Farmer’s diary: Some simple steps to boost production

Most of what is needed to improve national agricultural production depends on individual farmers’ choices. For instance, we can choose to change our attitude towards farming and consider it as a dignified and well-paying occupation. Even when after toiling in the garden, we do not sell the crops for cash but we have them for our own food. This is by itself highly rewarding.

We can choose to change our thinking about environment management and begin to treat the soil differently by constantly adding natural nutrients to it such as grass and animal excreta. The leaves from trees or slashed grass in our compounds as well as the weeds in the garden itself can be used as mulch to improve the quality of the soil.

Good choices
We can also choose to guard against soil erosion and take all the necessary measures such as planting rows of grass across steep slopes in our gardens.
Another important choice we can make is to plant improved seed recommended by agriculturalists instead of sticking to old fashioned practices like planting preserved seeds from our own previous harvest.

Improved seeds are the result of careful scientific research and are known to mature quickly, to give higher yields, and to be resistant to disease and tolerant to drought.
Yet another good choice is to keep improved animal stock. Sticking to less productive animal or bird stock merely out of the fear to take risks--given their alleged susceptibility to disease, only serves to keep us in poverty as we watch the better off farmers keeping them and getting richer as we grow poorer.

Ours to make
Certainly, this choice involves financial considerations but we know of several farmers who deliberately throw away the chance of keeping improved animals even when they are offered to them by the government or NGOs.

We may choose to trap rainwater and use it for watering animals and crops in the dry season.
We can also reduce post-harvest losses by using improved food storage facilities like refrigeration and embrace food processing and preservation technologies like solar drying of fruits. The choices are ours to make.

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