Organic Farming: Myths and Facts

Indiainfoline has got this straightforward article about facts on Organic Farming.

The bottomline: Organic farming is essentially a marking tool, and cannot replace conventional farming for food security, quality and quantity of crop outputs. With a growing population and precarious food situation, India cannot afford to take risk with organic farming alone.

With all hype surrounding the organic farming, this article is quite a revelation.

Agri Stocks and Bio-Valley

1. With world economy going for a toss and Indian economy performing not as expected, stock market analysts are looking at rural customers as the light in the tunnel. The disposable income of rural India has been on uphill in the past decade. With agricultural sops in the interim budget, stocks of companies in agriculture sector have already started showing the movements (Read: Agri stocks rise on FM focus on agriculture). This article in business-standard also draws that in times of the prevailing uncertainty, it is better to invest in companies catering to the rural market. Detailed analysis of companies like Airtel, SBI, Jain Irrigation, Rallis, Hero Honda, HUL and Punjab Tractors are covered.

However, there is a catch: The improvement in the living standard of rural India has been mainly because of increase in price of agricultural commodities. Monsoon has also been very merciful. Falling commodity prices will definitely have an impact of rural incomes which will be seen after some time with a time lag. And let us pray that monsoon carry on with its mercy for Indian farmers who very much depend on it.

2. Well-known agriculture scientist Dr M S Swaminathan called for the creation of a Bio-Valley on the lines of the Silicon Valley to help India speed up the Second Green Revolution in order to remove hunger and increase the contribution of agriculture to GDP to over 25% and create huge agricultural employment. The proposed Bio-Valley should create a perfect balance between organic farming and green agriculture in an absolutely integrated manner in which genetically modified (GM) crops should be discouraged in a proportionate manner.

Conservation Agriculture, Successful Mobile data service

1. The four-day World Congress on Conservation Agriculture (CA), beginning at New Delhi from February 4, will draw up a road map and strategies to promote CA.

Excerpts from the report:

"Presently over two million hectares area in the Indo-Gangetic plain and about two lakh hectares in Andhra Pradesh is under resource conservation technologies, and this is likely to go up at least four-five times in the next five years."

"Farmers who adopted conservation technologies are saving water and energy costs, attaining higher yields and getting more returns. Large-scale trials and farmers experiences show that the available technologies can be adopted in wide range of rainfed and irrigated environments."

2. Thomson Reuters announced that its ground-breaking mobile information service for India's agricultural community Reuters Market Light (RML) has sold over 100,000 three- month subscriptions since its launch just over a year ago.

Reuters Market Light, a pioneer in this field, provides customised and localised market intelligence to farmers in their local language including crop prices from local markets, local weather forecasts, and relevant agricultural news and crop advisory information. RML has built an end-to-end value chain from sourcing through to rural distribution to meet the decision-critical needs of the farming sector over mobile phones. It currently covers over 50 commodities and over 250 markets in the two states.

NPM Vegetables, Polyhouse Farming, Consulting via Satellite, Carbon Trade

1. The demand of NPM vegetables, i.e. non-pesticidal management, is high. These vegetables are farm fresh and free of pesticides. Consumers are also happy to pay premium for such vegetables.

2. The Himachal Pradesh government is promoting farming inside modern greenhouses called polyhouses to improve the earning potential of farmers in the state, especially during the harsh winters. Polyhouses are based on the greenhouse concept to let in heat and light, while preventing the heat from getting out. But instead of the glass on a greenhouse roof, polyhouses are made of cheaper polythene or plastic. By reducing evaporation, they also allow farmers to use sprinkler and drip irrigation systems, thus saving water.

3. Farmers of Northeast can now interact with top scientists of the country and seek solutions to their problems related to farming, market, health and weather dynamics from their nearest Village Resource Centres (VRC).

4. Carbon emissions are increasingly at the forefront of policy issues, and experts say agricultural practices could play a role in decreasing emissions while providing farmers with a new cash crop.

Warehousing act, Mechanisation and Alternative farming

1. Business-Standard has put up an interview with Anil Choudhary, managing director of the National Bulk Handling Corporation (NBHC), the warehousing, assaying, grading and certifying arm of the country’ largest commodity exchange the Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX). He says that the Warehousing Act will ensure liquidity to farmers against their produce.

"it will address one of the major woes of an average Indian farmer, that is, getting liquidity against his produce. Various micro and macro level studies indicate that small farmers contribute over 50 per cent of marketable surplus and ironically, more than half of it comes through distress sale.

"One of the major contributing factors has been the lack of viable alternatives to bring in liquidity against commodities by selling it immediately after harvesting when the prices are virtually the lowest."

2. Punjab Government is all set to put more automation in agriculture. Balwinder Singh Sidhu, Director, Agriculture, says, “The state government is providing subsidy on about 22 different kinds of machines which deal primarily with precision farming, residue management and diversification. While for precision farming we have laser levellers, for diversification, automatic potato planter, maize thresher and potato digger are required. Precision farming also depends on rotary power weeder and tractor-operated hydraulic sprayer.”

3. An alternative to chemical and organic farming: natural farming with zero budget. The fundamental idea of Zero Budget Natural Farming, as the name implies, is to increase yield by slashing cost and inputs. Fertilisers - both chemical and organic are a strict no-no, you don’t depend on the market for seeds (you use local seeds instead), and this mode of farming needs only 10 percent of the conventional requirement of water and electricity,

Organic Farming and GM debate (again)

1. Some interesting things happening in organic space. "Lalbhai Group’s flagship Arvind and State Bank of India are set to cement a relationship later this month by signing a memorandum of understanding that will link over a thousand farmers in Vidarbha region’s Akola district to a demand-driven supply chain and an assured cash flow. The company buys back cotton at a 30% premium to conventional cotton varieties such as Bt and hybrid, and uses it to produce organic denim for export to Frankfurt." Details here.

As posted earlier on this blog, there has been lot of interests by corporates like Pepsi, RCF to get into contract farming. This is a kind of win-win situation for both the farmers and the corporates. The former get to sell their produce at higher prices without paying a "rip" to the middleman and the later get the supply of raw material without much hassles.

2. Union Minister for Health Anbumani Ramadoss has again touched the controversial topic of GM food. He said he will oppose introduction of such a variety without conducting proper tests.

Update

1. CCI will suffer a loss of about Rs2,065 crore if it has to buy one-third of the entire crop of 33 million bales this year. The government steeply hiked the MSP for cotton by 46% in September prior to the onset of the harvest season; domestic prices now rule higher than the international cotton prices that have slipped due to slowing consumption.

2. India will host the fourth world congress on `conservation agriculture’ in New Delhi from Feb 4 to 7. The congress would showcase innovations in agriculture for improved efficiency, equity and environment. The congress would review the progress in conserving soil, water and other resources in agriculture It will also facilitate partnerships between countries, organisations, institutions and agencies.

Wireless sensors, Equitool for organics

1. A scientist of Indian origin, along with his team, is developing wireless transceivers and sensors that would collect and send data about soil moisture within a field. The sensors could help researchers understand precisely how water moves through a field, develop better models to predict crop growth and yield and understand the carbon and nitrogen cycles within soils, as well as help farmers manage their nutrient and water resources, which could maximize yields and profits, and minimize environmental impacts.

2. Equitool is a tool to help decision-makers assess whether an organic production and processing standard applicable in one region of the world is equivalent, ie not identical but equally valid, to another organic standard. It will help streamline acceptance of products that are traded internationally according to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Conservation agriculture, FDI in agriculture and Agri-entrpreneurs

1. Business standard covers this interesting story on new farming techniques to improve land productivity as well as to reverse the climate change. Suggestions include rice-wheat cropping sequence, zero tillage agriculture, raised bed planting, laser land-lavelling and drip irrigation.

2. It is surprising to hear the suggestion coming from a minister to get foreign investment in agriculture. The food processing minister says that it is the "next sunrise sector".

3. Interesting story covered by ET on Agri-entrepreneurs. It covers various ventures like Satnam Agri Products by Mandip Singh producing premium potato chips, Minchy brand on wines by Girish Minocha and Pawas Canning by Hemant Desai exporting mango pulp to Japan. It also covers Nisarg Nirman Agro Products growing and selling exotic fruits to five start hotels, Jalbindu Agri Tech by Rahul Gala growing and selling dates using high echnology and "Best Roses" by Kumar Patel.

Organic farming, Basmati rice

1. Organic farming is gaining some interest across farmers and consumers. We can see special sections in grocery retail chains dedicated for organic farming products. One of the companies working in this domain is Sresta, founded by an IIM alumnus. ET covers a story here.

2. Businessline carried the story about late inclusion of Pusa 1121 into new definition of basmati rice. The story also explains the economy of paddy cultivation on a per acre basis.
“As it is, Pusa 1121 prices have been going down in the global market and the delay in notifying the evolved variety would be a final nail in the coffin of the growers of this variety of rice.”

Cotton output, Corn futures and organic farming

1. Cotton output seen good this year because if good rains and better seeds. But will the farmers benefit?
India Cotton Output May Top Estimate as Rains Improve (Update3)
Bloomberg - USA
India starts cotton planting in June and the harvest begins in October. China is forecast by the US Department of Agriculture to produce 35.5 million bales ...

2. Corn futures rise
India corn futures rise on lower acreage, exports
Reuters India - Mumbai,India
"We think despite lower acreage, yield will be higher this year," said a senior official with state department of agriculture of Andhra Pradesh, ...

3. South Asian Farmers Discuss Organic Farming
Indian Catholic - New Delhi,India
South Asian farmers visited a Garo tribal woman to learn how she practices organic farming and conserves 64 varieties of indigenous rice.

Today's Links

1. Global pulses prices climb on Indian imports
Reuters India - Mumbai,India
By Rajendra Jadhav MUMBAI, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Large tenders for pulses imports floated by India to augment supply in the festival season have pushed up ...

2. India firm over sectoral tariffs
Business Standard - Mumbai,Maharashtra,India
The strategy of developing countries, including India, is to first get their concerns on protection of their agriculture sectors addressed, after which they ...

3. Left behind: Debt relief brings little respite for India’s farmer
Financial Times - London,England,UK
The mathematics behind the crisis in India’s agricultural sector are simple. Agriculture’s contribution to GDP fell from 42 per cent in 1970 to half that by ...

4. Organic Farming
By rajkumar
Arresting the decline of soil organic matter is the most potent weapon in fighting against unabated soil degradation and imperilled sustainability of agriculture in tropical regions of India, particularly those under the influence of ...