Forest Farm Husbandry

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Forest Farm HusbandryBy Matthew FeddenPractical Action Publishing LtdCopyright © 1988 Intermediate Technology PublicationsAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-1-85339-006-7Contents1 The Case for Minimum Tillage and Alley Cropping in the Forest Zone of Ghana, 1, 2 Soil Fertility, 5, 3 Weed Control, 11, 4 Using Chemicals on the Farm, 15, 5 The Practice of Minimum Tillage, 25, 6 Practising Alley Cropping, 35, 7 Disease and Pest Management, 43, 8 Storage of Cowpeas and Maize, 55, 9 Book keeping, Cash Flow and Raising a Loan, 62, Appendix 1 Compost Making, 65, Appendix 2 Calibrating a Sprayer, 67, CHAPTER 1The Case for Minimum Tillage and Alley Cropping in the Forest Zone of GhanaWith her rapidly increasing population, one of Ghana's most pressing concerns has been, and will, for the foreseeable future, be the need to feed her people. Ghana's climate and soils have great productive potential and the need for food must be met from within. The problem is most serious in towns where access to land is limited and where the number of mouths to feed is greatest. Such a situation results in the land around towns being rapidly overused and depleted, forcing food production into remoter areas.By far the majority of farms in the forest zone of Ghana are smallholdings farmed with cutlass, hoe and a match. Because of the rate at which plants grow in Ghana, every farmer is fighting a constant battle against weeds which will otherwise choke the crop. This battle takes up great amounts of time during the growing season and, the larger the farm, the longer it will take. In practice the traditional cutlass and hoe farmer is severely limited in the area that can be cultivated by the need to control weed growth. The production capacity of a farmer is directly related to the area that can be cultivated. The traditional farmer operates a way of agriculture ideally suited to providing food for a small community well supplied with accessible land. It is an extensive system which grows crops for three or four years and then operates a fallow for considerably longer. It fails when the community becomes a town, as the scale of production is too great for both the agricultural system and the land. The fallow period is the first to suffer, and the soil rapidly becomes worn out through overcropping. The result is vast areas of exposed laterite and sparse scrub often seen surrounding towns. A temporary solution is for the farmer to farm more distant land. The distance travelled increases demands on the farmers time during the growing season, reducing productivity whilst spoiling more land. These then are the problems to which an appropriate solution is being sought.It was thought that mechanization offered a solution, increasing productivity at a stroke. Such a solution takes no account of the majority of Ghana's farmers: very few can afford a tractor. The resulting machinery compaction and tillage takes no account of the notoriously fragile nature of the soil, nor the numerous obstacles such as tree roots, which damage expensive machinery in the forest zone. Finally it relies on a good infrastructure to service and maintain the machinery. This is lacking in many parts of Ghana. It has some success further north in the Ghana midlands, these being more suited to mechanized tillage. These areas are a long way from the demand, and transport is expensive. The northern areas enjoy a less favourable growing climate and have lower potential yields than the forest zone.Minimum tillage is a widely used farming technique that can be adapted to provide a solution. It is based on the principle that the land should be disturbed as little as possible, neither ploughed nor hoed. Weeds are controlled by the use of chemicals and mulching. In the forest, chemical application is best done by one man with a relatively cheap knapsack sprayer, rather than a tractor-mounted unit. Dead weeds are left on the soil to provide a prote