Today's Planet Earth: Our Loving Home will be presented in Afrikaans, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.

Hallo, vibrant viewers, and welcome to Planet Earth: Our Loving Home. On today’s episode, we feature an interview with Paul Roos of Limpopo, South Africa who practiced conventional farming for 17 years before switching to organic farming five years ago. He has a masters degree in agriculture and his farm produces between 250,000 and 300,000 cases of peaches, nectarines, apricots and plums a year. What prompted Mr. Roos to embrace organic agriculture?

Our main reason was to produce a better quality product, a better fruit. We wanted a higher sugar content and better color, so we started researching and decided that we had to improve the status of our soil. Then we started with a biological approach, more compost, mulching and so forth. The step from biological to organic was basically to get the accreditation behind our name and we had to change one or two things to comply to be fully organic.

The term “organic agriculture” is formally defined by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) as “a production system that sustains the health of soils, ecosystems and people. It relies on ecological processes, biodiversity and cycles adapted to local conditions, rather than the use of inputs with adverse effects.” Organic agriculture does not include use of pesticides, herbicides, synthetic fertilizers, or Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO).

Organically grown produce has seen a rapid rise in demand worldwide in the last decade. The number of hectares devoted to organic agriculture continues to expand in many countries. As of 2007, 32.2 million hectares of land were being cultivated by 1.2 million organic farmers across the globe. Almost half of the world’s organic farmers reside in Africa.

Soil is the most important element in cultivation and organic farming helps to prevent its erosion and preserves its fertility.

Our philosophy is that you must get your soil back to its natural status.

When our orchards were conventional orchards, the orchard soil was covered with moss. We thought it was great, since it was so green. The orchard, the soil, was basically dead. If you were to dig in it, you would only find single large roots, never fine roots. But after this process of mulching and compost and inoculating micro-organisms, the status has completely changed, and you find a soft groundcover.

Organic fruits and vegetables are well- known to be much more delicious than their conventionally raised counterparts. The nutritional content is higher and the organic produce is far safer for our health as no synthetic fertilizers or pesticides are used.

Our whole idea to move organic was to produce a better taste in our fruit. There is TSS, which stands for “Total Soluble Solids” and that is an indication of the sugar content in your fruit. Since we have gone organic, our TSS percentage has increased two to three percent, so that is definitely an indication that there are more nutrients in the plant compared to conventional faming practices.

Mr. Roos now dispels a common misconception regarding the sufficiency of nitrogen, a key nutrient needed for plant growth, in organically cultivated soil.

Nitrogen is one of the questions I’m often asked about by many producers and agricultural experts, and they believe nitrogen is a problem with organic farming and that we don’t have it. We found that that micro-organisms play an important role; there are 40,000 types of micro-organisms in one gram of soil, and during the micro- organisms’ life cycle, when the micro-organisms die, they excrete amino acids. It is these amino acids that are the source of nitrogen in organic farming.

In fact, the plant has bigger affinity with nitrogen from amino acids than with chemical nitrogen. The figure we are looking at is that our nitrogen is more than seven to 10 times more effective than chemical nitrogen, so for me nitrogen is not a problem.

Mr. Roos now explains why mulch, a protective soil covering, and compost, or decomposed organic matter, are vital in organic agriculture.

Mulching is of utmost importance and is an integral part of organic farming. When we distribute the compost on the soil of the orchard, we want to protect this compost. What you don’t want is that your compost dries out, because the micro-organisms must stay alive.

So we cover it with mulch, which on the one hand provides protection for the compost and the micro-organisms, and on the other hand also protects the moisture content. You don’t get evaporation of the upper layer. And then the third advantage is that it, once again, is a source of nitrogen, which is nutrition for the micro-organisms to keep their process going.

When we started to look at organic farming, that was our greatest concern; are we going to have enough material to make our own compost? And we started to make plans to drive truckloads of garden waste from the cities, but we never had to do that, as there are so many sources on a farm; harvest remnants, non-native plants, there are so many things to make compost from. So there are many sources, you just have to look around your area.

After these brief messages, we’ll learn more about organic farming from Mr. Paul Roos of South Africa. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Since we have become fully organic, the tree bears bigger and more fruit compared to conventional farming. If you look there, there are about 300 to 450 fruits on this tree and many are very big. This proves that this plant is very healthy and that you can expect a big crop.

Welcome back to Planet Earth: Our Loving Home. Our program today features Mr. Paul Roos, a South African organic farmer. His farm in the province of Limpopo produces between 250,000 and 300,000 cases of peaches, nectarines, apricots and plums a year. The benefits of organic farming are innumerable.

For example, it is far more cost-effective than conventional farming. In a 22-year study conducted by the US- based Rodale Institute, conventional cultivation of soybeans and corn was compared to organic farming of the same crops. The researchers concluded that the yields were about the same, however organic cultivation used 30% less energy, less water, and was far more environmentally friendly given no pesticides or fertilizers were utilized. Growers highly value having their crops certified as organic for a number of reasons.

In some countries produce cannot be sold as organic without meeting government or third party certification standards. Mr. Roos says that in order for a conventional farm that has switched to growing organic crops to be certified by an acknowledged authority, typically a conversion period is required to ensure all produce from the farm is 100% organic. After meeting this and other requirements, a farmer can then label their produce as an organic.

It is a long process in the sense that your farm gets audited at least once a year by an internationally accredited company. They have the right to inspect your farm at any time, even in between your yearly audits, and this is what makes it a long process. Then there is also the fact that when you go organic, there is a three year period in what they call “in-conversion” through which you have to go before you can be fully classified as organic. So only after year three, or when year four comes around, you are fully organic. So there is a time process that you have to go through.

If farmers produce both conventional and organic products, strict separation is mandatory.

A person who tries to farm organically and conventionally at the same time, or start at different phases or levels or “in transition,” perhaps one year in transition and others fully organic, must definitely make a separation between the different products to limit contamination. Of utmost importance is that you must have a good traceability system to enable you to trace your product even back to the orchard, and all the phases it has been through. This is very important in an organic packing room.

Conventional agriculture is heavily dependent on petroleum-based fertilizers and in some nations like India and China these products are subsidized by the government in order to make them more available to farmers. Mr. Roos feels that government subsides would be appropriate for those farmers converting their lands to organic crop production.

The reason being that the transition to organic farming involves investment, in the sense of cost increases and production decreases for a year or two years, after which you gain consistent production at lower input costs. My production is busy increasing, my trees are healthier and my costs are decreasing and that is the ideal position to be in. So it would make sense for the government to support farmers during the first two years since afterwards you will reap the fruits thereof.

The effects of climate change are dramatically affecting the nature of global food production. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization states that the warming of the planet means extreme weather patterns such as prolonged droughts and heavy floods are expected to occur with more frequency across the world in the years to come, with severe crop devastation being the result.

Our rainfall is very sporadic and the most alarming thing is that recently we have been experiencing many hail storms which did not happen in the past.

Organic farming, along with the organic vegan diet, is the number one solution to global warming. The Rodale Institute estimates that if all the world’s approximately 14 million square kilometers of tillable farmland were to be cultivated organically, the soil could store 40% of current CO2 emissions. Organic cultivation also means less use of fossil fuels which also helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Finally, organic crops require far less water and thus are the superior choice for climate change adaptation.

Mr. Roos has these encouraging words for those considering entering the organic farming industry:

I think my advice to an aspiring organic farmer is: don’t get a fright during the first two years – that’s a mistake everyone makes - they get a fright and return to conventional farming. Hang on, since the results at the end are very good, but you have to push through during the first two years.

He also has this warm message for our esteemed viewers.

Well, I think I want to ask viewers to support organic products because it will be a healthier product for them, and you do your part to ensure the sustainability of production worldwide. And you are also assured of a better eating experience, since it tastes better than conventional fruit.

We deeply thank Mr. Paul Roos for sharing some of the precious knowledge he has acquired from his years of practicing organic farming. Organic agriculture is the solution to world hunger as well as climate change. It raises crop yields, enhances soil fertility, preserves water, and ensures biodiversity in agriculture. May all farmers soon embrace organic farming to lead our planet to a better and brighter future!

Caring viewers, thank you for your noble company on today’s episode of Planet Earth: Our Loving Home. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment after Noteworthy News. May your day be blessed with abundant love from the Divine.

To contact Mr. Paul Roos regarding organic farming, please email paul@proplum.co.za