Food is a universal language that anyone can speak or experience irrespective of location. Nature (environment) rewards the farmers who till the soil, plant the seeds and maintain his or her pride to produce food that meet the needs of the people.
However, the reward for farmers should not be limited to just food production. The focus should also be on preserving nature and maintaining a healthy environment, alongside food production.
Therefore, it is important that farmers employ good practices that are environment friendly to produce food and promote sustainable agriculture in all aspects of production activities.
Resources such as water, soil, soil micro-organisms, pollinators (bees), air amongst others are important assets of nature to agriculture. Water is taken up by crop , air (in the form of oxygen) is used in food production, soil and soil organisms support mineralization and release nutrients to be uptaken by the roots. Therefore, farmers need to be encouraged to embrace practices that are devoid of overexploitation of these resources, overuse of the soil without replenishing, the use of harmful chemicals to destroy pollinators and natural habitat (ecological structures and elements) amongst others.
In other words, we need to encourage sustainable agricultural practices in our production activities to increase and provide alternative livelihood for the farmers. In promoting sustainable agriculture (healthy environment and biodiversity are by-products), we encourage planting trees or rehabilitation of trees ( especially native trees), avoid bush burning, promotion of inter cropping or alley cropping, crop rotation, adoption of integrated pest management (IPM), the use of rain water harvesting method as alternative source of irrigation water, measures in place to stop indiscriminate hunting among others.
It is expedient that we consciously preserve the environment by assessing the impact of numerous farming activities in the environment and put measures in place to reduce the negative impact. This is because we cannot achieve food security when the environment and its resources are being threatened.
We need to enlighten our farmers on the importance of the environment and its resources to increase agricultural productivity, and we need to promote the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices which are economically viable, environmental friendly and socially acceptable. We all must be involved in ensuring that agriculture becomes a sustainable means to achieving economic and environmental prosperity for today and the future generations.
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