To what extent can Sustainable Dryland Agriculture contribute to global food security?
Food Security is the ability for peoples to have consistent and sufficient access to healthy nutrition. To answer this question about Sustainable Agriculture, let us consider the following sub-questions…
Is Sustainable Dryland Agriculture insufficient for addressing food security issues because of low biological productivity?
Not so. Productivity does not determine the sustainability of agricultural exploitation, this is determined by the percentage harvested versus resources returned and conserved. Even in a low productivity environment returning adequate resources to the soil will allow continuous exploitation at constant or increasing yields. Dry ecosystem productivity can easily be boosted by intercropping with adequate soil improving trees or shrubs that can recover moisture and nutrients from deep soil and produce a protective layer of nutrient rich leaf litter.
In the Hura area, considered a desert by many, restored silvipasture systems can yield several tons of fresh fodder, and two tons of wood per hectare and year, enough to feed two sheep or goats per hectare. Such soil and ecosystem rehabilitation processes can enhance food and fodder productivity up to ten-fold without application of irrigation and synthetic fertilizers. Beyond enhanced productivity, such rehabilitation also results in very significant carbon sequestration to mitigate global warming. In this respect dryland rehabilitation for enhanced farm productivity can be considered an advanced, carbon negative mitigation strategy of global significance that is capable of addressing the emerging global food, land, water and resource scarcities.
Can Drylands produce huge amounts of food and bio-products when properly managed?
Absolutely! The world’s drylands cover some 50 million square kilometers or about 1/3 of earth’s land surface. The majority of those areas are partly or severely degraded, meaning that biological and agricultural productivity are significantly impaired. A wide range of restoration technologies have been successfully applied, including planting of soil improving trees or shrubs, application of manure and establishment of dams or terraces for water harvesting.
Even a fraction of such restored drylands can provide additional billions of tons of valuable food, fodder and biomass in a highly sustainable way while restoring soil quality and sequestering carbon dioxide back into biomass and soil. Consequently a decisive dryland restoration program will significantly enhance food security and mitigate global warming.
Do drylands areas still undergo degradation when used for agriculture?
Well that depends, as current dryland farming technologies especially in the Negev are highly damaging to soil and ecology. Soil tilling in drylands reduces soil fertility and soil organic matter content, and leads to enhanced wind and water erosion. The worst practice is temporary intensive exploitation and subsequent abandonment and moving to new plots that must be avoided at all cost.
Grazing is managed at an intensity causing complete vegetation removal inducing significant loss of soil fertility and biodiversity, a paradox as it actually damages the farmers own economic prospects. As a result of ongoing tilling and overgrazing the Northern Negev is largely degraded.
High-Yielding Permaculture Pasture, improved with specialized techniques
On the other hand, sustainable farming technologies have been demonstrated in the Negev and other drylands worldwide. Restoration is possible by careful management of grazing intensities or no till agriculture, significantly enhancing soil quality and productivity, and by silvipasture and agroforestry technologies that have been applied for thousands of years sustainably in Southern Israel. If intensive agriculture is chosen it must be designed from the beginning for sustainability, specifically by avoiding soil salinization, soil compaction, erosion, and loss of biodiversity.
How does agroforestry or Permaculture facilitate Sustainable Dryland Agriculture? Can this be done utilizing a wide range of dryland fruit trees?
In fact, only Permaculture and agroforestry permit sustainable continuous agricultural exploitation of marginal, rocky, sloped plots characteristic of periodically dry areas. A large number of dryland trees are able to grow and produce fruit or high value oils under semi-arid and even arid conditions, especially when planted in terrace or liman agroforestry systems. Such systems furthermore contribute to soil and biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration.
Elephant harvesting Marula fruit in Southern Africa
Almond, Carob, Figs, Olives, Dates, Grapes and Pomegranates have been the basis of survival and successful farming in Israel and the Negev for thousands of years as expressed in folklore and religious tradition. The traditional “Bustan” – the dry partly irrigated agroforestry orchard, has supported long-term sustainable farming communities in the Middle East for thousands of years.
In other areas wild or only recently domesticated species such as Marula, Ziziphus, Pistacia, Moringa and Prosopis similarly provide essential nutrition in most drylands around the world.
Establishment of such edible dry woodland areas on degraded drylands today can probably be considered the most advanced sustainable dryland agricultural technology available for providing the widest range of ecosystem services available. This potential requires further optimization by careful strain selection and breeding, species composition and maintenance, water harvesting technologies and soil conservation measures. While much domestication work has been performed with Mediterranean species, other wild fruit species of high economic production potential (such as Argan or Marula), have yet to be optimized for high fruit or oil yield, taste, growth, drought resilience and pest resistance.
Project Wadi Attir has established a whole number of such agroforestry orchards that are expected to provide further insight into the productive potentials, challenges and opportunities of various dryland farming technologies.
Goats browsing of Argan trees in North-West Africa
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To what extent can Sustainable Dryland Agriculture contribute to global food security?
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