In the 1980s, for example, farmers often used rippers to break compacted layers and hardpans, allowing crop roots to grow deeper and reach moisture further down in the soil profile.
This type of soil preparation played an important role at the time. But it also meant many hours of tractor work, fuel consumption and repeated disturbance of the soil.
Today, with diesel, machinery, labour and input costs continuing to put pressure on farming businesses, it may be time to look more closely at the chemical and biological side of the soil.
The question is no longer simply: How deep can we rip or how much soil can we move?
The question should also be: How can we build soil that allows the roots to do more of the work themselves?
Good soil needs both the right physical structure and the right chemical balance.
The physical structure determines how easily roots can move through the soil and how air and water move around them. The chemical side concerns the nutrients and minerals available to the plant. Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium are important, but plants also require calcium, magnesium, sulphur and a range of micronutrients.
Regenerative farming moves from buzzword to the dinner table
Getting the balance right is important. Simply adding more fertiliser is not necessarily the answer. Farmers need to understand what their particular soil is lacking and what is already present.
This is where organic matter, biological activity and products such as biochar can become part of the conversation. Properly produced and correctly applied biochar can help improve certain soil properties, including water and nutrient holding capacity. But it should not be regarded as a miracle product. It needs to be used according to the soil, crop and farming system.
The bigger message is that we need to start thinking about building soil rather than continually moving soil.
Every pass with a tractor costs money. Every litre of diesel costs money. Mechanical intervention also has an energy cost. If better soil structure, organic matter, biological activity and balanced minerals can help roots find water and nutrients more effectively, then there is an opportunity to reduce unnecessary mechanical disturbance.
This does not mean that ripping, ploughing or other mechanical practices will never be necessary. Compaction and specific soil problems sometimes require mechanical correction.
But perhaps the future lies in using machinery when the soil needs it, rather than automatically working the soil because that is how farming has always been done.
The soil should become the farmer's greatest production asset.
We have spent decades learning how to move soil. Now we need to spend more time learning how to build it.
The next generation of South African farming may depend not only on bigger machinery and better technology, but on understanding the physical structure, chemical balance and biological life of the soil — and getting all three working together.
