What is Organic Farming: Scope, Benefits, and Limitations?

What Is Organic Farming?

Organic farming is a type of cultivation that mainly focuses on growing fruits and vegetables through a natural organic ecosystem in a controlled environment. It emphasizes excluding synthetic chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Even though it is often known as alternative farming, organic farming is honestly a more traditional style of farming in comparison to modern-day chemical-oriented farming. Let’s discuss further to understand the difference between organic and synthetic farming styles.

Discovering original organic farming style

To date there is no specific accepted definition for organic farming, still, many agriculture experts and institutions classify it as the particular farming system that mainly aims to avoid the use of any synthetic chemicals and harmful pesticides, and fertilizers to manipulate their crops. Farmers who practice organic farming have to adapt to different alternatives to face challenges like viral and pest infections. They also have to think out of the box to gain healthy export approved quality to ensure the inflow of relevant revenue.

The right method to implement organic farming

Comparatively all organic farming methods focus on what some call alternative farming methods. Some general aspects to focus on in organic farming include crop rotation, use of green manure, animal-based fertilizers, mechanical cultivation, and how to maintain the soil health for quality yield.

Farmers who chose to execute organic farming take some extra measures to combat pest attacks and make an ecosystem to sustain their plants from different microbial attacks. Although using synthetic chemical-based pesticides is easy to go remedy to combat daily farming changes, yet using them infuses hazardous effects on humans who consume the final product. Moreover, it also pollutes the environment and results in many other problems like groundwater poising, soil infertility, and extinction of various microorganisms.

Perks of becoming an organic farmer

First and foremost you can make your contribution to preventing global warming and save the lives of thousands of living organisms who would have directly or indirectly been affected due to the use of synthetic harmful chemicals.

Farmers who adapt to organic farming have a bright future ahead. Mr. Harisharan Devgan, founder of Niche Group started his adventure in organic farming in 2000, and today due to his patience and continues hard work, he is among India’s leading organic pomegranate cultivators and exporters.

People are becoming health conscious and are more likely to choose organic food over chemically grown food. The organic food market is on the boom across the globe, if you manage to grow quality organic products, you can choose to sell them in the international market and earn handsome rewards for your hard work.

Advantages of Organic Farming

• Organic farming encourages soil health and restricts soil erosion: Organic farming centrally encourages soil development, including cover crops, minimal tilling, and systematic irrigation. These methods strengthen the soil’s vitality and help it to stay compact reducing the erosion effect.

• Clamp down on water pollution: Chemical enriched fertilizers and pesticides are significant contributors to rising soil and water pollution (both groundwater and water bodies). Such chemical resources are purely restricted in organic farming practices.

• Improves natural biodiversity: Organic farming leads to improving natural flora and fauna, pests, and innumerable microorganisms that help cultivate healthy yields and encourage their propagation.

Limitations of executing organic farming

We need to understand that every coin has two sides to it. Although organic farming is quite beneficial for our health and ecosystem, it also presents some challenges. Let’s discuss the constraints associated with organic farming.

• High execution cost: Even though organic farmers ignore the use of outside resources like chemical pesticides and fertilizers yet organic farming is quite labor-oriented and includes additional costs and overheads which can be a massive burden for a small-scale farmer. Taking additional financial assistance may seem a viable option yet if the seasonal crop fails due to various natural conditions like drought, over rain, or pest infection can make the life of a farmer miserable.

• Implementation of knowledge-based farming techniques: As modern-day organic farming practices are not much familiar to traditional Indian farmers, they require being educated in proper methods and their execution to properly execute the required skills for up to the mark final yield for maximum returns on both time and investment.

• Varying returns: Keeping aside the reliance on synthetic chemical-based fertilizers and pesticides, organic farmers are significantly at high risk of losing sufficient portions of their final yield. This buildup of uncertainty essentially is the leading factor that many farmers do not switch to organic farming as synthetic farming provides them partial satisfaction of good final yield.

Today we discussed the reasoning, science, and scope of organic farming in India. It might assist you in understanding the dilemma of farmers and why we experience limited organic farming in India. The government is taking up great initiatives and providing additional subsidies for farmers to encourage them to switch to organic farming.