per cent than conventional ones. Box . : Organically Produced Cotton in Maharashtra In , when Kisan Mehta of Prakruti (an NGO) first suggested that cotton, the biggest user of chemical pesticides, could be grown organically, the then Director of the Central Institute for Cotton Research, Nagpur, famously remarked, “Do you want India to go naked?” At present, as many as farmers have committed , hectares of land to grow cotton organically on the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement’s standards. The produce was later tested by the German Accredited Agency, AGRECO, and found to be of high quality.
Kisan Mehta feels that about per cent of Indian farmers are marginal farmers owning about less than . hectare but accounting for per cent of India’s cultivable land. For such farmers, organic agriculture is more profitable in terms of money and soil conservation in the long run. Source: Lyla Bavadam, A Green Alternative, Frontline, July .
need to be addressed apart from an appropriate agriculture policy to promote organic farming. It has been observed that the yields from organic farming are less than modern agricultural farming in the initial years. Therefore, small and marginal farmers may find it difficult to adapt to large- scale production. Organic produce may also have more blemishes and a shorter shelf life than sprayed produce.
Moreover choice in production of off-season crops is quite limited in organic farming. Nevertheless, organic farming helps in sustainable development of agriculture and India has a clear advantage in producing organic products for both domestic and international markets. Do you think food and non-food items cultivated using organic farming methods will be cheaper? .
C ONCLUSION It is clear that until and unless some spectacular changes occur, the rural sector might continue to remain backward. There is a greater need today to make rural areas more vibrant through diversification into dairying, poultry, fisheries, vegetables and fruits and linking up the rural production centres with the urban and foreign (export) markets to realise higher returns on the investments for the products. Moreover, infrastructure elements like credit and marketing,