Well some people are probably very envious of Nitin Amersey …

Barbados lost money and reputation in this deal. It would be nice if the Government would clear the air with a statement on this issue.

These cases take many years. What happens today could be decided in court 10 years later. This is why, in our view, it is necessary to dig up old issues.

Br. Paul’s Organic Cotton and Vegetable Farm

Brother Paul Desmarais of the Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre of Lusaka in Zambia is a happy man. He has just demonstrated that cotton can be grown organically, and furthermore, at yields up to more than twice the national average. That is quite an achievement as cotton is notorious for consuming the most agrochemicals of any crop, some 21 percent of that consumed worldwide; and most people have been led to believe that cotton cannot be grown without chemical sprays.

“I am confident that anyone can grow cotton organically in Zambia”, says Br. Paul, beaming from ear to ear. You need to do only two things: increase the fertility of the soil with organic matter, and put extra local plant species into the cotton fields to control insect pests.”

Plants that are sick or doing poorly will be the first to succumb to insect pests; so keeping a crop healthy with fertile soil reduces insect attacks.

The species inter-planted with the cotton crop are those that attract pests away from the cotton crop or beneficial predators, or provide home for beneficial predators; many species serving both purposes. For example, munsale (sweet sorghum) attracts bollworm and aphids as well as a host of beneficial insects; nyemba (cowpeas) provides a habitat and food source for ants and predatory wasps, and also attracts the pests leafhoppers, aphids and bollworms; sanyembe (sunhemp) is highly attractive to beneficial insects as a border crop and controls nematodes as well. Delele (okra) attracts bollworms, caterpillars and leaf eaters; milisi (maize) traps aphids on tassels and bollworms; mupilu (mustard) attracts beneficial hover flies and parasitic wasps as well as aphids on which they feed. Malanga (sunflower) attracts bollworm moths to lay eggs, and the beneficial lacewings that feed on aphids. A horizontal row containing a mixture of all these were planted for every 20 rows of cotton in the field bordered by sunnhemp on two sides. A host of other species can be planted, adding to the diversity of the farm. A variety of trees, such as Sesbania , Leucaena , and other indigenous species can act as windbreaks and provide habitat for farmers’ friends and provide material for composting and making teas.

SNIP

Br. Paul majored in plant pathology while studying for his agricultural degree, his studies were focussed on the Green Revolution. He confesses, “When I came to Zambia, I naively thought that I would change things here. During the first 15 years, I promoted the use of fertiliser, chemical spraying in the vegetable gardens and using hybrid seed. It finally dawned on me that we were not going anywhere. Every year farmers were asking for loans to buy seed and fertiliser. Farmers made some money on maize production in only two years out of those 15 years.”

As he looked round, he realized it was not only at Kasisi and in Zambia, or Latin America that farmers were doing poorly. It was the same in Europe and North America. “In North America, farmers I knew personally have gone bankrupt. They would have been considered role-model farmers, doing everything according to the advice given by the government agricultural extension officers and agricultural universities. But they went bankrupt and lost their farms. The excuse offered was that inefficient farmers were being weeded out.”

SNIP

In the 1980s, someone suggested to Br. Paul that he should look at organic agriculture, but he thought it was strictly for a small left-wing group who had enough money to pay for this type of farming. Nevertheless when he returned for home leave in Canada in 1988, he visited organic farmers, and found them to be successful. He studied the principles of organic agriculture in Ontario and adapted them to the situation in Zambia, and has never looked back.

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/BrPaulsOrganicFarm.php

Allen Taylor