The Best Sustainable & GAP Farming Methods Around The World

There are few things more important than agriculture. Topics that seem to get the most attention at socio-economic forums, UN assemblies, political debates, and even TED talks are: food availability, food waste, sustainability, famine, water scarcity, water quality, and population growth. All of these things impact and are impacted by agriculture. 

Growing food is a complicated science that many of us know nothing about. We’re happy simply to go to the grocery store, pick up our food, and eat it, without thinking about where it came from, and if we’ll still have access to it tomorrow.

There are countless questions when it comes to farming and agricultural practices, and we hope to answer most of them for you in this article.

What Does GAP Stand For?

GAP stands for Good Agricultural Practices, which are a set of rules governing what farms should be doing to create quality food sustainably, without irreversible damage to the earth. There is no globally accepted definition of what constitutes Good Agricultural Practices, however, among the few competing GAP schemes, there is significant overlap.

Following GAP principles, farmers can ensure that the food they produce is safe and of high quality, they will minimize soil erosion, prevent epidemics among livestock that can be transferred to humans, prevent accidents among workers, and prevent polluting the natural environment.

What Are Good Agricultural Practices?

While there is no universally accepted list of GAP recommendations, there are many recommendations that are included in most of the major GAP schemes. 

Soil

• Maintaining soil fertility by use of grazing and crop rotation.
• Reducing soil erosion by limiting tillage practices.
• Planting windbreaks to prevent soil erosion by wind and chemical contamination from neighboring farms.

Water

• Recycling water whenever possible.
• Avoiding crops with higher water requirements.
• Preventing fertilizer run-off from contaminating natural water sources.

Animal welfare

• Keeping livestock free from hunger, thirst, discomfort, pain, injury and disease.
• Minimizing use of antibiotics and hormones.
• Avoiding feeding livestock with animal matter to prevent epidemics such as mad cow disease.
• Preventing livestock run-off from contaminating the water table.

Employee welfare

• Explaining and demonstrating to farm workers how to correctly operate equipment.
• Training farm workers in first-aid, and having first aid kits on-hand.
• Having clean toilets, washing areas, and water available at all times.
• Eliminating all forms of forced, coerced, or child labor. 

Sustainable Farming Methods

As our resources are stretched more and more thin, and our population balloons to unimaginable numbers, sustainable agriculture has become less of a luxury, and more of a dire necessity. There are many methods of sustainable farming, and some hold more water than others. Let’s take a look at the four most popular methods of sustainable agriculture worldwide.

No-till Farming

Tillage is an agricultural practice that has been in-use for at-least 6000 years, with the earliest evidence of plow usage dating back to 4000 BC in what is now Iraq. The process involves digging and overturning the topsoil. This can be done manually by using a shovel, a pick, or a hoe, or it can be done using machinery such as mechanical plows. Tillage is done primarily to loosen and aerate the top layer of soil, which facilitates planting crops and allows them to take-root easily.

Tillage had very little impact on the environment until recently. If we look back 1000 years, only 4% of the world's habitable land was used for agriculture, if we go back 6000 years when tillage was invented that number would have been smaller still. Today, however, at least 44% of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture, so any farming practice that we use on a large scale has a monumental impact on the world.

Tillage destroys the beneficial microbes that live in the soil, it also kills and disrupts insects, fungi, and earthworms. This has an enormous negative impact not only on the ecosystem, but on the quality of the soil. The soil becoming unhealthy, and being further loosened by tillage contributes to soil erosion, where the topsoil is blown or washed away, and eventually to desertification - turning once livable, flourishing farmland into arid, uninhabitable wasteland.

Two popular methods for no-till farming are sod seeding and direct seeding. Sod seeding involves growing a cover crop over the farmland and then killing it with herbicides, which creates a layer of sod over the topsoil. The seeds are then planted into this soft sod, which supports their growth just as tilled soil would. Direct seeding involves using machinery to plant seeds through the residue of the previous crop.

Both of these methods reduce soil erosion, promote soil health, and even result in higher yields than tillage farming would.

Organic Farming

Organic farming originated in the 20th century as a response to the rapid rise of agricultural chemical use at the time. Most countries have a set of standards that must be followed for a farm to be certified organic, these typically include:

• Not using synthetic fertilizers or pesticides.
• Not using hormones or antibiotics in livestock.
• Not using genetically modified organisms.
• Promoting sustainability, self-sufficiency, food security and food safety.

With organic farming spreading across the globe, it has contributed to many farms adopting additional practices for sustainability, such as crop diversity, soil management, and crop rotation.

It is, however, not without its downsides. Organic farming requires much more land than non-organic farming, and contributes more to greenhouse gas emissions. Another downside of organic farms is that they suffer large amounts of soil erosion. And because most methods of no-till farming depend on chemical pesticides, and most methods of organic farming depend on massive tillage, no-till and organic are largely incompatible.

Regenerative Agriculture

Regenerative agriculture is a new form of sustainable farming based on ancient principles. It promotes topsoil regeneration, biodiversity, improving the quality of the water table, and making farmland stronger, more resilient, and more nutrient-rich. There are no set rules or guidelines for regenerative agriculture, simply a set of principles that adherents should try to abide by. These include:

• Recycling and composting farm waste
• Adopting no-till or reduced-till practices
• Providing sufficient soil cover to prevent erosion
• Using hand tools wherever possible
• Increasing biodiversity by planting various types of cover crop
• Crop rotation to maintain soil vitality
• Avoiding disturbing the natural ecosystem of insects, fungi and microbes
• Creating ponds and swales to utilize rainwater

While regenerative agriculture clearly has a large number of benefits, particularly in maintaining and relying on the earth's natural gifts, it has also received some criticism. Most of the criticism is regarding the claims proponents of regenerative farming make about the benefits, with critics saying claims of carbon-dioxide reduction and the benefits of carbon sequestration are exaggerated and unsupported by evidence.

Good Agricultural Practices

As outlined earlier, GAP farming covers a range of issues from soil quality, to animal welfare, to workers’ rights. It has recently become the gold-standard of sustainable agriculture, and for good reason.

It combines the best principles of many sustainable farming methods, without being dogmatic about it. Rather than banning tillage outright, it recommends against tillage wherever possible, and when it is unavoidable, recommends against deep tillage.

Rather than banning chemical pesticides outright, GAP recommends analyzing whether a biological pest control is possible first, before resorting to chemical pesticides only when necessary. GAP also has various recommendations to prevent chemical pesticides and fertilizers from being over-utilized, from contaminating the water table, and from contaminating neighboring farmland.

In all, Good Agricultural Practices is an holistic approach to farming with sustainability, soil quality, land management, contamination, pollution, animal welfare, and human rights in mind, making it an excellent guideline for modern farming.

Agricultural Practices Around The World

Agricultural practices aren’t simply limited to good and bad, sustainable or unsustainable, there are many types of farming methods that have been created to support certain diets, or to be manageable in certain environments. For each country and culture in the world, there is a unique method of farming. Let’s take a look at some of the most interesting farming methods across the world, and across history.

Types of Farming in Japan

While only around 20% of Japan’s land area is suitable for farming, farming has been part of Japanese culture for centuries. The Japanese diet has had a significant impact on farming in Japan, as the vast majority of farmland is used for rice paddies, with livestock making up only a very small percentage.

Sustainable farming has been practiced in Japan for many years, and many newer sustainable farming methods, like organic farming, have recently been gaining traction, but the tradition of Japanese farming already had sustainability baked in.

In early Japanese farms, irrigation was insufficient and water was scarce, so farmers developed numerous water conservation techniques that they still use today, such as furrow and drip irrigation, which reduces water waste.

Farming in Japan is also largely managed by regional agricultural collectives, which ensures that each small farm maintains a certain standard. This means that every farm is monitored so that farmland is maintained, water is not polluted, and unnecessary chemicals are not used. 

Types of Farming in India

Farming in India is quite diverse, and much of it is sustainable. The most common agricultural practice in India is subsistence farming.

Subsistence farming involves small, family-owned farms growing crops and livestock for self-consumption. Because the farms are small, and profit is not the key motivator, these farms are typically rain-fed and use organic farming methods, and traditional tools which reduces the depth of tillage.

One form of sustainable farming which has recently grown in popularity in India is agroforestry, which currently amounts to around 1% of India's farmland.

Agroforestry involves integrating trees and shrubs with crops and pasture for cattle. This increases biodiversity and soil vitality, creates significant soil cover to prevent erosion, and adds another income source in the fruits, nuts, and wood that can be harvested from the trees.

Types of Farming in the USA

Over 44% percent of the United States' land area is agricultural land, and their agricultural land is largely dominated by conventional farming - which relies on chemical pesticides and heavy tillage. American agriculture contrasts greatly with agriculture in India and Japan, where cropland is most common, as more than half of American farmland is for raising livestock.

While that may make the US stand out as an easy target for criticism, it's important to note that many of the world's most popular sustainable agricultural practices were developed or popularized in America. These include no-till farming, Good Agricultural Practices (which is promoted by the USDA), and organic farming, which began as a seed planted in the minds of agronomists by American Franklin Hiram King.

This being said, America is not the world-leader when it comes to any of the practices it has developed or promoted. Australia has the most organic farmland, and Brazil has almost zero tillage nationwide. While America still has a long way to go on the path to sustainability, they’re definitely heading in the right direction.

Farming in the Ancient World

Many of the sustainable agricultural practices we use today were developed and used by ancient cultures centuries ago. 

Farming Methods in Maya

The Mayan people used a system of agriculture called Milpa. Milpa farming involves planting many crops within the same plot of land, today we call this biodiversity. This allowed the Mayan people to harvest a large and diverse yield of food, and contributed significantly to the health and quality of the soil.

The crops the Mayans chose were complementary to each other, and to the environment. One crop would produce the soil nutrients that another crop would require. This allowed the Mayan people to farm small plots of land for long periods of time without any degradation.

Farming Methods in Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece was not hospitable to agriculture. Greece was not a land of flat and fertile plains, but a place filled with countless natural impediments to agriculture. From its rocky, sloping terrain, to its dry soil, to its low temperatures, the people of ancient Greece really had to fight to build sufficient farmland.

Thankfully, ancient Greece was home to some of the wisest people to have ever lived, from their early scientists like Pythagoras, to their philosophers like Socrates and Aristotle, if anyone could come up with a solution, it was them.

The ancient Greeks developed numerous agricultural practices and methods that we still use today, including terracing, irrigation, crop rotation, and soil management. They grew and raised only what was needed, without focussing on developing a surplus for sale and profit. They, like the Mayans (but to a lesser extent), planted multiple crops in the same fields to promote soil health, and they even left fields empty to allow the regeneration of nutrients.

Farming Methods in Ancient Japan

Ancient Japan practiced agriculture in a way that was quite different to the other two ancient societies mentioned, as their practices were largely influenced by Buddhism, which restricted the killing of animals.

Because of this, the majority of ancient Japanese farmland was devoted to crops. Farming was unreliable in Japan, as typhoons could easily wipe out a year's worth of crops, and irrigation was largely insufficient to prevent failure. Still, the ancient Japanese persisted, and they developed complex river irrigation systems which hydrated their crops and minimized water waste.

Because of this, they could grow millet, rice, beans and buckwheat to mostly sufficient quantities. The limited variety of crops that the ancient Japanese could grow has had reverberating effects on the Japanese diet, even today, with rice and buckwheat particularly continuing to be major food sources.

Farming methods, especially sustainable farming methods, is a topic that could be talked about for decades without rest. There are dozens, if not hundreds of farming methods, many of which haven’t been mentioned in this article.

Even though we haven’t been able to cover everything, we hope you’ve got a good overview of farming methods around the world and across time, the impact they have on the environment, and what we can do to mitigate the negative effects.