French farmer Nicolas Denieul holds earthworms, the sign of a healthy soil, in one of his fields in Piace, northwestern France Denieul plants his spade in the ground and turns over a clod of soil to reveal a mass of earthworms seething around plant roots鈥攆at ones and thin ones, delicate translucent violet and dark brown. AFP
PIAC脡, France鈥擭icolas Denieul plants his spade in the ground and turns over a clod of soil to reveal a mass of earthworms seething around plant roots鈥攆at ones and thin ones, delicate translucent violet and dark brown.
鈥淭hat is magnificent. Ten years ago, I never thought I鈥檇 see anything like that!鈥� said Denieul, a cheerful French farmer, his hands full of earth in the biting wind.
Just 10 years ago, there were no worms roaming about his land, near the western city of Le Mans, where he grows wheat, corn and rapeseed to feed the 350 pigs he and his brothers keep.
Back then his spade met smooth earth, empty of worms, insects and the other small organisms that signify a healthy soil.
Like forests and oceans, soils also capture carbon through the vegetable matter that decomposes in them. Instead of being released in the form of gases that contribute to global warming, carbon stocked in soil nourishes plants.
An increase of 0.4 percent a year in the level of carbon in soils would make it possible to stop the current growth of carbon dioxide鈥攁 major greenhouse gas鈥攊n the atmosphere, according to the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (Inra).
France鈥檚 agriculture ministry launched an international research program on the subject this year, which 40 countries signed up to at the recent UN climate talks in Paris.
End of plowing听听听听
On top of urbanization and deforestation, soils around the world have suffered as a result of the intensification of farming since World War II.
鈥淲e have massacred the soil鈥� with bigger combine harvesters, deeper plowing and chemical fertilizers and pesticides, Denieul said.
These factors have had a devastating effect on the topsoil鈥攖he most important layer, where worms absorb and digest dead plant matter, transforming it into natural fertilizer that they spread through the earth.
For Denieul, the eureka moment came in the mid-2000s, after he heard a Canadian expert explain that in just a small quantity of soil there were more living organisms than people on the whole planet.
After this, Denieul radically changed the way he worked. With some colleagues he decided to stop plowing. A huge step, taken with the help of Base, a network that promotes farming based on soil conservation.
鈥淭he plough turns the soil to a depth of 25 centimeters. We had to find seed drills that disturbed the earth as little as possible鈥� by bedding seeds under a thin layer of soil, he explained.
He also takes care never to leave the fields bare. After the wheat harvest, for example, he plants beans and alfalfa, which improve the soil鈥檚 fertility.
After a decade of working like this, the level of organic matter in his fields has risen from 1.5 percent to three percent. Some farmers using these methods鈥攖here are around 5,000 in France鈥攈ave achieved levels approaching 5 percent, compared with just 2 percent in some intensive wheat-farming areas.
Substantial savings听听听听
The fields have changed in appearance鈥攇oodbye regular ploughed furrows, hello earthworm 鈥渃abins,鈥� tiny piles of earth formed by their excretions. Also gone is the regular washing away of soil in storms, as the rain is now able to filter down into the fields instead of over its surface, thanks to the tiny tunnels dug by the worms.
More importantly, Denieul is now seeing the same returns as he did with more intensive methods after several years of lower yields while the land regenerated.
And he has seen substantial savings鈥攕owing without plowing means his tractor uses half as much fuel as before.
He also now uses far less chemical weedkiller and no synthetic fertilizer at all鈥攎anure from the pigs does the job, now that the soil is more fertile naturally, thanks to the worms.
鈥淭he gamble鈥檚 paid off鈥攚e are more competitive than a normal production system,鈥� he said.
Convinced that he needs to help change minds, Denieul will soon open his doors to fellow farmers.
鈥淣ature doesn鈥檛 hold grudges鈥攊f you change the way you work, things return to their natural order,鈥� he said. AFP
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Originally posted: 01:07 PM December 5th, 2015