Researchers are looking for incentives to promote organic farming

KARACHI:

Progressive farmers and researchers have urged the government to promote organic farming with a range of incentives so they can switch, produce toxin-free food and achieve better prices for organic crops.

Progressive farmer and Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) Senior Vice President Nabi Bux Sathio said that “people all over the world love to eat organic food, although there is a world of difference in the prices of organic and inorganic crops.”

He said if the government offered some incentives including loans to farmers and activated market committees to promote organic crops, growers would switch to natural farming, which suits both soil fertility and people to a large extent.

He said organic crops were dearer than inorganic crops as farmers had to work hard and got less produce as compared to inorganic crops.

Eminent researcher and dean of Sindh Agriculture University (SAU) Faculty of Plant Production Professor Dr Inayatullah Rajpar said, “We should gradually shift to natural farming as organic crops are much more useful than inorganic crops due to toxin-free food , of revitalizing soil health. and above all they do not affect people’s health. No deadly disease is caused by natural farming.”

“The soil in our country has minerals and has less than 1% organic matter while the land in European countries contains more than 5% organic matter, which is useful and better,” he said.

“If a farmer suddenly switches to natural cultivation, he will have 30% less yield, he will have to work hard in the first years and he will have better yields gradually.”

He pointed out that there were growing calls for inorganic farming to meet the growing demand for food in the country as such farming could give over 30% yield.

Talking about the history of inorganic farming, the researcher recalled that chemical fertilizers were introduced in 1950-1951 and distributed free initially in the country to promote inorganic farming.

Organic farming started in a fully developed way once the Green Revolution came. The term “Green Revolution” was first used by William S Gaud, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), in a speech on March 8, 1968.

The Green Revolution, or Third Agricultural Revolution, was a period of technology transfer that saw significantly increased crop yields. These changes in agriculture began in developed countries in the early 20th century and spread worldwide by the late 1980s.

In the late 1960s, farmers began to adopt new technologies, such as high-yielding cereal varieties, especially dwarf wheat and rice, and the widespread use of chemical fertilizers (to obtain high yields as the new seeds require much more fertilizer than traditional varieties). pesticides and controlled irrigation.

At the same time, newer farming methods, including mechanization, were adopted, often as a package to replace traditional agricultural technology. This happened in conjunction with policy changes made by developing countries, such as the privatization of fertilizer production and distribution.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^u2024.

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