Soil Health - Eroded Farmlands

Soil erosion and degradation is wide spread .
It is the leading cause of desertification,malnutrition,migrations,farmer bankruptsy,sickly weak plants n crops in short -much misery n suffering.

Nobody appears worried. In fact, most people think its normal and dont know the difference or the implications. Ignorance is truly bliss

Why is it important to maintain a rich and healthy layer of top soil?
Because in poor degraded soils,only SICKLY DISEASE PRONE plants will grow.rRequirement of artificial fertilizers and pesticides will grow year after year.
this will drive UP THE INPUT COSTS.
this will make farmers to start BORROWING more n more MONEY AT HIGH INTEREST to buy these EXTERNAL INPUTS.
soon they will b BANKRUPT n feel like committing SUICIDE.

This situation will surely lead to starvation amongst the weakest section of society (who've never heard of youtube!) and wide-spread hunger. Hasn't it already started?
To remedy this type of degradation will need minimum 5 to 7 years of serious and careful remedial activity, as I have done in the forest farm bang next to this abandoned farmland. What a contrast!!!!! One important way to further kill off all balance life(ants and undergrount insects) is to continue ploughing with heavy machines like tractors.this crushes all those tiny critters once n for all!THE END.

HOW To REPAIR?THE DAMAGE.HOW TO RECLAIM?THE FERTILITY.
I will try to summarise here what ever i know.how we did it in our forest farms
.STEP 1) if it is private property,put a fence to halt stray goats n local villagers cows come n eat up everything.also important to have clear ownership titles n legal deeds coz this is a 5 to 7 year process. u dont to b asked to get lost half way or worse after doing all the regeneration works done.
if it is public land,get permission of local authorities before starting.also take local village council into confidence.
.2)now steps have to b taken to halt soil erosion once and for all.if its a large property get a proffessional water harvest specialist to visit n make a contour n slope map.if its a smaller piece of land u can do this yourself.
3)start by carefully studying how water flows in the farm during rains.The flow has to b stopped or at least slowed down with bunds as much as possible n trapped in trenches and pits and allowed to percolate into the ground.SEE my other videos on water harvest.for ideas.this way your ground water is increased,soil erosion stopped n land fertility will start improving slowly.
4)at the ends of the farm where water flows out during the heaviest downpours trap EVERY DROP of the water in a deep pit or hollowed out earth
.5)plant a deep border row hedge .the border hedge should contain many hard wood trees.also fast and slowing trees oe your area.maximum number of species.the hard wood trees like teak,legerstemia,rosewood,malabar teak,malia dubia,m=gmelina arborea etc .will on day b very valuable source of big money.fast and slowing timbers for fire wood,fodder,madicine,berries all find a place here.
6)Now mark out areas for orchards,vegetables,cereals ,cash crops etc as per your requirement.a general thumb rule i follow is to have a small well irrigated area surrounded by infrequently watered orchard blocks.outer most areas can b totally rainfed.in an 3 acre farm,i would use 1 acre for irrigated crops,1 acre partially irrigated and 1 acre rainfed.this is a general thumb rule and can vary depending on rainfall,ground water availability and personal preferance.
7)plant plenty of smaller internal hedges of endemic,local ,multi species,biodiverse shrubs n creepers as described on seperate videos on subject.these hedges can serve as boundaries between different areas of the garden.also along contours to slow erosion n block off damaging WINDS during pre monsoon showers.AND provide homes n food for our valuable PREDATORS like little birds,spiders,beetles,ladybirds,wasps and all.they are our FREE PESTICIDES.
8)Side by side build n maintain as many Vermicompost pits as possible.MORE the MERRIER.gather as much dry leaves,straw,wood powder,cow dung,any type of uncontaminated carbonaceous stuff.convert all this to vermicompost n KEEP ADDING TO THE SOIL YEAR AFTER YEAR.this is a carbonBANK for holding the fertility of your farm.never burn plant waste.it is IDIOTIC N DUMB thing to do.
9)Once enough earthworms settle in to the soil n start breeding.u can relax!The trees,shrubs,birds n insects all will work day and night to generate IN-HOUSE organic fertilizers for u.the worms will convert all this FREE stuff in vermicompost on location.

THEY will b working day and night turning,tilling,fertilizing,enriching,areating the soil steadily.there by tremendously improving the permeability and structure of the soil.roots can penetrate easily,ants also as well as many good micro organisms all establish n a healthy forest floor conditions get established.now the farmland will b fertile n rich.
Happily ever after.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• topsoil
• desert
• desertification
• soilhealth
• starvation
• malnutrition
• poverty
• chronic
• hunger
• humus
• mulch
• ruin
• erode
• eroded
• carbon
• sequestering
• natural
• farm
• agriculture
• grow
• ants
• debt
• poor
• farmer
• suicide
• loan
• pesticide
• GDP
• food
• stamp
• line
• bpl
• occupy
• Wallstreet
• march

[UnoRaza]

Do you grow your own mycorrhizae with which to inoculate the soils?

I would sure hope using that would speed up the process, but that soil did look pretty barren; however I imagine there's nothing in which for it to grow.

[vidaripollen]

@UnoRaza we use panchagavya to get back all good bacteria n other micro life.vermicompost n cow manure,mulch etc to rebuild the productivity of the soil.c Palekar s methods.its in my favourites.that wil give u an idea .

[UnoRaza]

@vidaripollen In Jordan they were able to convert a SAND desert into a producing farm with an amazingly small amount of water. (See Jordan permaculture)

Fungus seemed to be the key there in tying up the salts and is also a soil purifier of sorts.

Great information on your channel; thank you!

I think India has forgotten more than we'll ever know. ;D)

[vidaripollen]

@UnoRaza ok.i 'l c the jordon story.only way i found to revive soils so far is adding carbon content to soil.one way or other.fungus and all can do their work thereafter.

[SparrowSquad]

That's worse than clay for sure. I do all my plowing and prepping with hand tools so this would be a nightmare!

[vidaripollen]

@SparrowSquad thats you r so right.farmers nightmare.hand tools r best.that helps land slowly recover.u must b advanced natural gardener.

[workwithnature]

Great video, seams like modern farming is destroying the land every were.

[UnoRaza]

@vidaripollen You probably know these are fungus that help roots take up nutrients and trigger massive growth of same; it's very expensive, but works quite well.

See Rodale institute for growing your own if cow manures don't foster these microbes.

(I've seen an amazing difference in potted plants when using this powder.)

I hope y'all are getting into hydroponics as massive amounts of food can be grown in a very small amounts of space.

[shamanohar]

This is excellent video of soil condition. This will be the fate of the soil without ground plant cover. Degeneration happens when the vegetation is cleared. Please keep up this good work of spreading awareness on this important issues. 

[Helioforge]

That looks like my driveway : ) A lot of the small rocks that get dug up end up filling in holes in the driveway, since car tires carry away a lot of the good mud. The rest gets washed away in the rain.