Essential Components of Sustainable Farming

Indigenous variety: It is evolved over a number of decades and centuries in an agro climatic region. It is easily adaptable, responsive to low input conditions, tolerant to drought, pests and diseases. Nutritionally better in quality.

Livestock: Source of manure and biomass for soil nutrition. Manures from livestock add beneficial microbes to the soil. Manure from poultry birds is an effective alternative to chemical fertilizers as it is a rich in major nutrients besides supplying secondary and micronutrients also. Livestock is income generating besides being the source of nutrition for the farming family.

Agro forestry: Creates microclimate. Important instrument in maintaining temperature, humidity, ecological balance like promoting natural enemies of pests, preventing soil and water erosion, etc. Useful source of fodder for livestock and fuel wood for the farming family. Adds biomass to the soil. Promotes the population of useful pollinators like honey bee. Attracts birds which are natural enemies of insect pests. Birds add guano, a source of nutrient to the soil.

Soil and water conservation: Practices such as bunding , trench cum bunding, farm ponds, contour sowing, bench terracing help conserve the fertile top soil and improve the water table thus making crop growing more successful under adverse conditions also.

Soil management and manures : Application of manures, vermicompost, oil cakes etc improve soil fertility, water holding capacity, texture and structure. Practices like green leaf manuring and green manuring in-situ keep the soil nitrogen rich. They create healthy soil by promoting beneficial microbes. Application of tank silt and forest soil improves texture, fertility and water holding capacity of the soils.

Water management: Mulching is the most effective tool in conserving moisture. It presents weed growth thus reducing the cost in farming. Water requirement of a crop reduces by 40% in mulching. It keeps the soil soft, aerated and promotes proliferation of beneficial microbes in the root zone. Indirectly, it improves crop growth. From the practical point of view, a farmer can increase his cropped area by 40% with the same available water by adopting mulching. Adoption of low water input technology like SRI in wet land paddy is another such practice for water management.

Multicropping and Intercropping: Increase the biodiversity, reduces pest and disease problems, ensures food and nutritional security, improves the soil health and fertility. It insures against crop failure risks. Acts as buffer against market fluctuations which hit the farmer in mono cropping practices. Intercropping (like in banana) increases the use efficiency of precious resources like water and gives additional income besides the main crop. Important component like fodder can be incorporated in intercropping.

Fodder crop: Closely linked to soil and water management as it is the source of feed for livestock. It should be a part of multicropping and intercropping in a sustainable farming practice.

Innovative crop practices: Plant intensification technique, raised bed in vegetables, border cropping, trap cropping, biodynamic practices, Homa therapy, EM, pheromone traps, NPVs, seed treatment, etc make the farming more successful and sustainable.

Can Production Driven Market Sustain Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods?

Market driven agricultural economy particularly after globalization, is showing the signs of severe fatigue on the rural faces in India. Market instabilities are a result of more centralized and long distance distribution of agricultural produce and products for marketing. Market preferences are leading to monoculture, introduction of high cost and chemical practices like inadaptable hybrid / high yielding varieties, indiscriminate use of fertilizers/chemicals and as a result, land/soil degradation. Erosion of agro-biodiversity is the most disheartening consequence of this market driven agricultural entrepreneurship.

Can Market be Production Driven!

A serious thought process has to begin to revive the biodiversity, multi-cropping based cropping systems in accordance with agro-climatic conditions of a given location or region. The approach towards development of technology has to be endogenous so that it becomes situation friendly. For example, breeding of high yielding varieties or hybrids has to make use of locally available, superior genetic resources of the same regions of introduction. Introduction of exotics can be done by taking into consideration the evolutionary agro climatic conditions of the genetic bases. Cropping pattern and varietal introduction should be primarily driven by suitability to climate, soil and farming practices. Considering the evolutionary conditions of genetic resources is the sure way ensuring adaptability. Similarly, market development needs to be promoted for the crops and products of the regions. Mainstream market initiatives should absorb the local production guided by suitable cropping system. Market driving the cropping pattern is not sustainable since creating suitable conditions for inadaptable crops and species is not practical / feasible. This is the root cause of high cost of production, frequent crop failures, unmanageable pest and disease incidences and ecological imbalances.

Market initiatives, guided by cropping pattern and production systems have positive impact on the ground. It promotes sustainable agriculture driven by agro climatic conditions. It sustains the livelihoods of farmers without affecting the ecological balance and agro biodiversity. Such initiatives are decentralized marketing relying more on local produce and products. These market tendencies are stable also. Block level shandies, agricultural produce fairs at taluk levels, corporate sectors decentralizing the supply chain by linking their outlets to local productions and promoting local food produce in urban and semi urban areas are the possible leads in this direction of sustainable marketing practices.

Policy Interventions

Promotion of medium, small and very small entrepreneurship in supply chain and marketing can give good results in this direction. Policy interventions from development of technology to marketing management are crucial to realize the objectives of sustainable livelihoods and revive the agricultural economy in rural areas.