Farming God's Way

Observe the forest, it is a marvelous creation of God. The trees tower above the ground defying gravity. Their leaves and fruits fall and lay on the ground. The grass hides the seeds, protected by a covering of leaves, needles and other dead decaying matter. It is only a matter of time and the seed springs new and produces a new tree which will grow to become a towering tree and again drop its leaves and seeds in the endless cycle of life.

A number of questions come to mind when observing the forest, the prairie, the African bush. When we prepare a field why do we burn the fields? Why till the grass and leaves under? Why do we expose the water in the soil to drying air? Why do we need a clean field? Why do we need to till the soil for the seeds to grow?

This is the questions we were asked at the Farming God's Way training in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The people spearheading this movement believe that Africa could be the breadbasket of the world and that God had provided everything that is needed for the poorest of the poor to do this. There effort consists of no tillage, thick mulching, composting, minimum inputs of fertilizer, manure and termite mound soil, appropriate spacing, weeding on time and practicing good stewardship of the land that God gave us. These are all techniques that the poorest subsistence farmers are able to do and do even better than larger commercial farmers to produce more corn per acre. And the results are phenomenal. Where farmers have been dealing with larger and larger fertilizer inputs into poorer and poorer soils, farmers are reaping the benefits of yields 2,3 even 10 times the amount of past years.

Look at the way God grows the trees in the forest and the plants of the field. He covers them with mulch, he does not till the ground. The rain falls and is conserved under "God's blanket" of mulch and the seeds germinate and grow.



If the poor can learn from observing God's creation Africa truly will be the breadbasket of the world.