Back To The Future

Before 12,000 BC, when a climate change event occurred, man was more of a hunter-gatherer.

Farming was ‘invented’ in different places: in West Asia about 12,000 BC, in Africa about 10,000 BC, in South America, and in China about 8000 BC.

From these places, agriculture spread to Europe, northern Europe, Sudan, and Native Americans between 7000 BC and 1 AD.

Early farmers had limited tools.

They made holes in the ground with sticks to plant seeds, pulled weeds by hand, and harvested crops using their bare hands.

Research shows that these early farmers were women, the keepers of seeds.

Around 3000 BC, people began building dams and digging irrigation canals to supply water to areas where rainfall was insufficient for crop growth.

Asian farmers used ploughs pulled by oxen, while in Africa, it was donkeys.

Flint sickles, with little flint triangles, were used to cut the grain for harvesting.

Men now did most of the ploughing and harvesting, and women did the weeding.

Over time, these tools improved – for instance, the harrow in the Middle Ages.

Even the use of the land became more efficient, with farmers employing three-crop rotation to maximize yields from their fields.

In the early 1800s, the invention of the internal combustion engine revolutionized farming.

Powerful machines, such as gas-powered tractors and harvesters, replaced many ploughmen and harvesters, as well as animals.

From this time on, the world witnessed a massive population explosion on a global scale.

With the discovery of antibiotics and vaccines, the mortality rates were lower than ever before.

People were living longer. Agriculture needed to keep up.

They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and our need for more food led to the emergence of a global phenomenon known as the Green Revolution.

In the 1940s, Norman Borlaug developed semi-dwarf, high-yielding, disease-resistant wheat varieties that led to the introduction of these high-yielding varieties combined with modern agricultural production techniques in Mexico, Pakistan, and India.

The crop varieties designed during the Green Revolution were genetically engineered plants.

They were bred primarily in response to the need to improve food security by producing a substantial amount of grain per acre planted.

Synthetic fertilizers, such as urea and potash, were used to protect crops from pests.

These fertilizers solubilized the nutrients, such as nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus, making them more readily available for crops.

As the rate of action of artificial fertilizers is higher than that of natural processes, this accelerates plant growth.

The production of essential crops, such as wheat, rice, and corn, quadrupled worldwide.

The Green Revolution came to India in the 60s.

The project included planned irrigation of farms, the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, along with the introduction of new high-yielding wheat breeds.

India transformed itself from ‘a begging bowl’ to a ‘bread basket’.

The state of Punjab was the ambassador of the Green Revolution, and to this day, we call the state ‘the granary of India’.

In recent years, an increasing number of experts worldwide have developed divergent views on the success of the Green Revolution and its aftermath.

They assert that in our haste to feed the world, we have inadvertently destroyed the very earth that sustains us.

Dr Vandana Shiva, one of the foremost critics of the movement, says, “The Green Revolution did not save India from famine, as the proponents of Industrial Agriculture and GMO technology would argue; in fact, the Green Revolution reduced India’s production.”

Loss of crop diversity is one of the most disconcerting effects of the Green Revolution.

The Green Revolution strategy mandated planting select breeds of high-yielding crops and phasing out the others.

This has led to a significant loss of crop genetic diversity.

In India, approximately half a century ago, rice farmers cultivated around 30,000 rice varieties.

However, after the Green Revolution, this number significantly decreased, as today, 75 percent of rice farmers harvest only ten rice varieties.

This loss of genetic diversity has been reported worldwide.

• Also Read: Organic farming – Taking a cue from traditional Indian agricultural practices.

Moreover, massive amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides were applied to crops to achieve higher yields.

Eventually, the synthetic chemicals began accumulating in the soil, altering its natural texture and disrupting the microbial flora.

Currently, significant agricultural lands in India are experiencing a notable deficiency of essential minerals, including sodium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, molybdenum, and boron.

There is a significant increase in nitrogen toxicity and heavy metal pollution.

This is particularly alarming, given that in 1905, when Sir Albert Howard was sent to India to introduce chemical fertilizers in farming, upon seeing how fertile the soils were and how there were no pests in the fields, he wrote a treatise called An Agricultural Testament.

This treatise, which has spread organic farming worldwide, was based on India’s ecological farming, now recognized as agroecology – the application of ecological principles to agriculture.

Studies show that 51 percent of all food commodities are contaminated by pesticides, leading to serious illnesses and cancers.

In 2008, researchers at Punjab University detected DNA damage in Indian farmers who used chemical herbicides and pesticides to treat their crops.

A study published by the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research concluded a direct connection between the emergence of cancer and the use of pesticides in specific regions.

Another study published indicated that health hazards like hypertension, stillborn babies, diabetes, and respiratory illness are all linked to the use of toxic chemicals in pesticides.

An agonising indicator of the situation is “the cancer train”, a train from Bhatinda that carries hundreds of cancer patients and their families to the cancer treatment centre of Bikaner – every day!

Chemical monocultures and commodity production have displaced biodiversity, which is a source of nutrition.

Green Revolution monocultures have destroyed our pulses and oilseeds.

All over the world, we’re seeing a shift toward organic and sustainable farming, which essentially represents a return to traditional farming methods that were the norm before the invention of fertilizers and pesticides.

So what did these ancients know that we have lost along the way?

They depended on tiny, microscopic organisms that were, quite literally, the first dwellers on this planet.

Yes, I’m talking about microbes.

Microbes have pretty much the same effect on the soil as yogurt has on the human body – making it stronger by helping to absorb more nutrients.

Microbes thrive in soil and play an essential role in many of a plant’s biological functions.

They help plants get a good start, secure nutrients, and even help to fend off pests.

The natural benefits of microbes represent the next step in the art of agriculture.

• Read: How technology can make sustainability attainable for farmers

Without the microorganisms in the soil, there would be no plant life, and eventually, no humans on Earth.

Nitrogen is one of the most crucial elements, essential for the growth of every living form on Earth.

Nitrogen is present in the atmosphere in the gaseous form.

However, neither plants nor animals can directly consume this nitrogen, but microbes can.

Bacteria, such as Nitrosomonas and Azotobacter, reside in soil and fix atmospheric nitrogen, making it available to other living organisms.

Like nitrogen, there are multiple elements, such as phosphorus, potassium, zinc, etc., which are fixed by microorganisms present in the soil.

This community of millions of microbes residing in the soil is called the agribiome.

Thousands of interdependent bacteria and fungi make a healthy agribiome.

Microbes establish symbiotic associations with plants, benefiting from each other in the process.

They colonise roots and help plants to absorb more nutrients through their decomposing actions.

Certain fungi, by residing at the roots, maintain moisture and, therefore, protect them from drying.

In return, plants provide shelter as well as their waste products, which microbes use as food.

In simplest terms, sustainable agriculture is the production of food, fiber, or other plant or animal products using farming techniques that protect the environment, public health, human communities, and animal welfare.

This form of agriculture enables us to produce healthy food without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same.

Sustainable farms produce crops without relying on toxic chemical pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, or genetically modified seeds.

They rely on traditional agricultural principles, such as crop rotation and the use of organic waste, as well as harnessing beneficial microbes (bio-fertilisers and bio-pesticides).

These farming methods strictly forbid the use of any synthetic material and, therefore, contribute to maintaining soil fertility and ecological balance.

In a way, sustainable farming is aimed at keeping the soil alive and letting nature do what it does best.

Sustainable farming utilizes bio-fertilizers composed of crop-specific bacteria that aid crops in absorbing both available nutrients in the soil and those in the air.

They allow farmers to minimise the use of chemical fertilisers and preserve the quality of the land for future generations.

With the help of nature and every farmer’s not-so-secret superstar, microbes, sustainable farming gives us food that has higher nutritional value compared to that from modern farming.

It is the only way to sustain the Earth for future generations.