THERE are several important factors on the basis of which organic farming has been promoted in recent years. Organic farming can improve the quality of food, producing healthy food which is free from harmful chemicals and likely to be more nutritious. It will help to improve the quality of soil from harm caused by agro-chemicals. It has the potential to significantly reduce farming costs, as cash expenditure on some expensive inputs like chemical fertilisers, insecticides and herbicides can be avoided.

Organic farming can help to increase the self-reliance of farming communities. In many places it is possible for organic farmers to obtain a better price for their produce. Organic produce can make available new markets to farmers, including export markets.

Organic farming is better for the survival and growth of other forms of life – wild life, farm animals and other domesticated animals, including many friendly birds and insects who also contribute to more productive agriculture by promoting pollination, eating harmful insects and in other ways. Organic farming helps to reduce water pollution. Occupational health hazards for farmers and farm workers would be significantly reduced.

Important as all these aspects of organic farming are, they must be weighed against the crucial question of whether organic farming can produce yields comparable to what has been possible using agri-chemicals like fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides. This question is certainly important in the present context with an accentuating food crisis being reported from many parts of the world. The answer to this question is happily a yes – it is possible for organic agriculture to feed the world.

 

But to realise this as well as other potentials of organic farming, it cannot be considered in isolation. It is not sufficient to claim that giving up the use of harmful and hazardous chemicals is enough. It is equally important to pay full attention to the various conditions in which organic farming flourishes best – soil, water and moisture conservation, cropping systems most conducive to weather and soil conditions, protection and promotion of enough greenery in and around the village, include pastureland, trees and forests, social harmony and economic equality in the village. It is under these conditions that village communities can best contribute to realising the potential of organic farming to feed not only the country with healthy food, but also produce a surplus for other parts where it is needed.

Any campaign to promote organic farming in India is most welcome but it should take into account this wider reality if it is to make a worthy and lasting contribution to food security, health improvement and protection of the environment. The campaign for organic farming must be an integral part of a wider understanding and programme of healthy, just and sustainable farming and food systems.

Documentation is already available in India of numerous experimental efforts relating to the rich experiences and potential of organic farming. The first directory of such efforts, ‘Green Farming’, was by the Centre for Science and Environment. The second by ETC Consultants, is titled ‘ILEIA/LEISA Network for India: A Register of Indian Organisations in Low-External-Input and Sustainable Agriculture’. The third directory is part of a larger book on organic farming titled The Organic Farming Source Book, published by The Other India Book Store, Goa, in collaboration with the Third World Network, Malaysia. Kalpavriksha (Pune and Delhi), Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems (Chennai) and Prakruti (Bombay) have also published information on organic farming in India.

 

These directories contain several examples of individual success stories of farmers using low-cost farming practices without any chemicals, while maintaining reasonable yields. In fact, in some cases the yields are quite high. In other cases yields decline in the short term, but pick up again after some time. In several of these experiments farmers have attempted to promote a harmonious relationship between crops, trees, farm animals, friendly insects, earthworms, microorganisms and birds. A precept emphasised by most of them is ‘understand the way nature works and carry out your work in accordance with the ways of nature’.

The Society for Equitable Voluntary Action (West Bengal) undertook an experiment to grow crops without the use of chemical fertilisers on the fields of 100 farmers in 10 villages. There was a positive response in as many as 85% cases. In SEVA’s project area, the growing of paddy without using chemical fertilisers has spread to 2000 hectares.

From the green revolution district of Bijnore (UP), Shor Vir Singh says (after several years of experimenting in organic agriculture with a group of farmers), ‘Now I am quite confident; in a year’s time I can change the land to organic farming without any decrease in production.’ Anil Rana/Jan Hith Trust won the One World Award this year for promoting organic farming in Meerut (UP).

The Save the Seeds movement in the Garhwal hills, the Traditional Seed Bank in Tamil Nadu and the Deccan Development Society in Andhra Pradesh have succeeded in collecting and spreading the use of traditional seeds by an ever increasing number of farmers. In some states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and elsewhere, networks of organic farms have been formed. This will enable more organic farmers to learn from each others experience. Most farmers clearly expressed satisfaction after shifting to organic farming.

 

In September 1989 the United States National Academy of Sciences published a report which examined 14 farms in the USA that had successfully developed natural production methods. This report on ‘alternative agriculture’ said: ‘Well-managed alternative farms use less synthetic chemical fertilizers, pesticides and antibiotics without necessarily decreasing, and in some cases, increasing per acre crop yields and the productivity of livestock systems... Wider adoption of proven alternative systems would result in ever greater economic benefits to farmers and environmental gains for the nation.’

According to case studies of successful vegetable and rice farms using ecological methods in the Philippines, in the largest set of adjacent farms totalling 1000 hectares using the biodynamic farming method, there was a yield increase of 50 to 100 per cent and an increase in net income of farmers by 200 to 270 per cent, compared to the green revolution methods. Nicanor Perlas, a Fillipino agricultural scientist said while presenting these case studies that a rapid transition from chemical farming to sustainable agriculture was possible if correct technical principles are followed.

Cuba provides an outstanding example at a national level that has recently succeeded in moving from a highly chemical intensive agriculture to an ecology friendly approach. Peter Rosset writes that in many cases, peasant farmers had remembered old methods and reapplied them. ‘In almost every case,’ Rosset states, ‘they said they had done two things: remembered the old techniques – like intercropping and manuring – that their parents and grandparents had used before the advent of modern chemicals, simultaneously incorporating bio-pesticides and bio-fertilisers into their production practices. Incidentally, many of them commented on the noticeable drop in acute pesticide poisoning incidents on their crops since 1989.’

Jules Pretty has analyzed 45 non-chemical agricultural initiatives spread across 17 African countries. From these, some 730,000 farming households have substantially improved food production and their food security. In 95 per cent of the projects where yield increase was the aim, cereal yields have improved by 50-100 per cent. Total farm food production has increased overall.

An increasing number of people are seeking a way out of the problems created by chemical intensive agriculture by following the agro-ecological approach. Miguel Altieri, an agro-ecology expert at the University of California, recently estimated that there are already about five million hectares of farms being recuperated through ecological methods by two and a half million families around the world.