Only Reconnect - Agri-culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature - page 113

The vegetable season lasts 32 weeks from June to February or March. Over
the years, Tim and Jan have increased the number of species grown from
20 to 60, and found that the farm seemed to benefit from this. Among
other things there seemed to be better stocks of predators to control pests.
Moreover, all customers live within 6 kilometres of the farm. Most
importantly for the Deanes, they receive all of the food pound, and they
make more money this way. Jan again says: 'We more than doubled the profitability
of the farm and for the first time found ourselves on a secure financial footing.'
Northwood Farm has gone on to become the prototype of the box and
community-supported agriculture schemes that have developed so
successfully in the UK during the last decade.
Systems of Sustainable Agriculture
One reason for this sharply falling share of the food pound is modern
farming's increased dependence on purchased inputs and technologies. In
the latter part of the 20th century, external inputs of pesticides, inorganic
fertilizer, animal feedstuffs, energy, tractors and other machinery have
become the main means to increase food production. These external
inputs, though, have substituted for free natural-control processes and
resources, rendering them more vulnerable. Pesticides have replaced
biological, cultural and mechanical methods of controlling pests, weeds
and diseases. Inorganic fertilizers have substituted for livestock manures,
composts, nitrogen-fixing crops and fertile soils. What were once valued
local resources have all too often become waste products. These changes
would represent a major problem if alternatives did not exist. Now they
do. Sustainable agriculture technologies do two important things. They
conserve existing on-farm resources, such as nutrients, predators, water
or soil; and they introduce new elements into the farming system that add
to the stocks of these resources, such as nitrogen-fixing crops, water-
harvesting structures or new predators. These then substitute for some or
all of the external inputs.
Many of the individual technologies are multifunctional, and their
adoption results, simultaneously, in favourable changes in several aspects
of farm systems. For example, hedgerows encourage wildlife and predators
and act as windbreaks, thereby reducing soil erosion. Legumes in rotations
fix nitrogen, and also act as a break crop to prevent carry-over of pests
and diseases. Clovers in pastures reduce fertilizer bills and lift sward
digestibility for cattle. Grass contour strips slow surface run-off of water,
encourage percolation to groundwater, and are a source of fodder for
livestock. Catch crops prevent soil erosion and leaching during critical