www.asianfarmers.org

[Authors note: Dr Philip Revatha (Ray) Wijewardene, who passed away on August 18 aged 86, spent a lifetime being unpigeonholeable – which won him many admirers and a few detractors. Despite being an accomplished engineer, aviator, inventor and Olympian, he chose to introduce himself as a farmer and mechanic ‘who still got his hands dirty’. Unpretentious and always enthusiastic, he was one man who somehow managed to have his head (literally) in the clouds and his feet firmly on the ground.

Read the full story at Ground Views

More than 30 years after it was published, farmer sage Masanobu Fukuoka’s cult book One-Straw Revolution, continues to inspire. On the occasion of his second death anniversary, DNA talks toIndian farmers whose lives were transformed by Fukuoka’s radical vision of farming, nature, and life.

Do-nothing’ or minimal interference is a radical idea. Especially for a civilisation obsessed with jumping from one complexity to another while simultaneously idealising simplicity. In 1983, a group of 20 farmers in Rasulia, a small village near Hoshangabad in Madhya Pradesh, was trying to find an alternative to chemical-intensive agriculture. Since 1978, they had been battling the legacy of the Green Revolution — hybrid seeds, pesticides, fertilisers — to redeem the promise of rishi kheti (farming as practiced by ancient sages), a practice that involves letting nature take its course. They had been successful. But there was more to be done, or rather undone. What that was, they weren’t sure. But they were open to learning.

Read the full story at DNA

The only way to solve the poverty problems in rural areas is to adopt His Majesty the King’s sufficiency economy. This approach not only solves the poverty problem, it also helps reduce farmers’ accumulated debts as well as promoting unity in the community,” said Ennu Suesuwan, executive vice president of the Bank for Agriculture and Agriculture Cooperatives as reported by Thai Rath.

Mr Ennu expressed his thoughts to the media while leading a group on a visit to a sufficiency economy village at tambon Nong Sarai, Phanom Thuan district, Kanchanaburi, which received His Majesty’s trophy for outstanding achievement.

After the village adopted the sufficiency economy principle, within a few years the villagers had risen above the poverty line.

Read the full story at Bangkok Post

(An interesting development in ecological agriculture using perennial grain crops. — Admin)

Earth-friendly perennial grain crops, which grow with less fertilizer, herbicide, fuel, and erosion than grains planted annually, could be available in two decades, according to researchers writing in the current issue of the journal Science.

Perennial grains would be one of the largest innovations in the 10,000 year history of agriculture, and could arrive even sooner with the right breeding programs, said John Reganold, Washington State University (WSU) Regents professor of soil science and lead author of the paper with Jerry Glover, a WSU-trained soil scientist now at the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas.

“It really depends on the breakthroughs,” said Reganold. “The more people involved in this, the more it cuts down the time.”

Published in Science’s influential policy forum, the paper is a call to action as half the world’s growing population lives off marginal land at risk of being degraded by annual grain production. Perennial grains, say the paper’s authors, expand farmers’ ability to sustain the ecological underpinnings of their crops.

“People talk about food security,” said Reganold. “That’s only half the issue. We need to talk about both food and ecosystem security.”

Read the full article at 7th Space

In a remote Thai village, a 24-year-old New Jersey man named Bennett Haynes farms rice and vegetables. But Haynes also plays a more sinister role: in a recent farming folk opera about rice, he’s been cast by villagers in the part of sticky rice #6. This type of rice is an “improved” variety—a commodity crop sold by seed companies—that has supplanted local varieties.

In the opera, Haynes’s evil character wanders the countryside, stealing the hardy brown and black grains sown for centuries and infecting the paddies with his own seed. Sticky rice #6 is white, and so is Bennett, which makes the audience chuckle.

It is difficult to downplay the significance of this crop in this part of Southeast Asia. Sticky rice is the staple of the Isaan and Lao diet. It is eaten at every single meal, plucked from rattan baskets and rolled into dense balls between fingertips. The rice then becomes utensil—used to soak up simple curries, spicy dips, or sour salads of herbs and chewy meat. But some argue against the industrialized model that produces this staple crop. Many farmers here are in debt. Alcoholism is rampant, as farmers become idle during the dry season. And the region’s political discontent has raged all the way down to Bangkok. Upcountry Thai farmers are not faring well.

Read the full story

PHNOM PENH, March 5 (NNN-AKP) — The number of organic farmers producing crops in Cambodia is growing thanks to efforts aimed at training agricultural worker in organic farming techniques.

The number of organic farmers registered with the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC) reached 61 in 2009, up from just five in 2004 when the centre started to train farmers in the use of natural fertilizers.

Organic produce amounted to just 30 tons in 2009, according to CEDAC, which helps farmers earn a fair price for their produce at five shops in Phnom Penh and another located in Preah Sihanouk city.

Read the full story

The quality of China’s overworked, polluted and artificially fertilised soil needs to be protected or the country could struggle to grow enough crops for the 300 million to 400 million people who will move from the countryside to the city over the next 30 years, a senior government adviser warned today.

Han Jun, an expert on rural policy at the Development Research Centre, said maintaining food security was a major challenge in the process of urbanisation as farmers moved off their fields and into cities, where the consumption of meat, grain and diary products was higher.

In the next three decades, he predicted the share of urban residents in China’s population would rise from 47% to 75%, which would require the clearance of land for residences, roads and other infrastructure.

Noting that China feeds 22% of the world population with only 10% of the planet’s arable land, he said the pressure was growing.

Read the full story at guardian.co.uk

SOHIAN, India—India’s Green Revolution is withering.

In the 1970s, India dramatically increased food production, finally allowing this giant country to feed itself. But government efforts to continue that miracle by encouraging farmers to use fertilizers have backfired, forcing the country to expand its reliance on imported food.

India has been providing farmers with heavily subsidized fertilizer for more than three decades. The overuse of one type—urea—is so degrading the soil that yields on some crops are falling and import levels are rising. So are food prices, which jumped 19% last year. The country now produces less rice per hectare than its far poorer neighbors: Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Agriculture’s decline is emerging as one of the hottest political issues in the world’s biggest democracy.

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal

Bali provincial administration is currently developing 40 integrated farming locations with Rp 8 billion *US$860,125* in funds from the provincial 2010 budget.

Made Putra Suryawan, head of Bali Agriculture office, said such integrated farming development was a breakthrough that would accelerate the integration of new farming technology with traditional farming systems.

The new technology would allow farmers to combine their planting systems, growing major food commodities like rice, corn and soy within one specific location.

“Farmers can grow various types of productive food commodities and raising poultry or cattle would increase farmers’ revenues.”

Farmers would also have easier access to micro-finance institution and marketing of their products.

The technology re-introduces farmers to the organic farming system, long forgotten by the locals.

Read the full story at The Jakarta Post