No-Tillage cultivates success on world stage

No-Tillage was last week judged one of five World Technology Award finalists from 27 entrants in the Corporate Environment category in New York for their work in the area of no-tillage technology innovation.

Chairman and Chief Executive Dr John Baker says ploughing, despite its long acceptance as a primary farming activity, is bad for the environment and reduces the scale of global food production over time.

“It’s about the sustainability of food production,” Dr Baker said. “We cannot continue to produce crops from conventional tillage but farmers are not changing willingly – for many of them, it is working well enough but we are trying to convince them.”

No need to plough

 “Ploughing does a lot of bad things - it oxidises the organic matter in the soil into carbon dioxide which escapes into the atmosphere and becomes a significant contributor to greenhouse gases and global warming.”

“The CO2 depletes organic matter, destroying the micro-organisms which bind the soil together, turning land into dustbowls – we have been killing these organisms off for centuries.”

“The only defensible reason for ploughing was to kill weeds – that’s the only good thing it did – but with instantly de-activating herbicides the reason for ploughing went out the door.”

“The prime driver of change was ICI’s synthetised herbicide paraquat – later superseded by Monsanto’s Roundup - which de-activated after killing weeds so new seeds could be planted the next day,” he said.

“This gave farmers the important advantage of shorter time between crops and getting them in quickly is vital to yield.”

Four decades of research and innovation

Dr Baker, with a Doctorate in Agriculture Engineering, Masters degree in Soil Science, and Bachelors degree in Agriculture Science from Massey, is an acknowledged authority on no-tillage and a sought-after keynote speaker at international conferences. He addressed the US Senate on the issue in 1989.

He began researching no-tillage in 1967 as the movement slowly began worldwide.

Working at Massey in the sixties, Dr Baker designed a simple tractor-towed soil-opener tool which he made available to ten manufacturers in New Zealand and off-shore. Launched in 1970, it became known as the Baker-Boot and remains the biggest-selling ploughing alternative in Asia and is still being used in New Zealand, Australia and South America.

“It was good for pasture renovation but didn’t do enough for crops such as wheat and barley,” he said.

He formed Baker No-Tillage in 1975 with his first machines going to the domestic market, Western Australia and the US.