Relevance: GS-3: Conservation, Environmental Pollution and Degradation; Awareness in the fields of Biotechnology

Key Phrases: Integrated Pest Management; insecticides like DDT, monocrotophos, metasystox, cypermethrin; Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana, Participatory guarantee scheme and National Programme for Organic Production

What is the context of the article?

• Agriculture sector has seen a positive growth rate even when our overall economy shrank due to pandemic related issues.
• The growing call for modelling the agriculture on environmental lines calls for change in usage of pesticides and insecticides.

Key highlights of the article?

• Swaminathan is remembered as the ‘Father of Green Revolution’ and MV Rao as the “Wheat Man of India”.
• With hybrid varieties and synthetic fertilisers and insecticides, the production of rice per acre increased to 40 quintals from 10 quintals, a tremendous victory in fighting hunger.

Food crisis

• 1960s and 70s saw some setbacks in food security for a young India
  • India’s budget (read agriculture) is dependent on the monsoon season, as George Curzon pointed out in 1905.
• Due to drought from 1964-70,
  • India was forced to import food and became heavily dependent on the United States for wheat supplies under the Public Law 480 agreement.
• The late former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri gave a call to “miss a meal” on Monday nights as a part of the Jai Kisan movement.

Green Revolution

• Ultimately, the Green Revolution was initiated.
  • The theme of the initiative was to boost food grains production of rice and wheat using any method and at any cost.
• Success followed many setbacks. Biologist-turned-science-writer Rachel Carson published a seminal book called Silent Spring, focused on the harmful effects of pesticides, primarily DDT on our health and environment.
• DDT was found to be non-biodegradable and its remnants were traced everywhere — in our body, soil and water.
  • Studies showed its effects on liver and kidneys, including causing cancers.
• Scientists rapidly found alternatives and advocated Integrated Pest Management (IPM).

• After DDT, other insecticides like monocrotophos, metasystox, cypermethrin came into use but these are equally harmful to humans, livestock and fish.
• The “turn to nature” to get pesticide-free food has become a priority. The order of the day is organic farming — natural farming or zero-budget agriculture — which is welcome and most wanted in the agriculture sphere.

Not without setbacks

• Usage of organic manures from compost, cow dung and ploughing and mulching of leguminous plants.
  • Several plant-based botanical pesticides were discovered.
  • Neem oil, neem kernel extracts, which contain azadirachtin, is the active principle discovered by Germans, the United Kingdom and US.
• Neem revived the hope of using harmless pesticides but its availability is very low. Several commercial formulations were available in India.
• Karanj oil (Karanjin active principle), several leaf extracts like Adathoda and garlic-buds aqueous extracts are found to be effective to some extent as active repellants
  • But they cannot replace synthetic pesticide.
• There is a growing awareness in India to cultivate the crops by natural fertilisers such as cow dung, leguminous green manures, compost, vermicomposting and biopesticides fungi, bacteria and virus-based pesticides like Bacillus thuringiensis, Pseudomonas aegle, Trichoderma verdi.
• These bio-pesticides are chiefly produced from diseased insects and soil, among other things.
  • However, it only has limited use on too few fruit and vegetable crops.
• Issues with biopesticides
  • Production is confined to small industry
  • No standardisation
  • Doubtful efficacy
• Several symposia are held by NGOs, ideal farmers and governments. Many agricultural magazines hail the miracles of higher yields from organic farming. Particular mention should be made about jeevamrutham — a recently designed concoction called Ramabanam, which gained prominence. These concoctions are made from jaggery, ginger, cow milk, cow curd, cow dung, cow urine, asafoetida.
• All the ingredients are mixed and fermented for a week, diluted and sprayed on crops.
  • It would serve the dual purpose of a fertiliser and a pesticide.
  • The farmers who experimented were quick to endorse the products. Their studies on organic farming presented in symposia on organic farming, however, were confined to few vegetables like tomatoes over a limited area. The yield, the farmers said, is high but not quantified with randomised block design studies.
• The active principle of such concoctions is unknown and doesn’t stand scientific security.
  • The cost of these concoctions is as high as pesticides and starting products like cow dung are not available in plenty as of today.
• Since , rice or wheat are almost exclusively the staple food for 90 per cent Indians.
  • Studies on these crops should also be prioritised.

Challenges

• The land is infertile now without urea in the first few days of rice plantation,
  • If no synthetic pesticides are applied, the entire crop is prone to pests resulting in no yield.
• How to maintain the current volume of yield (40 quintals per acre) with organic farming.

Constraints of sustainable organic farming

• Unavailability of Interventions of Organic farming for staple crops
  • None of the organic farming tools are available, especially for organic farming of rice that is the staple food in India.
  • Importantly, the whole organic farming depends on cow dung, which is dwindling
• Interlinkage issues
  • The staple food for cattle is rice straw. The cost of rice remains very high and is not affordable for the poor man.
  • Thus, the increase of cattle population is linked to paddy by rice production. Both are interlinked.
• Lack of updated verification tech for pesticide residue
  • In food
    • Quantification for pesticide residues in food should be done by High Performance Liquid Chromatography / Mass Spectra / Mass Spectra (HPLC / MS / MS) method.
    • The sophisticated method has been adopted by advanced countries but is still not in use in India.
  • In compost
    • Compost from urban areas and vermicompost, in particular, don’t seem to have been examined for pesticide residues and harmful trace elements such as arsenic, cadmium, mercury and lead

Way forward

• Continuous research on high yielding varieties by cross breeding with pest resistant wild varieties is essential.
• Introduction of transgenic varieties is not recommended for organic and natural farming. Therefore, it is wise to use the first three sprays on crops with natural organic materials and the last two sprays with synthetic pesticides.
• Research on organic farming should be done using robust scientific methods only
• Standardisation of technique is must
• Use of latest methods (HPLC / MS / MS) of detecting pesticide residues must be deployed

Conclusion

• As per agriculture department, India’s wheat exports surpassed $872 million (2021-22) and rice exports in 2021-22 is likely to surpass the record $10 million.
• Our slogan should be “natural and organic farming with high yields at an affordable price to the common man”.

Source: Down to Earth

Mains Question:

Q. Highlight the constraints and challenges faced by Organic Farming in India. Also suggest a suitable way forward.