Organic Farming and Sustainable

Agriculture

Sunil Kumar and Muhilan Mahendhiran

Faculty of Agriculture, Vivekananda Global University jaipur

Corresponding Author Email*: srk.jogawat0@gmail.com

 Introduction
 India is a developing country and agriculture plays a major role of income.
More than 70% of the Indian population is directly or indirectly involving
agriculture.
 For the population explosion, the need of food production is huge with the
same or less land area. Recent decades, farmers are using fertilizers and
chemicals for the production of food grains and agricultural products.
 Using of excessive chemicals, exploit environment, affecting biodiversity,
pollute the water bodies and also causing diseases (cancer, asthma, blood
pressure and diabetes) to humans.
 The beneficial microorganism will decrease and water holding capacity of
the soil also affects, because of excessive chemical usage.

 Introduction

 Along with this chemical residues deposits in soil and then it enters the plant
systems, finally into human gut and animal guts during consumption.
 Therefore, organic agriculture is an alternative solution for the growing
population and recovers soil health and improves human health.
 Applications of animal manures, cover crops or green manures, crop
rotation, and biologically based pest control helps to improve farming
system.
 Traditional and sustainable farming practices with the help of recent
scientific technologies, helps to produce organic food materials.
 Sikkim became the first fully organic state in the country in 2003 and is a role
model state for the entire country.
 Seventy five thousand hectares of agricultural land are converted into
sustainable farming system in Sikkim.
 Depending on the product, season, and supply and demand uncertainties,
organic food can cost anywhere from less than 10 % to more than 100 % of
conventionally grown produce.
 Moreover, it will help to improve the human health and produce
sustainability.    
 Organic farming in India
 Organic farming is an ancient method of crop production, due to which earlier
people used to live a healthy life and organic farming is also called organic
farming.
 India introduced the organic farming policy in 2005. The 2.78 million ha was
covered under organic farming in India is about two per cent of the 140.1 million
ha net sown area in the country 
 In organic agriculture, in the production of crops, dung manure, compost,
bacterial manure, residues of crops and natural resources are used, nutrients are
given to plants in the form of natural resources, in this type of farming the
elements and substances found in nature.
 Organic farming is used as a pesticide to maintain the purity of the environment,
keeping the land naturally healthy produce harmful food.
   Importance of Organic Farming

1) Maintain soil health

2) Maintain Ecological balance

3) Avoid Ground water and air pollution

4) Maintain soil and crop productivity

Organic farming as a system of crop production is to feed the soil rather than
feed the plant.
 Components of organic farming

 Crop cycle – Systematic arrangement of different crops on the same land of a particular
period – Crop residue –

 Animal husbandry – Cow, Buffalo, Sheep and Goat The products and waste materials of
all these are used in farming.

 Bio Fertilizer-beneficial microorganisms are used to fix atmospheric nitrogen in suitable

crops.

Rhizobium Azectobacter, Azospirillium Azolla, PSM Cyanobacteria

 Components of organic farming

FYM – Manure
– In this, the waste material of cow and buffalo is used in the farm. Waste of cow and
buffalo is used in the farm.  

Vermicomposting
 - Earthworm manure is used as vermi compost for horticulture crops and vegetable
 Components of organic farming
Bio pesticides
 - Boil neem leaves + neem seed powder with 10 litres of cow urine leaves in a jar after 10
days, after 10 days add 250 grams of garlic and 500 grams of ginger to the solution, boil and
spray on the crop.

 None chemical weed management– weed control is done by cultural, biological and
mechanical methods without using herbicide

 Mulching
 The waste material left after harvesting the mulching paddy is used as mulching and manure.
 Components of organic farming
 
Green manure
 – Green manure is used to increase the nutrient level of the soil and in the form of mulching
such as pulses crop is used for nitrogen fixation.
 
 Cow urine – one litre of cow urine with 20 litres of water for the crop – cow dung + cow urine
+ milk + curd and ghee ready mixture
 Main crop organically grow in India
 Cereal: Paddy ,wheat ,maize
 Plues: Red gram , Black gram
 Green gram, Bangla gram
 Spices: cardamom ,Black pepper , Ginger
 Turmeric, clove, vanilla
 Vegetables: Okra, Brinjal , tomato , potato ,Onion, Garlic
 Fruits: Mango, Banana ,pineapple ,grape ,Orange, Chasewnut
 Commodity: Tea, coffee
 Cash crop: cotton
 Top 10 State Area under organic Farming
Sr. State name Certified organic cultivated
area

1 Madhya Pradesh 270955

2 Maharashtra 270955

3 Rajasthan 57566

4 Gujarat 42267

5 Uter pradesh 17212

6 Orissa 16883

7 Goa 13044

8 Utrakhand 9513

9 Karnataka 9128
 
The Government of India provides assistance to promote organic farming across the
country through various schemes.
 
 Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana promotes
cluster based organic farming with PGS (Participant Guarantee System) certification.
 
 Cluster formation, training, certification and marketing are supported under the
scheme. An assistance of Rs.50,000 is provided per hectare/3 year, of which 62 per
cent (Rs. 31,000) is given to a farmer as an incentive for organic inputs.
Mission Organic Value Chain Development for North East Region (MOVCDNER) The
scheme promotes third party certified organic farming of specific crops of North East
region through Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) with focus on exports.

Farmers are given assistance of Rs 25,000 per hectare for three years for organic
manure and other inputs including biofertilizers. The scheme also provides
assistance of up to Rs 2 crore for formation of FPOs, capacity building, post-harvest
infrastructure.
Thank you