Organic Farming the only Saviour of the Indian Farmer Overview The Green Revolution of the 1960's was hailed as a turning point in Indian Agriculture and our Government went on record saying that we have achieved self-sufficiency in food. Yet after 40+ years of agricultural research, government subsidies and the like, the fact remains that the average Indian farmer is in a bad shape and most farmers prefer their sons to go into a different vocation than farming. This paper highlights the direct and indirect costs of chemical farming and attempts a practical, lasting solution to the average farmer's problems. The solution is to return to our proven ways of indigenous farming with native seeds, native cattle and organic inputs. Practical inputs from the field are given for the transition. This can be implemented without major systemic changes or infrastructural or government investment. Mental and political blocks to the implementation are also discussed. Fundamental change The advent of green revolution and the introduction of fertilizer and chemical inputs , and hybrid varieties in the 60's has changed the fundamental structure of Indian agriculture; a change that has lasting economical, ecological, cultural and health costs of astronomical proportions. Yet, this was not at all necessary, and we could have very well continued with our ancient ways of proven agronomy and seeds. In hindsight it appears that we could have imported food grains to cover temporary shortfalls and focused on pure breeding indigenous varieties.[#1]. During green revolution, the increase achieved in food production was more due to an increase in cultivation area (enabled by improved irrigation technologies) than an increase in the average yield per acre. Let us first discuss the price we have paid for "increasing " food output through the green revolution. Direct Costs of Chemical Farming (In this context, it would be worthwhile to remember that the farmer's true capital is his topsoil, ground water, seeds, cattle and agronomy know-how. A business that makes short term profits by eroding its capital cannot be called viable. ) Economic costs The first evident cost is the huge increase in the input costs of the farmer. This increases the working capital requirement, immediately raises the bar on break-even yield and increases the cost of managing or mitigating risks - if at all. The immediate corollary of this is the government's attempt at reducing his input costs by subsidies, especially to petrochemical fertilizers. Fertilizers are becoming scarce and dear, and the cost of subsidy has skyrocketed from a manageable 1600 crores a year in (1985-86) to a huge 110,000 crores this year (2008-09)[#2]. On the other hand, imports have been steadily increasing year by year [#3]. It is a well established fact that organic farming increases the porosity and humus content of the soil, increases soil moisture retention and the irrigation water requirement for an organic farm is much less compared to a chemical farm. After a 22 year study of farm trials, Professor David Pimentel of Corenll University , USA , concluded that organic farming reduces power consumption by 30%[#4] . In our Indian context ,where agricultural power is free or subsidized, 27% of total power is used for irrigation. Conservatively assuming that organic farming can reduce this consumption by 15% we save a total of 3% of the total power consumed in all of India (around 700 billion units a year). The direct cost savings to the government in power alone would be of the order of 5000 crores. The third cost that government incurs is public health care. One doesn't need to be an Einstein to know that pesticides lead to diseases. The government spending on health-care in India is 1% of the GDP which is around 45,000 crores. If the country were to go organic we can conservatively assume that this expenditure can be reduced by at least 10% - leading to a direct cost saving of 4500 crores per year. Summing up, if all of us Indian farmers went organic the government would save 120,000 crores or 3 % of GDP! The total contribution of agriculture to GDP is only 19% as of now. From an individual farmer perspective, the same land requires increasing to inputs to maintain the same yield levels, year-by-year. Rising input costs push farmers into debts and deeply increase the risk of farming. Ecological Costs Chemical farming has lead to the loss of topsoil, salinity of ground water , pollution of water sources and the environment and loss of bio-diversity (because of mono cropping) and the loss of native seeds and cattle. These facts are virtually uncontested. From being a living organism, the soil has been made a sterile medium on which plants can be grown with external, synthetic inputs. Disease resistance in plants and cattle has reduced very much leading to more spray of pesticides, poisoning the environment. These losses are fundamental, capital, qualitative and cannot be quantified. There can be no economy without ecology and all ecological losses are erosion of our survival capital on this earth. Sociological Costs After the advent of the green revolution, the most significant change is the change of producers to consumers. Instead of being a proud producer of life's core necessities the farmer has become a huge market opportunity for agro-businesses. It is this single fact that has completely altered the fabric of the village and made both the landlords and laborers as debtors. Farming used to be a way of life; now it is treated more as a profession or business. Farmers have lost the ability to live integrally with the land; the employee-landlord relationship that was a self-contained symbiosis has been broken to create market opportunities in the villages. Most villages in India buy packed milk and packed food. Farmers are no longer bothering about subsistence farming or integrated organic farming with animals. Villages are no longer self-reliant. They are nett importers than nett exporters. Health Costs The incidence of anemia, cancer, diabetes and the like have increased severalfold in India after the advent of chemical farming. Most importantly the resistance to diseases has been significantly reduced by using chemical fertilizers. Vegetables and fruits contain natural salicylic acid, the key component for building body's resistance and fighting cancer [#5]. Scientists from Britain have made a study on this. In their study, they tested 11 brands of organic vegetable soups and 24 brands of non-organic soups. When a comparison was made, it was found that the organic brands contained 9 times more salicylic acid than the non-organic brands. Four non-organic brands contained no salicylic acid at all [#6]. Several studies have confirmed the overall nutritional superiority of organic foods [#7]. All right, but how do we change? Most farmers agree that their present way of farming is not sustainable and is pushing them into debt. Yet few dare the transition. There are many myths associated with organic farming which constitute mental blocks to change. Myth1: Organic farming produces low yield Fact: Nothing can be farther from the truth. The highest yields in India , in any crop are achieved by organic farmers, if we average over a period of 3 to 5 years. The yield loss is only for 1 or 2 crops. Even at lower yields organic farming is as viable as chemical farming. When yields stabilize it really makes for a very sustainable and satisfying livelihood for the farmer. There are native varieties in every state that produce high yields. High Yielding Hybrid Varieties(HYHV) are not high yielding but merely high-input responsive. [#1] Myth2: There will be virtually no income during transition. The cost of transition is high. Fact: This is only if the transition is not managed well. In the first two crops we should be prepared to spend the same, as we spend for chemical farming. The nett income may be less for 2 crops but there will definitely be an income. If you change from chemical farming to organic farming, it would be wise to go for native seeds, which have better disease resistance, can withstand floods and droughts better and also grow under less inputs. Even at lower yields, organic farming is more profitable than high yielding chemical farming[#7]. Myth3: Organic farming is labor intensive. Fact: False. If anything, organic farming requires much less labor than chemical farming. As our farm becomes more and more fertile, we need to do less and less work. Myth4: There is not enough manure to fertilize all the 40 crore acres in our country. Fact : Cattle manure is not the only source of crop nutrition. Rice for example produces 2 tons of straw and 2 tons of grain in an acre. If all the straw is composted and returned to the soil then that field requires no external inputs. There are scientific methods for composting rice straw [#9]. The Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, found out that composting water hyacinth can produce 30 tonnes of vermicompost per 1 acre of water body like a lake [#9a]. Converting 5% of our wasteland to ponds can meet all the fertilizer requirements of our country. It is definitely cheaper than spending 110,000 crores for importing fertilizers. Myth5: Organic farming is not scientific. It's like a quack medicine. Fact : Completely false. Modern empirical science is based on repeatable processes. Every organic farmer is a scientist himself. There is a lot of agronomy know-how on how to enrich the soil or manage pests and diseases, without resorting to the use of poisonous chemicals. Proven, technologies like panchakavya, amrit paani, herbal pest repellents and the like have been documented in many books, the most notable being Dr.G.Nammalvar's book in Tamil[#10] and CIKS' numerous booklets [#11]. Today it is not only possible to achieve predictable yields by repeatable processes in organic methods, but it is also possible to quantitatively manage crops. Myth6: Organic farming cannot feed our country or the world. Fact : Chemical farming has not increased per acre yields in any significant manner. Again taking the example of rice, after 40+ years of serious agricultural research and numerous hybrids, the average national yield is less than 1200 kgs per acre. But traditional fine-grain varieties like kitchadi samba and jeeraka samba yield a steady 1400 kgs/acre under adverse conditions. Coarse varieties like samba mosanam are capable of yielding 2 tons /acre under organic farming [#practical field data]. With a cultivable area of 40 crore acres, we only have a population 110 crore people. Even if our population were to reach 200 crores, we can still feed that population with existing land and native seeds and organic farming. References: #1. http://www.tribuneindia.com/2000/20001016/agro.htm#2 #2. http://fert.nic.in/annualreport/rp9900chapter-VII.asp #3. http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2008/12/2455 #4. http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/July05/organic.farm.vs.other.ssl.html #5. http://lib.bioinfo.pl/pmid:16608205 #6. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11876493 #7. http://www.ota.com/organic/benefits/nutrition.html #8. http://www.grain.org/research_files/karnataka_experience.pdf #9. http://bicol.da.gov.ph/tips/composting.html #9a. The Hindu, Farmer's Notebook by M.J.Prabhu. p17, Feb 9, 2006 #10. Iyarkai Vivasaayattirku Sila Uthigal, Dr.G.Nammalwar (Some Techniques for Organic Farming) #11. http://www.ciks.org