Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Farmers’ Meet On Organic Farming Gets Off To A Start In Dehradun Today      
ASHOK B SHARMA  Posted online: Monday, August 02, 2004 at 0009 hours IST
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=64918

NEW DELHI, AUG 1:  Country’s growers engaged in organic farming are 
converging at Ramgarh village in Dehradun district in Uttaranchal for a 
two-day conference begining on August 2 for formulating an ‘India Organic 
Vision 2020.’ The vision document will enable Indian farmers to successfully 
tap the $37 billion global market for organic foods.


The conference will also deliberate on the issue of recent suicides committed 
by farmers on account of being debt-trapped and use of spurious pesticides 
and fertilisers leading to crop failure. The event named ‘Vasundhara : A 
National Gathering of Organic Communities’ is being hosted by Navdanya 
Biodiversity Farm in village Ramgarh in Uttaranchal.

More than 250 organic growers, seed savers and biodiversity conservers from 
Kerala, Karnataka, TN, MP, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, 
UP, Uttaranchal, Orissa, Bihar, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh are slated to 
attend the event.

Speaking to FE, Dr Vandana Shiva of Navdanya said “we will work together to 
strengthen the solidarity among organic communities, identifying the 
strengths of the organic movement and the problems faced by organic growers. 
We will also set an India Organic Vision 2020.

The objective of the Vision 2020 will be to put small and marginal farmers 
and organic farming at the centre of India’s agriculture policy.”

The organic farmers believe that much of the cases of suidicies committed by 
farmers are due to the use of suprious fertilisers and pesticides which has 
lead to crop failure. In such cases the farmers are unable to pay back the 
loans and become debt-trapped. Therefore, the alternate way is to go for 
organic farming which is less expensive, environment friendly and ensures 
higher yields.

The factor productivity decreases as the soil is degraded due to excessive 
use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. The crop productivity and 
production gets plateaued after a certain level. But when the soil is 
restored back to health after use of different varieties of biofertilisers 
through organic farming, the crop productivity marks an increase.