Essay on Sustainable Agricultural Development in India

Over the world growing population is becoming more day by day, the most important challenges have been to produce enough food for the growing population. Hence, highly yielding varieties are being used together with some natural resources like water and rain falls were helping to grown the food needs as well some of the pesticides fertilizers industries are also helping to produce the large quantity of food we need, some industries technology helping to develop food surplus. to feed growing population with required varieties. Our natural potential, destruction of the aerosphere and environment pollution leading result to manmade environment and posed threat to humankind, and climate changes are also the reasons for the modifications of natural resources, increasing the chemicals in the producing the agriculture needs. Due to chemical preparations, the land loses soil fertility, and pests appear due to frequent spraying that exceeds the safe level. New thoughts to be need for the sustainability development it needs the organic agriculture organic farming to make them trend. A critical evaluation exhibit organic farming system provide some solutions to the problems for the currently the agriculture sector of industrialized or green revolution countries. Organic farming in agriculture can provide a good food for the people without affecting the soil health and environment by that we can maintain agriculture benefits in economically, socially and eco-friendly, and there is an urgent need to adopt the organic farming in agriculture to improve our health and as well our environments and climate changes problems to be maintained.

Introduction

Agriculture has changed dramatically over the year. With the advent of technology, it attains its popularity, labor cost it reduced, and the production is increased. Though there are many positive effects, it has many problems like topsoil depletion, ground water contaminations etc. Hence sustainable practices in agriculture are necessary. The sustainable agriculture movement begins during the 1950s and 60s. At the movement, the Green Revolution was exporting high-technology agriculture around the world and truly increased the agriculture production on a global level, and then a counter movement was beginning – the sustainable agriculture movement. It has maximizations the productions to another level of productivity and cultivation of differ variety with high yielding foods like hybrids and genetically modified without some basic on natural resources degradation, emergence of soil nutrient and loss of bio diversity with development of new bio pests and pathogens and chemical foods. This leads to danger for the health of people and animals. Sustainability agriculture is the most and important in every human being in the world, food is the essential required in our daily life and also to making that sustain is also the important for all beings in the world. To protect our environment form pollution free is our right as an human beings we give our fresh environment for our future generation without any harm. The necessitates to have alternative agriculture to develop a friendly eco system while sustaining and increasing the crop production and organic farming in agriculture is also increasing thru out the world day by day. We can see the changes were occurred in past 10 years many countries and focusing on the food.

Definition, Concepts and Ecological Benefits

Organic agriculture is a production system that sustain the ecosystem and the health of soil organic production system is based on the specific standard precisely formulated for food production and aim to archive the agro-ecosystem which is helps for country economically and socially sustainable, it totally based on expansion of sustainable agriculture in large way to maximizing use of external inputs through efficient use on farm resource compared to industrial agriculture. Thus, the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides is avoided. Organic in organic agriculture is a labelling term that denotes products that have been produced in accordance with certain standards during food production, handling, processing and marketing stages and certified by a duly constituted certification body or authority. The organic label is therefore a process claim rather than a product claim (Saini and Pandey, 2009). According to Codex Alimentarius (FAO/WHO), “organic agriculture as a holistic food production management system, which promotes and enhances agro-ecosystem health, including biodiversity, biological cycles and soil biological activity. It emphasizes the use of management practices in preference to the use of on-farm input, considering that regional conditions require locally adapted system. This is accomplished by using, agronomic, biological and or mechanical methods, as opposed to using synthetic materials, to fulfil any specific function within the system”.

The growing concern about environmental degradation, dwindling natural resources and urgency to meet the food needs of the increasing population are compelling farm scientist and policy makers to seriously examine alternative to chemical agriculture (Kaswan et al., 2012). Organic food production eliminates soil and water contamination. Since organic food production strictly avoids the use of all synthetic chemicals, it does not pose any risk of soil and underground water contamination like conventional farming which uses tons of artificial fertilizers and pesticides. In order to reach organic farming several practices should be implemented. Unnatural substances such as chemical synthetic pesticide and synthetic fertilizer livestock antibiotics, food additives and processing aids should be limited. The use of genetically modified organisms should be prohibited. Taking advantage of on-site resources, such as livestock manure for fertilizer or feed produced on the farm. Choosing plant and animals species that are resistant to disease and local conditions adoption. Raising the livestock in free-range open-air system and providing them organic feed (Najadkoorki, 2012). Organic food production helps preserve local wildlife. By avoiding toxic and the chemical use of mixed planting as a natural pest control and maintaining field margins and hedges.

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Low Investment

Organic farming normally does not involve capital investment as high as that required in chemical farming. Further, since organic fertilizers and pesticides can be produced locally, the yearly costs incurred by the farmer are also low. It should also be noted that while moving from chemical farming to organic farming, the transition might be high (Mahapatra et al., 2009). Using some tips to low investment, like using seeds instead of buying seeds, it reduces the cost and recycling them to reuse. It helps for the small farmers most of the small farmers like to invest low and getting more benefits in some places in India, as well to reduce the cost farmers need to aware of some good ideas, like connecting directly with the industries and giving their agriculture yield to them directly. It reduces the cost of farmers and get the better organic productions form small farmers as well.

Health Benefits

Organic farming has several health benefits. Regarding food safety and quality issues in food and farm, studies reveal that organic foods compared to the non-organic had the least amount of chemical residues (Baker et al., 2002). Moreover, the concentration of nitrate is lower in organic products (Lairon, 2010). It is also important to note that, through elimination of synthetic inputs in farms, organic farming reduces the risk of farmers being exposed to chemical pesticides. People have interested to buy an organic food diet in their regular diet. We can expand the life span of the people over the world by surplus the healthy food and without causing any food related problems.

Utilization

Using the natural resource in the best manner like rain water and suitable crops in suitable climate and storing waste kitchen and preparing the vermicompost in naturally. It will be stored for the agriculture needs for the using some natural resources instead of pests chemicals and fertilizers to minimize the chemical products in the agriculture. Organic farming mostly utilizes local available farm resources and by products of farm and home. Composting of all organic wastes in general and farmyard manure (FYM) or feedlot manure is important in organic farming. And storing the water by rainwater harvesting is the collection and storage of rainwater for reuse on-site, rather than allowing it to run off. These stored waters are used for various purposes such as gardening, irrigation etc. as the mostly people in India use this natural method for the farming use also. When rainy season turns into drought, you are able to use that natural rainwater for crop irrigation.

Maintenance of Soil Fertility

Organic soil management practices contribute many benefits to soil health and provide ecosystem services such as the at least some small possibilities to nutrient losses to the environment and the reduction of plant responsiveness to disease. According to the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement, the primary objective of organic farming is the sustainable crop production for maintaining long-term soil fertility in harmony with natural systems. Therefore, to sustain the agricultural productivity and environmental quality soil health management we should be the primary concern of all stakeholders of agricultural development (Reeves, 1997). Organic farming system is based on the management of soil organic matter, which in turn maintains the physical, chemical, and biological properties of soil (Ramesh et al., 2005). It is now a well-established fact that organically managed soil exhibits greater soil organic carbon and total nitrogen, lower nitrate leaching (Drinkwater et al., 1998) and biological soil quality than conventionally managed soil (Biswas et al., 2014). The role of soil organisms, found abundantly in organic systems, is central to soil processes and fertility since they render available the elements in plant residues and organic debris entering the soil (Alfoldi et al., 2002). As well to maintain the soil fertility conserving the soil, crop rotation, less use of fertilizers, this things make the organic reasons for the agriculture by the rotation of crop the soil will become more strong by the own changes will be taking its own to support the crop, as well applying pests and fertilizers in only some seasons if they required to the crop or not it helps to maintain the good soil in the environment.

Conclusion

Organic agriculture is accelerating momentum as an alternative method to the modern system. And new technology is ware reaching India annually with some machine tools and some farming technique as well. Even whatever but, there are several disasters impeding Indian farmers, from adopting of farmers’ apprehension lies in non-availability of enough organic supplements, bio-fertilizers and local market for organic produce. Mostly for small farmers in India they are uneducated farmers were mostly in India they don’t have sufficient needs and they not have the exact things to overcome form the problems while farming and getting loss. Additionally, lack of access to guidelines, certification and input cost coupled with capital-driven regulation by contracting firms strongly discourage small farm holders who constitute over 70% of farming community in India. There is a need for a comprehensive framework that integrates of with bottom-up responses, and the small farmers also play the significant role in the agriculture industries in India technology diffusion with reciprocal knowledge flow from farmers’ institution and their local resources and innovation and appropriate policies should be established at various level, in order to facilitate development in the region.

References

1. Alfoldi, T., Fliebach, A., Geier, U., Kilcher, L., Niggli, U., L., Stolze, M. and H. Willer (2002). Organic Agriculture and the Environment. In: Organic Agriculture, Environment and Food Security. (Scialabba, N. E.-H., and C. Hattam eds.). The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome.
2. Baker, B. P., Benbrook, C. M., Benbrook, K. L. (2002). Pesticide Residues in Conventional, Integrated Pest Management (IPM)-Grown and Organic Foods: Insights from Three US Data Sets. Food Additives and Contaminants 19(5): 427-446.
3. Biswas, S., Ali, M.N., Goswami, R. and Chakraborty, S. (2014). Soil Health Sustainability and Organic Farming: A Review. Journal of Food, Agriculture & Environment, 12(3&4): 237-24.