There is something to be said for doing things the ‘old fashioned’ way. Although manual methods often take longer and can be physically and mentally taxing, there is a lot of knowledge that is gained in the process. Agriculture is no different. Before the use of modified seeds and synthetic fertilizer which were introduced during the Green Revolution, farmers used traditional knowledge and available natural resources to cultivate food. They grew what was in season, yielded enough for their communities, and knew how manage soils to ensure crops grew healthy, but the Green Revolution and what came after it stopped all of that.

For years, farmers have relied on new technologies, chemicals, and ‘efficient’ ways to grow high yield crops for greater return. The side effects have taken a toll on the health and wellbeing of humans and ecosystems for the last 60+ years or so though. The result has encouraged many farmers to shift cultivation practices to one that seeks to eliminate chemical use and rely more on balanced ecosystem methods such as agroecology, intercropping, and companion planting (mainly in horticulture). The idea of using more traditional and organic methods of cultivation has become so popular that in 2021, the government of Sri Lanka sought to eliminate chemical use from cultivation methods in the country to ensure residents can enjoy foods free of chemicals. However, with recent economic struggles, many residents feel the country’s economic disparities were a result of the shift. Sri Lanka appears to be no different from countries that have relied on chemical usage for food cultivation for decades. Many countries, including the United States, Mexico, and Argentina, have depended on chemicals to ‘enrichen’ soils and grow high numbers of crops. Such methods are often subsidized by governments increasing dependency on chemical usage for cultivation. The problem, however, is that previous traditional methods that did not depend on pesticides or modified seeds slowly dissipated with each generation that continued to use new technologies, leaving few modern farmers with vital knowledge on how to farm without chemicals. The dependency on such chemicals to farm is similar to that of a drug, causing soils to require more input to produce, eventually leaving soils dry and dead, and farmers strapped for cash.

To address the issue, farmers are now seeking to learn ‘new’ methods of cultivation that are focused on producing organic goods. However, as seen recently in Sri Lanka, implementing these new systems (which include previous systems that were in place before the Green Revolution) can be difficult because an abrupt change is not easy to manage. Instead, such a change requires farmers to wean themselves off the ‘drug’ or chemical dependency that has been put into practices for more than half a century. Although the current situation between Russia and Ukraine may force farmers to make a shift quicker since Russia is a large producer of chemical fertilizers, reducing synthetic usage alone is not the sole answer.

To aid the transition, modern farmers will need to reverse the hands of agricultural time and learn chemical free methods that their predecessors used before their existence. They will need to understand ecological balance and environmental systems, including weather patterns, during the time of climate change. Lastly, they will need to learn to embrace what they once considered ‘pests’ that serve to balance the landscape and increase crop diversity in one plot to help produce more than one crop type during each growing season.

Farmers around the world have relied on modern cultivation practices that were introduced and implemented by the Green Revolution for far too long. The result has been costly, not only in terms of finances, but also on the wellbeing of humans and ecosystems. Even though reducing dependency seems like an uphill battle, the temporary struggle will be worth it for both humans and nature alike.

Gracias!