Organic Agriculture: Techniques to Improve Crop Production

Abstract

Global awareness of health and environmental issues is increasing in recent years, and there is a growing demand for organically grown food products worldwide. We are also convinced that modern agriculture may not be able to meet the requirements of the ever-increasing population in the future. So, we are searching for alternative technologies. Several alternatives have been proposed such as low external input agriculture, sustainable agriculture, organic farming, biodynamic farming, etc. However, they require, sometimes, little or considerable external inputs whose availability may be uncertain in the future. Hence for the developing countries, other alternatives, viz. traditional methods, have special advantages over modern agricultural techniques. For centuries, farmers have planned agricultural production and conserved natural resources by adopting indigenous knowledge. Indigenous technical knowledge (ITK) has immense potential for innovation, especially at the grassroots level. India is a country populated by a number of indigenous communities, most of which have their own set of unique traditional knowledge and technology base. Also the capital and technological skill requirements in the use of traditional technologies are generally low, and their adoption often requires little restructure of the traditional societies. The traditional technologies are nothing but indigenous technical knowledge. By adopting such indigenous knowledge, our ancestors did not face any problem of large-scale pest outbreak or economic crisis unlike today’s farmers. Energy crisis, higher fertilizer cost, sustainability in agriproduction system and ecological stability are the important issues which renewed the interest of farmers and research workers to opt for non-chemical sources of plant nutrients like bio-fertilizers, Azolla and organic manures, viz. farmyard manure, vermicompost, poultry manure and green manure.