ANRA:Textbook:Problems Farming
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Problems Associated with Farming
By Sion Ju'un, ranger of Pelar, Shemathan Le'yeritath
Introduction:
There are three outstanding problems associated with dryland farming. First, shortages in precipitation (though I suspect this isn't the case of M'Chek), retention of surface water and ground water. Second, infertility of soil. Third, monotonous crop structure: mostly annuals and cereal crops are planted for cash and food. I have not seen much of M'chek, but from observation of areas around Blandenberg, these three problems the are main cause of poor food production.
Thus objectives for the improvement of dryland agriculture are as follows: to enhance moisture retention capacity of the soil and retain rainfall; to improve soil fertility; to change farming practices and make full use of resources like light, soil, fertilizer, water and better crops to increase yield and agricultural productivity in the dryland.
Ch 1. Water supply:
In most drylands, lack of moisture holdning capacity of soil is major problem in sustaining healthy soil.Possible solutions are as follows.
1. Mulching:
This refers to mulching with crop residue, or with film of water retaining substance. It can reduce moisture evaporation, increase moisture retention capacity of the soil, alleviate the threat of drought and improve water use efficiency. Mulching with crop residue features easily accessible material, low cost, high efficiency, water saving, moisture retention, fertility enhancement, yield increase and no contamination to soil. It can increase moisture retention rate by 30-50% and increase water supply.
2. Water cisterns:
This measure is meant to build water cisterns to collect rainfall as supplementary irrigation water. In slope land and terrace land, water retention works will be built to collect natural rainfall as supplementary irrigation water for agriculture. In case of serious drought, such water can be used for drip irrigation to increase soil moisture. Due to limited water volume, such measure should be used together with other water-saving measures.
3. Terracing:
This measure is meant to build slope land with an angle less than 25 degrees into contour terrace. Slope land with an angle of 10-25 degrees is susceptible to soil erosion due to large angle, frequent farming activities and high cultivation, particularly improper farming practices. Slope land with an angle of 6-10 degrees will be improved to plant crops along the contour using trench culture with 1/2 meter deep and 1 meter wide trench or ridge culture featuring three-dimensional farming apporaches with improved soil so as to conserve soil and water, improve soil fertility and facilitate sustainable development.
Ch 2. Fertilization:
Besides drought, another factor constraining productivity in dryland farming area is soil infertility.The main measure to combat this problems include:
1. Green fertilizer crops:
To establish rational and effective dryland farming structure, by increasing the percentage of legume and green fertilizer crops and combine farming with fertility improvement. The key is to adopt a grain crop and summer green fertilizer rotation system or grain-oilseed-legume rotation system as well as other farming models like grain-legume and grain-grass intercroppig and wheat-potato intercropping in order to fully use natural resources like light, heat and water to achieve yield and income increase.
2. Deep Tillage:
This refers to deep ploughing by magical or mechanical means. Through deep ploughing, we can break the subarable layer without disturbing surface soil layer so as to improve soil ventilation and rainfall retention capacity.
3. Pasturage-agriculture interlacing:
Using crop rotation system in conjunction with pasturage, you can further increase fertility of the farming land. By letting the land rest for one-two year period after grain-oilseed by planting pasture crop and making it grazing land. One can increase the fertility by returning nutrients to the land, by way of animal droppings.