Unfortunately, one lesson we learned was that the maintenance and operating demands of mechanized farming aren’t always practical in this region. South Africa is much more developed than most other African countries, yet we had so much trouble getting simple replacement parts for equipment, that when I heard about friends or business colleagues traveling to South Africa, I sometimes asked if they would mind packing tractor parts in their suitcases. Clearly, that was not a sustainable supply chain!
We have had some important successes at Ukulima, particularly in developing improved seed varieties suited to different African climates and soils, as well as other conservation-based practices. But we are further expanding some of this research, and have shipped some of the agricultural equipment back to the US to our new research farm in Arizona.
In South Africa, there were times when our mechanical equipment for fertilizing or picking corn would break, and we had to finish the job with human labor before we could get replacement parts. Photo: Howard G. Buffett
However, there is a smaller, sturdy, low-tech implement also parked in the Ukulima shed that we are starting to believe may have more potential, pound for pound, to help poor, fragile farmers feed their families than big tractors and planters can. It’s not fancy or shiny, and our guys welded modifications to the original design themselves. You will not find it on a farm equipment dealer’s lot. I suspect many US corn or soybean farmers would not even know what it is.
It’s called a roller crimper, and it looks like an oversized kitchen rolling pin with a raised-pattern surface. If this research plays out as I hope it will, it’s a chance for us to show global agricultural companies that it can be worthwhile to create products for the millions of smallholder farmers in addition to expensive, high-powered systems used on large industrial farms.
The roller crimper at Ukulima is a heavy metal tube about two feet in diameter and five feet long, with distinct ridges that run along its entire surface length in an elongated chevron pattern. It has a frame welded to each end of the axle that meets back at a bar connected to a pair of tires, and then a metal shaft extends forward about six feet. We hitch a yoked ox team on either side of that shaft. The animals walk forward, and the tube rolls on its axle. If you stand behind the team as it walks over sandy dirt, you’ll see the chevron pattern on the ground an inch or two deep.
The roller crimper we are working with at Ukulima is one of the simplest yet most effective tools for conservation systems because it kills cover crops without chemicals. Photo: Tim LaSalle
As the oxen walk forward into an area of a field with grasses or weeds a foot or more high, the plant stalks get flattened. If you looked closely at the individual stalks, you would discover that many have broken every seven or eight inches, where the blade edge of the ridges hit them. That breakage will disrupt the stalk’s ability to transport water, keep it flattened, and kill the plant.
What is the value of killing a plant like this?
The answer is that we don’t use the device on the food crop, but on cover crops. Cover crops are a vital element of good soil conservation practices. Many, such as hairy vetch, clover, or rye grass, fix nitrogen in the soil, increase organic matter, and hold the soil in place even in rain and wind. However, what do you do with these plants when it’s time to plant your actual crop? You don’t want tall cover crop plants shading the new crop seedlings or competing for scarce water and fertilizer.
So, the first benefit of the roller crimper is that it flattens and kills those cover crops. That process creates a natural mulch that decays and adds organic matter to the soil. The other benefit involves weeds. Weeds are never your friend in farming. They compete with young plants for nutrients, sunlight, and water. If you plow soil, you bury some weeds, but you also germinate new ones, and a plowed field exposes those young weeds to the sunlight that makes them grow. The matted mulch the roller crimper creates retards weed growth by not allowing sunlight to reach the weed seeds. Meanwhile, when you plant your crop seeds using a no-till approach, you don’t plow: instead, you slice through the mat and drop the seed in it. The opening created is just large enough to encourage the crop’s germination and early growth, without also encouraging weed growth. And in the intense heat of much of Africa, the mulch helps the soil retain moisture and stay cooler, which also helps the planted crop.
THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF “ORGANIC” FARMING
I first saw a roller crimper in 2009 when I visited an organic-farming research farm in Pennsylvania called the Rodale Institute. I read in a magazine that Rodale had achieved 220 bushels of corn per acre using entirely organic methods, and I had to see that for myself. While I consider myself a conservation-oriented farmer, I am not an “organic” farmer. I’ve mentioned that I don’t agree that farmers should abandon synthetic chemicals and genetically modified seeds. I’m not opposed to organic farming for philosophical or political reasons, but, for practical and technical reasons, I don’t think the world can reasonably embrace it to feed billions of people. Organic farming is more labor intensive and complex, and, on a large scale, less efficient for staple food crops such as corn, wheat, and soybeans. I believe we will make a meaningful impact on global hunger only if we continue to improve yields of those staples at every level of farming, from the largest mechanized farms to the small plots of subsistence farmers.
In my opinion, the most critical technical problem that no one has solved yet is that natural manure fertilizers are less efficient at providing nitrogen by volume, and there is a geographic challenge in having sufficient amounts of the fertilizer where it is needed. Technology advances are making herbicide and fertilizer applications more efficient with less excess in the environment, but it is currently impossible to produce with organic systems the yields the world needs. I also feel that the advantages of genetically modified seeds and appropriate herbicide use enable no-till soil conservation farming to succeed, which far outweigh their drawbacks. Soil conservation advantages of no-till are so paramount to me that this is where I focus my attention. No one has been successful making continuous, no-till organic farming work at a commercial scale.
But I am open to any idea that makes no-till farming more productive. And that’s how I ended up at Rodale. I called the then-CEO, a scientist named Tim LaSalle, and asked if I could visit the institute and see how it managed to get such good yields in an organic system. He showed me a number of innovations, but the one that caught my eye was a fifteen-foot roller crimper they had tested, which they had mounted on the front of a tractor that pulled a four-row planter behind it. Creating a mulch mat from a cover crop was innovative. The method also saved some steps by knocking down the cover crop, creating the mulch, and planting in one pass, and eliminating the need for synthetic fertilizer and herbicide. I could see that this implement had something to offer both environmentally and economically.
My first thought: “I wonder if we could make one much bigger that could work on large-scale farms.” Tim connected me with a man named Jake, who made Rodale’s roller crimper. I asked him to build me one twice as long. Months went by, and I heard very little; I kept calling and emailing, and Jake stopped responding. When we finally reached him, he said, “There was no point in answering your emails; we can build it, but it won’t work.” But Jake connected me with a farmer for whom he had tried to build a similar device a few years earlier. I called him, and he listed problem after problem he had run up against trying to make such a wide, heavy implement that could be mounted on the front of a tractor. So I asked Jake to make me a version that we could pull behind the tractor instead. We bought one for South Africa and another for our Illinois farms.
This larger roller crimper, also at work in South Africa, is pulled by a tractor. We are exploring how this technology might be implemented in large-scale conservation farming systems in both Africa and the US. Photo: Tim LaSalle
One challenge in the original Rodale design was that the planter had to be the same width and be pulled directly
behind the roller crimper to make sure the seeds were going into the proper row alignment with the matted cover crop. However, as GPS-based steering became the norm, we realized we did not have to roll, crimp, and plant in the same pass. By setting the GPS, we could pull the roller crimper behind the tractor, and then just come behind that with the planter and be sure we were in the precise alignment we wanted. We tested this technique on the thirty-foot roller crimper, and it worked perfectly, smashing down the black-oats cover crop and creating a mulch we could slice through to plant. I then convinced John Deere to adapt a twenty-four-row tool bar to handle a sixty-foot roller crimper, which Jake has modified. We used it for the first time in the spring of 2013. If we get the results we are hoping for, our research and development could provide more efficient and sustainable conservation-based approaches for large-scale farmers anywhere in the world.
But back to the five-footer at Ukulima, because no-till on smallholder farms is the real game-changer. Tim LaSalle was excited about the idea of using what he learned at Rodale to help subsistence farmers. We discussed my aversion to the term organic, in part because even though they may qualify, poor farmers in distant places cannot afford the costs of the certifications needed to be designated “organic.” Here at home, the term puts off a lot of mainstream farmers who would otherwise be receptive to some of the techniques that enable better soil conservation.
However, it is true that, as Tim explains, “By financial capacity and input availability in many African regions, smallholder farmers will need an organic system by necessity.” In many regions, the farmers are so poor and the resources so limited that they have no choice but to use what I prefer to call biological methods. Manures, composts, hand hoeing of weeds, and hand harvesting are the only tools available. So I hired Tim to come to South Africa and figure out how he could use what he had learned at Rodale to help these farmers. He says, “We are focused on a regenerative and sustainable system for soils that, of course, will be using no-till.”
Tim and I figured we could develop a much smaller roller crimper that could be pulled by oxen. The weed suppression is particularly important, Tim explains: “My experience and travel over the years have educated me to the fact that much of the challenge in organic farming systems is weeds. Coming from a farming background from the Central Valley of California, I learned early about weeds, and our approach was usually cultivating or, with hoe in hand, addressing our cotton, peaches, or walnut groves early in the season and keeping the fields and orchards clean. Unfortunately, we did not know of the advantages of no-till.”
The beauty of the small roller crimper is that it is a solid piece of equipment that does not need expensive fuel. It does not have fragile electronics or lots of moving parts; it can be drawn by oxen and shared by many farmers; it can create that same weed-suppressing mat that the farmer can then slice into or poke holes in to plant by hand. Our team at Ukulima is also testing a small two-row planter from Brazil that we have modified to be drawn either by oxen or by a small tractor.
AN OPPORTUNITY TO WOO EMERGING FARMERS?
We have interested John Deere in creating some prototypes for further testing, and we’re launching another research project using a roller crimper in Ghana, also designed to be pulled either by oxen or by a small tractor. Small tractors are an interesting new trend: big US agricultural companies are concerned these days about the growing influence of Chinese and other global companies expanding into Africa. Companies from China and also India, for example, are designing and building small, relatively inexpensive tractors and other equipment that farmers in some of the more advanced developing countries are beginning to be able to afford. But in terms of the larger population of true subsistence farmers, it will be a long time before many farmers in the developing world can afford modern mechanization. In the meantime, there may be money to be made by selling equipment that is simpler and easier to operate, requires fewer inputs—including fuel and fertilizers—and still helps farmers improve their yields. As the farmers become more prosperous, they will trade up. It’s value chain development, and it’s early. But I’ve been trying to tell US companies they may make big money by thinking smaller.
As for us, I like the idea that philanthropic organizations or even governments might be able to provide an ox-drawn roller crimper or other similar tools with some confidence that their value does not vanish when we leave. One roller crimper can be shared for a long time by a whole village, which also can share in the task of feeding and managing the oxen.
And one final benefit: an ox-based system even generates its own fertilizer.
Story 32
Does Aid Plant Seeds of Violence?
By Howard W. Buffett
The terms “faculty meeting” and “war zone” don’t ordinarily go together, but as I discovered east of Jalalabad near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, disruption and improvisation are what war is all about. The question of the day was: Could our foundation work with a committed and energetic group of improvising educators anxious to bring hope to young farmers operating in this unusual and dangerous setting?
In 2010 my father and I attended a lunch hosted by Afghan farmers and the faculty at Nangarhar University College of Agriculture.1 The day’s activities were varied and, frankly, stressful. On the ground, we traveled by large armored vehicles with V-shaped bottoms, designed to deflect blasts from the ground underneath. Improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, were common in this area. The troops escorting us tensed up as we approached the border. Another part of our journey was through a mountainous region where Taliban factions were hiding, and the US armed forces were trying to root them out.
The lunch itself felt completely different than the journey. We received a warm welcome from the group of agriculture faculty, farmers, and other community members, and we were invited to sit down inside a large shed at picnic tables set up with fruit and bread. We arrived with a mission to learn about local agriculture but left with an appreciation of the struggles these farmers faced every day.
Nothing can replace a face-to-face meeting, even in a war zone. We would never have fully understood the Afghan farmers’ needs or challenges without visiting them, despite the extreme travel requirements such as this Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle. Photo: Howard G. Buffett
The farmers and instructors both said that what they needed was a physical building where they could retrain their country’s young people in the science and practice of farming. Years of war had disrupted activities, and there was no adequate place to conduct classes or extension in an area critical to food production. My dad was intrigued. One of the principles we always talk about at the foundation is that US agriculture became great in part because our government invested so significantly in our national extension system. It made perfect sense to us that investing in capacity and training here could have positive, long-term consequences.
But here was the problem: For the past several days, we had come to appreciate the complexities of life in a war zone, including seeing the abandoned shells of buildings and homes decimated by bombs. My dad wanted to help, and I thought the facility was a good idea. But we had never funded a construction project in the middle of a war before. Would the Taliban or their sympathizers hide and watch, waiting until we finished the project to triumphantly destroy it in order to mock our investment or the West’s involvement? In this kind of environment, I wondered, might development aid spark violence rather than quell it?
When you are working in conflict areas, you must look past the current destruction to envision the future. Photo: Howard G. Buffett
We promised to think it over, and during the next couple of weeks we talked about this dilemma, the risks, and the potential rewards. Would doing what the farmers needed be the equivalent of throwing away a million dollars? Would our help lessen the regional strife, or incite greater hostilities? We didn’t know the answers. And we decided that we couldn’t know the answers in time to help us with the decision. So we purs
ued two courses: we funded the project in Afghanistan; but back in the United States, we also financed the pursuit of answers to those questions, so that we or others could make more-informed decisions in the future.
Promoting peace and stability is a big reason why developed nations and donors like the US provide aid. But we know frustratingly little about whether development aid is doing the job. I’m referring not only to specific daily activities such as feeding refugees, helping farmers increase their yields, and rebuilding destroyed homes, but also to this larger job of promoting peace and stability.
When Norman Borlaug was awarded his Nobel Prize in Oslo, Norway, in December 1970, it wasn’t for a breakthrough in agricultural science. While Dr. Borlaug had revolutionized crop breeding, he was being recognized for advancing peace by fighting hunger. The Nobel committee understood how hunger and conflict are knotted together. Not only does war often cause hunger and famine, but hunger itself can spawn violence by making people miserable, desperate, and angry. By helping smallholder farmers in Asia grow more food, Dr. Borlaug helped defuse what was then called the “population bomb.” As he explained in his Nobel lecture: “If you desire peace, cultivate justice. But at the same time, cultivate the fields to produce more bread; otherwise there will be no peace.”
My father and I called Texas A&M’s Dr. Ed Price, who had been with us in Nangarhar, and we told him that we would support the farmers’ education. But we also wanted to help his researchers investigate conflict and development in a rigorous manner. Dr. Price had already been thinking about how to set up a center at Texas A&M to study the interplay between conflict and development aid. Finding money had been difficult, though, in large part because Dr. Price wanted to look at conflicts caused by aid as well as conflicts resolved by aid. He explained that “peace and development” would have been an easier sell to donors, few of whom look to pick fights.
40 Chances Page 28