If you have no earthworms in your soil, that soil is dead.
I used to be tomato farmer before but the conventional farming model was just not working for me. I did some research and realised that I actually needed to rethink the way I viewed soil.
The soil I was working with at the time had all this rubble and gemors in it. We spent about three months cleaning all that stuff from the soil and, you know, in that time we found not one earthworm. Not one. And if you have no earthworms in your soil, that soil is dead.
Once we cleaned it up and after planting some cover crops, a wonderful thing happened. It was like a miracle. We started seeing life: birds, bees and, of course, earthworms. It was then that we knew we were doing something right.
You know, a lot of these methods we think are new have actually been around for a long, long time. Nature has its own way of operating but, as humans, we tend to come in with our way of doing things and completely screw things up.
The more traditional ways of farming are very in tune with nature. And one of the best things about the method we now use is that it helps the soil retain water, so we use less water … much, much less water.
In this water crisis, the biggest problem is water demand. And the agricultural sector is a big, big user of water. If we all just changed our methodology to one that is agro-ecological, which mimics nature, we could save up to 70% of our water consumption.
I mean, if you look at households, people are doing all these various things to try to save water. But it’s important that all the various role-players do their bit. And the agriculture industry has a huge, huge responsibility to help us save water. – Nazeer Sonday, 55, emerging farmer, as told to Carl Collison, the Other Foundation’s Rainbow Fellow at the Mail & Guardian