* Paper presented at the International Conference on Ecologial Agriculture: Towards Sustainable Development, organized by the Indian Ecological Society, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, in collaboration with the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, Chandigarh, 15-17 November 1997. Published in Man & Development: March 1998, pps. 142-48.

Ecological agriculture is not new to India. What our farmers had been practising for centuries was ecological agriculture. They did not destroy or exploit the natural resources at the cost of environment. It is only on the advent of the Green Revolution, the danger to ecology and environment was noticed. However, ecological agriculture of the past could have fed only one-third of our present population. The question debated at several forums is 'Whether ecological agriculture would keep pace with the need to increase production for the increasing population'. Modern production technology has proved its unsustainability. Therefore, high-tech cannot go with the environmentally sound and sustainable. We may have to think of several alternatives for sustaining our production without sacrificing the environment and ecology. One of the alternatives is 'Organic Farming'.

Organic Farming or Organic Agriculture has been perceived differently by different people in different countries. In the advanced countries it may be meant for preventing contamination, by poisonous chemicals, of food, feed, fodder and fibre. In our country, the major problem is the low productivity of our soils, because of its low organic-matter content. Even the efficiency of the uptake of fertilizer depends on the organic-matter content of th soil. However, Organic Farming of today is not traditional agriculture. The principles governing organic farmng are more scientific than even the principles followed in modern agriculture.

Organic Farming aims at harmony with nature and production without destruction of the environment. No doubt, modern technologies in agriculture have largely contributed to the Green Revolution and helped to tide over our food crisis during the last four decades. The Green Revolution in this country was possible because of the combination of high-yielding varieties, irrigation, fertilizer and pesticides. If any one of these factors were removed, the yield would come down drastically, if not result in a crop failure. This technology is extremely exploitative and has not only telling ill-effects on such natural resources as soil, water, plant, animals, but is also input-intensive. The Green Revolution has often been called Greed Revolution. Gandhiji has said that there is enough on this earth for the need of every man but not for the greed of all.

It is well known that our productivity in most of the cereals, millets, oilseeds, pulses and plantation crops is among the lowest in the world. The country has taken great strides in improving the seed quality and farming techniques. Fertilizer and pesticide consumption has increased enormously, yet productivity is not even half the world's average in several cases. The impact of the Green Revolution is showing signs of a reversing trend and production has decreased at several places, in spite of increased inputs. There was a quantum jump of 100 million tonnes from around 60 million tonnes to 160 million tonnes in two decades (during the 1960s and 1970s), but the last decade could not witness even 10 million tonnes jump in production, in spite of successive good monsoons. This being the case, how are we going to reach the target of around 240 mllion tonnes by 2010, which is the minimum quantity needed for the growing population of this country?

There are several reasons for low productivity, the major being the drastic decline in soil nutrients, particularly in the areas where fertilizer is being used in increasing quantity year after year without adequate supplement of organic matter. The country has all the favourable climatic conditions to grow crops round the year where water is available, yet the total production of two to three harvests a year may not be equal to one good harvest.

Nitrate Contamination of Underground Water

Increasing fertilizer use may not give the expected yield, particularly in areas where it is being regularly used. Experts point out that the fertilizer-use efficiency is only 30-35 per cent and the remaining 65-70 per cent of nutrients reach the underground water resources in the form of nitrate, which along with phosphates, pollute water bodies. Thousands of wells have been found to be unsafe having been contaminated with nitrates with some of them as having 45 mg per litre.

It is a well known fact that with the increase in use of fertilizers there has been a phenomenal rise in the use of pesticides because of the aggravation of pest and disease outbreaks. We have reached a stage where we cannot stop use of fertilizers and pesticides and at the same time there is no sign of further increase in productivity and production. Unless we reverse this trend, the sustainability of production will be at stake. Therefore, resort to Organic Farming is unavoidable, not only to prevent contamination of food by chemicals but also to make the sick soil health and productive. It has been proved all over India, under ICAR multi-location trials, that the use of organic manure is essential not only for better utilization of applied fertilizer, but also to make the soil productive and agriculturally sustainable.

There are several doubts in the minds of not only farmers but the scientists too, as to whether it is possible to supply the minimum required nutrients to crops through organic sources alone and even if it is possible how are we going to mobilize that much of organic matter. At this juncture it is not advised to switch over overnight from fertilizer-use ot organic manure everywhere. At the moment only 30 per cent of our total cultivable area, where irrigation facilities are available, are covered by fertilizers, the remaining 70 per cent of the arable land, which are mainly rainfed do not use fertilizers. It is here that our ingenuity and efforts are required to increase productivity and production. The 70 per cent cultivable rainfed area supply only 40 per cent of our total food production. During the last two decades several experiments have resulted in the development of low inputs and simple technologies to double the production under dry farming. In most of our rainfed agriculture the growing season is confined to four to five months depending on the monsoon. All our efforts should be to pool all available technologies and nutrient resources to get the maximum results. Selection of suitable seeds, timely sowing, integrated nutrient and plant protection measures, maintenance of minimum plant population per unit area, would largely contribute to a substantial increase in yield. A mission-mode approach to increase production in rainfed agriculture should be our top priority fo rthe next decade. We may call it the Decade of Revolution of Rainfed Agriculture. We could achieve twin objectives through this revolution. By improving the productivity and sustainabiity of dryfarming we would be improving the economic condition of 70 per cent of the farming community who have been deprived of modern technology.

Integrated nutrient management and integrated pest management continue to be good concepts yet to be practised in the real sense. These two complement each other. A good compost with all the micro-nutrients is the key to increasing productivity and sustainabiity. Well decomposed organic matter and farmyard manure, applied under the right soil moisture condition, would not only improve soil texture and structure but also provide the crop necessary resistance against pest and disease.

Convert 'Filth into Wealth'

The basic requirement in organic farming is to enrich the biomass to increase the nutrient value from 0.3 to 0.4 per cent to one to two per cent. There are technologies now available to enrich the biomass, including Farm Yard Manure three to four times if properly composted. According to a conservative estimate, around 600 to 700 million tonnes of agricultural waste is available in the country every year, but most if it is not properly used. We must convert our 'filth into wealth' by mobilizing all the biomass in rural and urban areas into bioenergy to supply required nutrients to our starved soil and fuel to farmers.

Several options are available to increase the biomass to meet the requirement of minimum plant nutrients. A portion of the cropping land could be made available for growing green manure along with the regular crop. This green manure can be harvested at the right time and composted, stored and used in the following growing season. The land lost in growing green manure would be compensated by increased yield int he remaining area and year after year productivity would remain the same even if it does not increase. Our social forestry can be planned to augment our biomass requirement, in additon to the fodder and fuel now being supplied.

There are several alternative organic soil nutrients such as wormi-compost, biofertilizers, etc. Technologies have been developed to producelarge quantities of wormi-compost. There are specific biofertilizers for cereals, millets, pulses and oilseeds.

To make millions of acres of our starved land productive, adequate organic amendments have to be provided. This requires not only enormous quantities of biomass but also ingenuity and techniques to enrich it to supply the required quantity of nutrients to the crops. Even if the present production of around 13 million tonnes of fertilizers is increased to around 20 million tonnes by the turn of the century, it might not be available at affordable prices to the farmers. Unless plant nutrients are supplemented adequately with compost and biofertilizers, sustainability of production cannot be achieved. Therefore, adequate attention to enriching our soils with as much organic matter as possible is unavoidable. Similarly, biopesticides and biological agents play an important role in sustainable agriculture. Together with biofertilizers, reduction in the use of nitrogenous fertilizers itself could reduce the incidence of pest and disease in crops proportionately, as many of our experiments have show.

The rainfed areas constitute nearly 68 per cent of India's total geographical area of 328.7 million hectares. Rainfed agriculture or dryfarming has not received as much attention as the irrigated areas as far as transfer of technology to increase the yields of crops is concerned. Research in dryfarming has been going on in several parts of the country for more than two decades for generating very useful technologies in the area of soil and moisture conservation. The thrust and focus on making these thirsty soils sustainable with the maintenance of soil-organic matter and thus supply soil nutrients adequately under tropical conditions, has, however, been elusive. This must be regarded as a major problem of equal importance as that of soil-moisture availability, and should receive top priority for the next century.

Need to Raise Organic Carbon Content of Soil

It is said that most of the organic matter mineralizes four times faster under tropical conditions than in temperate conditions and unless supplemented in every cropping season, the organic carbon content of the soil decreases fast. Most of our soils under the dryfarming system contains less than 0.5 per cent organic carbon. Unless it is raised to 0.9 per cent or one per cent, productivity of the soil cannot be optimized.

Sustainability of soil nutrients depend on several factors. Except for a short season of three to four months, when the land is covered with crop, for the rest of the year it is subjected to harsh exposure to sun, wind and torrential rains, which degrade or take away the top-soil with its nutritious salts. Unless the soil is kept covered by some means after harvesting the crop, the top-soil continues to get eroded and productivity decreases. The questions addressed now are what is the alternative to prevent th colossal loss of soil-nutrients and how to improve soil-fertility for sustainable crop production?

Experiments were carried out for nearly two decades at the University of Agricultural Sciences with the following treatment to ragi crop under rainfed condition: (a) recommended dose of fertilizers alone, (b) 50 per cent of recommended Farmyard Manure(FYM) or compost as nutrient, (c) only FYM to ragi as a continuous crop and (d) in alternate years with the groundnut crop. Results have shown that at the beginning where the fertilizer alone was used, the yield of ragi was the highest, but gradually it started declining till it reached only half the original level in about a decade. In plots where only organic manure was used although the initial yields were less than in the fertilizer-applied plots, they improved with the years at the same level throughout. The best combination proved to be where 50 per cent organic manure and 50 per cent fertilizers were applied in alternating ragi and gorundnut crops.

We are aware that there is great scope for increasing production and productivity in the rainfed areas. Even if 10 to 20 per cent increase in yield could be achieved in these areas it would add substantially to the granaries of the nation. Several high-yielding varieties of cereals, millets, pulses and oilseeds, that are suitable for dryfarming, have been evolved, but the potential of these varieties ahve not been exploited because of the poor productivity of the soil and bad management of the cropping system. Our people have not been giving attention even to optimize plant population, seed treatment, the depth of sowing, spacing between rows, suitable inter-croppping and measures to prevent pests and diseases at the right time. It is not only essential to use organic manures, but also adopt several other techniques which contribute in a small way to increase the production.

During 1996, under the Institution Village Linkage Programme (IVLP), the UAS Bangalore adopted a village, Malali in Hassan District, about 150 kms from Bangalore, on the National Highway No. 48. The village has 338 families of which 323 are of farmers owning a total of 970 acres of which 770 acres are dryland and 200 acres under irregular tank-irrigation. This village was not exposed to any of the new acricultural technologies. The major staple food crop was local ragi which they called malali ragi, whose average yield was four to five quintals per acre. Occasionally, wherever they got water in the tank, they grew local paddy. Rainfed potato was the only cash crop, if at all they got a disease-free good harvest. Some pulses and oilseeds were grown in between ragi, mainly for their household needs.

Innovations Improve Economy, Change Attitudes

Under IVLP, several new innovations have been introduced, including a change of varieties, maintenance of plant population, seed treatment, recommended dose of fertilizer and farmyard manure , plant protection measures, etc., and new crops like sunflower, groundnut, maize, chilli, redgram, either as inter-crop of ragi or pure crop replacing ragi. In addition to these interventions, the introduction of new implements and improved breeds of poultry, sheep, piggery and fodder crop were taken up. Within two years there was a perceptible change, not only in improved economic condition but in the attitude of the farmers towards taking up new technologies and new varieties. In the second year, they covered 150 acres with the new variety of ragi which gave nine to ten quintals per acres compared to their local variety (four to five quintals). Seed treatment of potato, fertlizer application and plant protection measures increased the yield by 25 per cent without change of the variety.

Intercropping with redgram in potato was not only a new crop for the area but has given additional income. Introduction of groundnut as a new crop has yielded Rs. 3000-4000 additional income per acre. Introduction of these two crops is expected to increase soil fertility and sustainability. The emphasis was on enriching the farmyard manure and farm-waste into well-decomposed compost. Initially, the people were hesitant about adopting new techniques of compost-making, but after realizing the significant yield improvement in the first year, more than 100 farmers voluntarily adopted the new technique of compost-making in the second year. Where they were traditionally growing paddy under tank-bed, with or without assured source of water, they have gone over to alternate crops like sunflower, chillies and maize, covering the entire area with whatever water available and have been able to increase their income significantly, instead of facing failure of crops quite often for want of adequate water.

Introduction of the nutritional garden was another intervention. The majority of the farmers came forward to adopt a nutritive garden, where nothing was grown earlier, provided they were given seeds and plant material along with the necessary technology. Now they have been able to get adequate vegetables for their households.

Some of the methods adopted here have been found to be productive and sustainable. Only the future, however, can tell how far the timely interventions and adoption have made the farmers realize the importance of new technology and help revolutionize Indian agriculture.

Our soils have been totally deprived of crop residues. The entire crop is harvested and carried out of the field. The straw and stumps are used as fodder and fuel, respectively. Whatever crop residues are left are eaten by termites in most cases. Some of the experiments carried out under dryfarming conditions have proved the possibility of increasing productivity of the soil by incorporating in it the entire crop residues, at least once in two or three years, taking only the grains. This should be done at a time where there is enough moisture in the soil, which should then be covered completely.

Inadequate Knowledge of Compost Making

It is doubtful as to how many of our farmers know the value of proper composting, their preservation and application at the right time and right place. Most of our farmers make a compost pit, which is filled every day little by little for over a period of six to nine moths. When it rains, it is filled with water, the bottom of the compost becomes cake-like, while the top portion is not compressed well and is semi-dried. When applied to the fields, it is eaten away by the termites. Most of our composts and farmyard manure have less than 0.5% of nitrogen. If all the crop residues and farmyard manure are properly composted on a flat surface with vats of four to five teet width, four to five feet height and of convenient length, the compost can be enriched to yield one to two per cent nitrogen and other essential micronutrients. It has to be done in one day, keeping all the material ready, spreading layer after layer with crop residues and farmyard manure, maintaining at least 60 per cent of the moisture and filling the entire vat at one time. It produces a great deal of heat in the centre. Therefore, at least once in a month this has to be turned out two to three times, every time adding the required moisture of it is dried. This process has to be continued for about four to five months. Such compost will have all the ingredients rich enough to provide proper nourishment to the plant.

Most of the FYM or composts taken to the field are either heaped or spread during lean months, much before the sowing time. This is a colossal waste, as the compost or the manure loses all its utility unless it is incorporated when there is the right type of moisture in the soil. The best way to use FYM or compost is in furrows at the time of sowing. Although it is labour-intensive and time-consuming, the reward will be more than expected.

In addition to learning making a good compost and using it well at the right time, farmers need to know that there are several supplements available for increasing the productivity of the soil, starting from seed treatment to use of several biofertilizers, which would contribute 10 to 15 per cent higher yield. These biofertilizers and biopesticides are now available as easily as fertilzers and pesticides in the market. Post-harvest technologies too are as important as production technologies and in sustainable agriculture 'a grain saved is a grain grown'.

Organic farming is best suited under perennial plantation crops which provide proper shade and cover to the soil, keeping the microbial activity in the soil constant. However, the cover of the crop itself may not be enough to maintain the soil microbial activity. Unless there is enough organic matter, neither would the applied fertilizer uptake the maximum, nor the continuity of the microbial activity which is suppressed by chemical fertilizers. Therefore, there is a need to maintain a minimum amount of organic matter through periodical supply. There are instances where a high level of production of plantation crops like tea, coffee, cardamom and paper could be otained through nutrient supply from organic sources alone. Incidentally, there is great scope for exporting organically grown tea, cofffee, cardamom, pepper, etc. In addition to improving our soil productivity through organic farming, we can look forward to greater demands for our products grown organically.

Relevance of Organic Agriculture can be summed up as follows:

First, it does not entirely depend on non-renewable high inputs like fertilizers and pesticides. Required plant nutrient can be secured from locally available organic sources.

It aims at harmony with nature and development without destruction of the environment.

Helps in buildng better soils, encourages soil microbes, sustains productivity and prevents poisoning the surroundings.

Requirement of seeds, manures, methods of plant protection can be locally secured, thus avoiding overhead cost of transport of inputs.

Encourages 'Swavalambana', a step towards 'Gram Swaraj' of Gandhiji's dream.