Rethinking Agriculture for New Opportunities 409While farmers have long appreciated that agriculture is an enterprise best con-
ducted in three dimensions, most agronomic and economic assessments consider
agriculture essentially in two dimensions, as an enterprise carried out on a plane.
The practice of agriculture is epitomized by ploughing, which breaks the surface of
the soil in order to plant seeds and grow crops. This strategy suffices so long as the
soil is deep, fertile and well supplied with water. But agriculture can be made more
productive by conceiving and treating soil in three-dimensional terms, as volume,
doing more than just breaking its surface and working it two-dimensionally.
Indeed, working the soil is a better term for agriculture than ploughing it,
since working encompasses many functions.^8 This concept includes incorporating
organic matter of various sorts into the soil and altering soil topography to capture
and hold water, or to drain it. Getting crop residues and animal manures into the
soil can promote greater synchrony between nutrient release from those residues
and crop nutrient demand; soil organic matter promotes better water infiltration
and retention at the same time that it creates better habitats for soil microflora and
for micro- and macrofauna. In many traditional farming systems around the world,
one finds soil being mounded into raised beds and even raised fields; terraces are
constructed to retain and improve the soil and to make watering it easier, and
drains are often installed. Soil-working activities are intended not just to exploit
the soil’s fertility but to improve it.
Alternately, in some farming systems one finds no ploughing, just the planting
of seeds in undisturbed soil. This might be considered one-dimensional agriculture
with activities concentrated on points rather than a surface, leaving the volume of
soil beneath intact to nurture macro- and microbiological communities. To be
sure, two-dimensional thinking accomplishes some important activities such as
weed control and breaking the soil crust, but disturbances of the soil contribute to
major erosional losses. Weeds can be controlled by other means than ploughing,
and ‘no-till agriculture’ is now widely accepted as a modern practice, as noted
below.
In the coming decades, efforts to raise yields per hectare should not take the
quality and durability of soil for granted, as the health and fertility of the soil are
critical for productive and sustainable agriculture. Soil should be understood and
managed in terms of its volume rather than its surface. Raising output sustainably
will require more than working chemical fertilizers into the top horizon. Thinking
of soil three-dimensionally should be part of any strategy for sustainable agricul-
tural intensification.
Monoculture as ‘real’ agriculture
The standard view of agriculture as limited in time and space favours monocrop-
ping for achieving control and efficiency in production. Applying inputs is made
easier with monoculture, whether calculating fertilizer applications or using
mechanical power for weeding. But the conclusion that this is always the most
productive way to use land is mistaken. This production method can raise the