Nutrient-Rich Farming


Many small-holder farmers in developing countries grow crops in such degraded soils that they struggle to make a living. Often, the farmers themselves and their families, which usually eat what they grow, are malnourished. This state of affairs is not sustainable; the underlying agricultural model helps neither the farmers nor the world.

One promising alternative, identified as a trend in Ashoka’s three-year initiative on rural innovation and farming, focuses on techniques that enable farmers to create nutrient-rich landscapes, crops, and people. These new approaches put previously absent knowledge in the hands of the farmers: knowledge about agricultural and other markets for products they might produce; about cropping techniques and alternatives; and about trends and threats in their surrounding ecosystems, including watershed and weather scenarios and nutrient capacity.  And they empower farmers to make their own choices about the tools, financing and other resources they might use.

farm

Some regenerative farming models also employ farmer-to-farmer learning systems, new appropriate-scale farm supply shops, or advanced fertilizer and land management techniques. The most powerful examples go even further, adding unconventional business and organizing models which combine market and cropping and ecosystem intelligence, unconventional financing, and other resources for the farmers themselves.

What is apparent is a consistent shift towards more intelligent management by the farmer, not only of the farm but also of the surrounding landscape, reflecting maintenance and sometimes growth in nutrient cycles as they enrich soils, foods, farmer and community health, and profits. These new small-scale agricultural models enable farmers to decide for themselves what to grow and how to grow it, breaking cycles of dependency on external direction and external markets. They help farmers gain the knowledge to improve the well-being of their families and communities, while also restoring the capacity of soils and local environments to serve as nutrient banks.