Methods Of Contour Farming

Contour Farming

Farming is one of the oldest and sustainable human activities. As societies evolved from simple to sophisticated lifestyles, human beings began to till land and farm in order to produce their own food. As time passed, man discovered different ways of tilling and farming on different landscapes, including slopes that are notorious for soil erosion. Some of the methods used to date include windbreaks, planting cover crops, planting grass on waterways, and contour cultivation among others. Contour cultivation (contour farming, contour ploughing, or contour bunding) is a sustainable way of farming where farmers plant crops across or perpendicular to slopes to follow the contours of a slope of a field. This arrangement of plants

When done right, this method reduce erosion by more than 50%. With reduced loss of fertility comes the reduced use of fertilizer and a reduced cost of purchasing fertilizers. In most cases, rainwater washes farming fertilizers downstream and consequently contaminating fresh water systems. Secondly, contour ploughing increases the soil’s water retention ability to ensure that enough water soaks in the soil for good health of the plants. Furthermore, water retention improves soil quality, irrigation, and water conservation thus reducing labor that would have gone into physical fetching of water. Other benefits are and time efficiency and reduced use of machines which in turn reduce the wear and tear. In summary, the method tends to promote sustainable agriculture and reduce most of the ills associated with soil erosion on slopes such as habitat

Contour farming is effective on slopes that have gradients between 2% and 10%. Secondly, the area must be receiving a given amount of rainfall in a given period. When the slopes are steeper and rainfall is greater, strip cropping becomes ideal in contour farming because this provides an extra layer of protection.

Experts encourage contour farmers to use additional soil and water conservation techniques to supplement the former in order to yield the best results. Such supplements include strip cropping, use of cover crops, use of wind breaks, grassing water ways, and building terraces among others. Strip cropping is good for long and steeper slopes while irregular slopes need more than a single key contour line. In getting the key line, farmers should use a contour gauge or a hand level and thereafter plant parallel to the key line. Grassed waterways are also important especially where there is a high concentration of runoff water while grassed strips come in handy where the contour lines are too sharp for farming equipment to plough. Other techniques to include are growing bush or tree borders across the slopes (vegetative barriers), residue management, and mulching to protect the