Holistic land management has begun to take root in South Africa, reports Belinda Anderson
Every year, almost 400-million tons of precious South African topsoil are washed into dams and rivers by inefficient management techniques.
It is estimated that by the year 2020 all of South Africa’s dams will be silted up.
The government attributes erosion to overgrazing of the land, and its solution is to destock farmlands and fence off areas large enough to sustain a certain number of animals per hectare.
But, while these conventional land management techniques continue to treat the symptoms, “holistic” management practices are slowly taking root around the country.
The passionate practitioners of this approach claim they are finding lasting solutions to age-old problems.
Klipdrift farm in the arid Graaff-Reinet district of the Karoo is one of the oldest holistically managed farms in South Africa.
Despite receiving just 350mm of annual rainfall Klipdrift manager, Sholto Kroon, says he has turned conventional wisdom on its head by increasing the size of his herds. He has achieved this by breaking the farm up into smaller camps and by combining a greater number of smaller herds.
He argues that careful management techniques have resulted in a denser, more fertilised ground coverage, preventing water from running off the land by retaining it.
The animals are moved around regularly and, while the smaller camps suffer “catastrophic impact” from grazing herds in the short term, the land is able to regenerate with time, aided by a large amount of natural fertilisation supplied by animal dung.
But, implementation is more than this. It also involves a change in mindset and a focus on goal-setting and monitoring the progress of the land and animals, bearing in mind that the land is finite and must be protected for future generations.
“During colonialism, the life expectancy of a piece of land was three years. Now, one can’t just move on.
“We don’t own the land, we just lease it from our children,” says Kroon.
Practitioners agree that although holistic management may be the only long-term solution, it will not be implemented on a larger scale unless there is a change in mindset and a focus on the resource base, the source of all life. In other words, conservation must begin, literally, at grassroots level.
Meanwhile, Johan Kock, acting director of infrastructure at the Eastern Cape Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs, says that government’s land management strategy is still based on a formula that takes into account the land’s carrying capacity.
“But,” asks Dr Peter Ardington, a KwaZulu-Natal farmer and veterinary surgeon, “if conventional methods were really where it’s at, then why is my country washing away?”
Farmers like Ardington complain that in the past government officials have determined the carrying capacity of each farm from the strategic position of a car window.
In the Eastern Cape, R15-million is spent annually on agricultural infrastructure – an estimated R477-million is required to set up erosion structures alone. “Nearly nothing is being done about erosion because the government simply does not have the money,” said Koch.
Understandably, the government has other priorities.
During apartheid, when white farmers constituted a great number of voters for the National Party, money was made available for infrastructural development. In a farming area just outside Graaff-Reinet, huge walls were built to stop water running off the farms. However, the problem persists today, despite infrastructure supposedly aimed at preventing the problem.
Holistic farming techniques are based on the principles enshrined in a book by Allan Savory, entitled Holistic Resource Management. These principles have been distilled into a nine-day course run by educator Dick Richardson in Johannesburg and others experienced in holistic management around the country.
Savory, Rhodesian-born and currently living in the United States, flew to Zimbabwe last week after receiving an invitation to work with President Robert Mugabe to revise the country’s plans for land redistribution.
The Zimbabwean land crisis will also be the topic of discussion at a day workshop to be held directly after the second annual holistic management conference in Bloemfontein in May.
Participants at the conference will include Savory and Richardson, as well as trainers from Australia, Namibia, and Zimbabwe.
Roland Kroon, head of the Graaff-Reinet Holistic Management club, says he and his brother, Sholto, had spent years trying to gain the attention of government.
Despite receiving no support for research, Richardson says 330 people had been through the course in the last two and a half years and at least 400 South Africans could be considered “practising holistic managers”.
The problem with the movement is that it is difficult to subject to scientific testing.
Holistic managers look at the land as a whole, presuming that nature as an ecosystem cannot be broken apart into components and each treated in isolation of each other.
Farm management must involve foresight as to how each decision is affecting the land, the animals, the organisms such as ants and dung beetles that are an integral part of the land, as well as the financial well-being of the farmer.
According to Eastern Cape farmer, Reg Bowker “holism is about lateral thinking”.
“Nature is made up of many parts. Humans want to break things up to understand them. However, if one thing is missing, there will be no synergism.”
He argues for a paradigm shift away from the systemic, isolated approach of science, to a more integrated approach.
And, says Roland Kroon, this does not require a university degree: “In order to save the world we need a management process that does not require a degree to apply because the fate of the world lies in the hands of so many people who live from hand to mouth – it has got to come from the people.” – DMA
ENDS