Issues for More Sustainable Soil System Management 365relative availability of good land per capita diminishes. Actually, if the current system
of agricultural subsidies in rich countries were eliminated, this would rapidly trans-
form the capital- and chemical-intensive nature of their agricultural production,
which has been favoured by policies rather than by market-determined price struc-
tures. In the future, it will probably become economic to apply more labour to land,
provided this is done productively, rather than continuing to rely on land-extensive
strategies. Various methods and systems that have been documented in Part III [of
Biological Approaches to Sustainable Soil Systems] can help with such a transition.
Some biological innovations are not necessarily more labour-intensive, e.g. soil
inoculations and direct seeding with no-till. The latter saves fuel as well as the
labour and other costs of plowing and weeding, which is why it is spreading in
Latin America, North America, Europe and South Asia. Others methods like the
System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and composting may require more labour, but
to the extent that they give higher per-hour returns to labour, they are economi-
cally attractive, and with time and experience as well as mechanical innovations,
their labour time is reduced.
Most of the technologies heretofore identified as labour-intensive did not offer
high returns to labour. Labour has been used abundantly, even excessively where it
was cheap, to make land, capital or water more productive. This necessarily dimin-
ished labour productivity. Because second-paradigm methods are mobilizing
resources from the soil or atmosphere through essentially free (unpaid) biological
activity, it is possible to have higher labour productivity at the same time that labour
inputs are increased, i.e. with greater labour intensity. If this is a more profitable use
of labour, it can become attractive to farm households and to investors even if more
labour is required. The limitation will then be whether sufficient labour supply is
available to take advantage of the opportunities (Moser and Barrett, 2003).
Biologically oriented methods are not necessarily limited to a small scale. SRI,
for example, is being practised on a larger scale, not limited to smallholdings, now
that its methods are being better understood. Good organization of cultivation
practices is required, but an increased requirement for labour could benefit both
the farmer and hired labourers. Actually, the SRI methodology is proving to be
labour neutral or even labour-saving once farmers gain familiarity with its techniques
(Anthofer, 2004; Li et al, 2005; Sinha and Talati, 2005). Whether alternative tech-
nologies will in the long run require more labour is still an open question. Not all of
them will be equally dependent on more labour inputs. In any case, what is more
important is whether and how much they can raise labour productivity.
Many of the innovations reported in this book as they are scaled up and as
farmers, scientists and extensionists gain experience with them, will have labour-
saving modifications that diminish this constraint to wider adoption. A main con-
straint for the spread of conservation agriculture (no-till) has been the availability of
suitable implements. As the designs for tools, equipment and implements become
better suited to farmers’ conditions and as the production and supply of these are
ramped up, with concomitant reductions in price, the acceptability and spread of
biological innovations should be hastened.