“Economics of Organic Farming”
By:Prof. Nisha Singh
Organic agriculture is a production system which voids or largely excludes the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and growth regulators. To the maximum extent feasible, organic farming system relies upon crop rotations with leguminous crops, adding of crop residues, animal manuring, , bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides.
The objective of organic agriculture is to develop a sustainable agriculture system which maintains and improves soil fertility so as to ensure adequate food production and relies as much as possible upon resources from within its own area. Agriculture is primarily applied biology and is most likely to be successful when it accepts on farm waste recycling, non-chemical weed management, biological pest control and integrated nutrient management. The greatest challenges facing the nation in the coming years are to provide safe food for the growing population in the country. The concept of food quality has changed during the recent years, increasing number of consumers in developed countries and developing countries becoming more health conscious. The international market for organic foods are expanding especially in USA, Europe and Japan. The world organic food market was estimated over US $ 26 million in 2002. Looking at the global demand of organic products, international federation for organic movement(IFOAM), European Economic Committee (EEC) etc. have a set of series of guidelines on organic farming.
Hither to massive use of chemical fertilizers, and toxic pesticides, has created an environmental imbalance , loss of topsoil, decrease in soil fertility, surface and ground water contamination, and loss of genetic diversity.
However there has been arguments against Organic farming that there is not enough nitrogen available hence use of chemical fertilizers is a compulsion or else production will decrease.
Another argument is that the organic food is expensive as such middle class and poor people can not afford,specially the third world.However, the prices are more due to its demand rather than its cost of production.Many European countries have started agriculture support programs.Even Govt.is suppoting the farmers on conversion to Organic farmings,specially in Denmark,Sweden and Holland.
Our current world food production is more than sufficient to provide an adequate food to all humans.But the irony is that more than 840 million people are suffering from hunger.In fact hunger is a problem of poverty, distribution, and access to food. The question then, is not “how to feed the world”, but rather, how can we develop sustainable farming methods that have the potential to help the world feed and sustain itself.It is therefore suggested that conversion to small organic farms would bring about a sizeable increases of food production worldwide. Only organic methods can help small family farms survive, increase farm productivity, repair decades of environmental damage and knit communities into smaller, create more sustainable distribution networks. These all would lead to improved food security around the world.