Organic Farming: A New Way of Farming

Organic farming is done by using vermicompost, green leaf manures, crop rotation, animal manure as fertilizer, biofertilizer and other biological management techniques. This means farming according to the natural ways and methods of cultivation without addition or spray of artificial chemicals.

Reasons why we should emphasize the use of organic farming:

- Soil erosion

- Pesticide residue pollution in water tables

- Adverse effects of pesticides, insecticide residue.

- Conserve natural traits of seeds.

Organic farming makes use of older methods of farming such as Crop rotation (to retain and maintain natural and required nutrients of soil), use of biological, available manure or waste organics as fertilizer, use of biological pesticides, insecticides etc. This completely excludes use of any other chemicals such as plant hormones, antibiotics, food additives, genetically modified organisms, and human sewage sludge (more than 3-7years-according to certification agency). An association works all rounds the world for organic farming is International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) that fosters improvement of organically grown land and agricultural. Thisis bound with more than 750 member organizations in 108 countries.

In Canada, compulsory certification of on organic products that are imported, exported and produced has started implementing from June 2009, and certification issued by Canada Organic Regime (COR). Certifications is only issued after complete testing of produce to be certified and given a logo. However, yield is of more considerable factor than any other factors in farming. There are many controversial studies about whether yield of organically produce is more or less. It was observed through many studies that there is 13-25% less production by organic farming than that of conventional farming. But one of the Meta study conducted by Seufert's on various crop varieties, found that some crops such as strawberries yield almost as equal as by conventional farming. Continuous research work is going on to improve yield by organic farming.

But when organic and conventional farming methods compared for quality attributes such as nutrient content and micronutrient content, it was found that, these nutrients and polyphenol content is more in organically grown crops than that of conventionally grown crops. Organic farming retains natural pack of nutrients in crops rather than conventional farming where this is disturbed due to use of artificial fertilizer.

National Project on Organic Farming (NPOF) is implemented by National Centre of Organic Farming at Ghaziabad and its six Regional Centres at Bangalore, Bhubaneshwar, Panchkula, Imphal, Jabalpur and Nagpur. This works for promotion of organic farming in India and training of farmers regarding ways of organic farming.

Due to this increased interest in organic crops, many farmers have started performing organic farming. Data collected by Organic word shown that almost 37.2 million hectares managed organically in all over the world in the year of 2011. (Organic word news)

There are many more researches going on in terms of various types of bio pesticides permitted in organic farming, different techniques to improve yield, comparative evaluation between organic and conventional farming. There are continuously new regulations coming up for certification procedure to improve quality of organic crops. So, there is wide scope for researches in above stated areas.