Agricultural Systems and Food Security

Professor: Dr. Saltanat Mambetova

Student: Adnan Ali
Assignment: Reflection paper 2

Living Soil:
Living soil narrates the stories of farmers who are have been engaged with agriculture and
understand the importance of the fundamental component of farming, Soil. Healthy soil has
always been the focus of the farmers and they synchronize their agricultural practices according
to their soil condition but the real needs for a soil to be healthy in long term is missing in
mainstream education. This documentary started with implying the shear importance of
biological factor in the soil and how essential it is in providing nitrogen. We all know that how
nitrites are fixed into nitrates by nitrifying bacteria and how plants take nitrates through
assimilation. It is the biological factor present in the soil that makes it possible and without it,
soil gradually degrades. Some farmers from the documentary do realize its importance and so
have come up with different techniques that encourages the presence of an optimum amount of
biological component in the soil. One local farmer from Indiana commented with a stress on
symbiotic relation between soil and humans. He stated, “Soil is a breathing system, sometimes
we have to feed it a little bit for it to feed us. It is like a relationship”. This farmer was very true
and so the only question was how to feed it? As we investigate the conventional agricultural
practices, we can find different chemical fertilizer, chemical pesticides, herbicides, and
insecticides that promise us a well yielding soil but is it good for the soil in long terms? Many of
the farmers are aware that the chemical products are good for short term but can be lethal for
long term and so they started practicing non-conventional methods which have both long term
and short-term benefits. One of these methods is cover crops. Cover crops are plants that are
cultivated just to cover the land in times of no cash crop cultivation. One can grow legumes or
other edible cover crops, but the farmers argue it to be not worth it because the whole point is to
recycle nutrient back into the soil. But the most important reason for cover crops is to sustain soil
because it inhibits soil erosion and manages soil fertility, soil quality, and water. Another
important technique some US farmers practice is no-tilling farming. It is an agricultural
technique for growing crops without disturbing the soil through tillage. Cover crops as discussed
above is an example of it. Crop rotation and free-range livestock also comes under no-tilling.
There are many good sides to it as it reduces soil erosion, fuel expenses (tractors for tillage),
sustains soil moisture and its structure and provides it with essential biological factors. No-tillage
have disadvantages too, but the pros simply overweight them.

In the end, if we understand and compare the techniques from the documentary to Central Asian
context, we get mixed results. Central Asian farmers do sometime engage free-range livestock to
graze over their agricultural land in times of no cultivation, which provides their land with
organic fertilizers. There is however one practice which I believe is bad to soils and that is tilling
farming. A number of farmers in Central Asia, specifically Tajikistan, are dependent on tilling
but we know that Tajikistan is 93% mountainous and so, the climate is subtropical to semiarid to
arid. This means that soil is more prone to erosion from both wind and water. With tillage we
disturb the soil structure and make it vulnerable for the soil particles to detach. Moreover, due to
less rainfall in the region, soil moisture is of an essence but with tillage soil moisture gets
evaporated very easily. In short, soils have different compositions and properties depending on
its geographical setting but there are some common techniques that promises to benefit farmer
and soil in both long and short term. The only obstacle is that these knowledges are not
widespread and that’s where policymakers should come forward and play their role.