of products that can help farmers during that transitional period. You’ve got working capital, [and] seasonal financing, and, if structured correctly, that can help farmers transition.”
The concept of regenerative agriculture is a system that uses natural resources on a farm sustainably. It functions on the basis of principles that include minimum soil disturbance, organic soil coverage, diversity in crops and plants, animal integration, and water filtration.
Mazikana said Nedbank was working to upskill staff to help clients understand the climate issues that farmers face and create products such as water financing to enhance resilience. “It’s not about dictating to clients what they should do. It’s about making farmers more resilient and what we need to do to be a part of that journey.”
We are actually trying to farm on degraded soils. We’ve lost a lot of biodiversity in agricultural areas
— Dr Hendrik Smith of Asset Research
Prof Karin Jacobs, a microbiologist and soil health specialist at Stellenbosch University, said: “If you have a healthy microbiome in your soil, you’ve won half the battle…"
She said bacteria could take atmospheric nitrogen and make it accessible to plants. Fungi and bacteria in soil could produce phosphorus. The more solutions farmers introduced to improve the microbiome community of their soil, the faster they would see results, she said.
Dr Hendrik Smith, conservation and regenerative agriculture specialist at Asset Research, said cultivating certain bacteria produced healthy and functional soil. “We’re actually trying to farm on degraded soils.
“We’ve lost a lot of biodiversity in agricultural areas. We’re losing a lot of soil from erosion — two to five tons for every ton of maize per year per hectare. That is not sustainable, so we cannot go on like that.”
Smith said South Africa had lost, on average, 50% of the carbon in soil — and in some cases, up to 75%. This had climate and biodiversity implications, and tipping points could potentially trigger the collapse of systems.
The department of trade, industry & competition said it provides regenerative agriculture support to farmers. “The first step of moving into a regenerative system is to remove the destructive elements. Stop soil disturbance. High-analysis chemical fertilisers and excessive tillage are very detrimental to soil biology,” the department said in a memo.
It said organic-based fertilisers and certain balanced mineral fertilisers had less impact on soil microbes but still delivered the much-needed additional fertility to plants. Organic materials could also be pre-fermented to increase nutrient availability and produce a cheap but effective fertiliser.
Wandile Sihlobo, agricultural economist at the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz), said in a sector update that since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, there had been rising concerns about global food security.
“Both Ukraine and Russia are major agricultural producers and exporters. In 2021, these countries together accounted for nearly 30% of global wheat exports, about 14% of global maize exports, roughly 32% of global barley exports, almost 60% of global sunflower oil exports, and about 14% of global fertiliser exports.”
The Nampo Harvest Day is hosted by the National Maize Producers’ Organisation.
• Magubane was a guest of Nedbank at Nampo Harvest Day
Business Times
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