Taking the right steps towards sustainable farming

During the early years of what is now known as the Green Revolution (GR), India’s agricultural productivity surged at an unprecedented rate, as did farming revenue.

This high-input system was primarily reliant on high-yielding seed varieties, synthetic fertilizers, consistent irrigation, and pesticides. However, increased food production has come at a cost in the form of groundwater depletion, soil degradation, yield stagnation, and agri-biodiversity loss.

A growing number of agri-scientists, policymakers, and farmers think that the GR has reached its limits and has raised serious concerns about environmental sustainability. Fertilizer use must be kept to a minimum in today’s scenario. It is now time to transition from resource-intensive farming to sustainable farming. This realization is emphasized in the Budget 2022-23, also by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent demand to combine agriculture with nature’s laboratory.

Likewise, as part of a growing anti-chemical pesticide campaign, millions of Indian farmers have also started rejecting harmful agrochemicals. Pesticide management is a long-term pest control method based on the idea that an infestation of one species of bug indicates an environmental disturbance. Rather than treating the symptoms, there is a growing emphasis on getting to the root of the problem. It will help farmers balance the insect population while simultaneously enhancing agricultural productivity.

Why Protective Farming?

Most farmers prefer to grow crops in open fields because of the various benefits they offer, such as ease of usage that is both straightforward and economical. However, it also has its own set of challenges. When farmers employ the open-field approach, they must also contend with climate change, natural fluctuations, pests, disease infestations, soil erosion, and a range of other hurdles. Another approach is polyhouse cultivation, which is very expensive and most of the farmers in India cannot afford that cost. Protective farming techniques that can be done on open farms are with products such as Mulch Film, Crop Cover, Plant Cover, Agri Support Net, Agri Wire, Agri Threads, Fruit Cover, etc.

In countries like Israel, China, USA, Spain, Italy, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, etc, these products are widely used and the benefits are reflected mainly in terms of their per hectare outputs. For example, India and China both grow 6 million tonnes of cotton, for which India uses 13 million hectares of land and China uses 3 million hectares of land. So, their output is four times that of Indian farmers. Similarly, in India, an average farmer grows 25 to 30 MT of sugarcane per hectare, and Brazil grows about 80 MT of sugarcane on one hectare of land. One of the key products used in open land protective farming is Mulch Film.

Some of the key benefits of mulch film, crop cover, etc. on open farmland are as follows:

• Prevents soil erosion
•  Retain moisture in the soil for a longer period
•  Reduces Pest Attacks & hence reduces the use of harmful pesticides.
•  Reduces the Weed Growth by 80 to 90%
•  Increases the white root growth by 40 to 50%
•  Increases crop yield by 40% to 100% depending on the crop.
•  Prevents insect, bird, and animal attacks.
•  Reduces soil salinity.

With such benefits and that too, at an extremely affordable price. i.e. ticket size of Rs. 15,000 to 25,000 per acre, the adaptability is much faster and the returns are almost 3 to 4 times more than the cost of the money spent by the farmers.

Spreading Awareness About Sustainable Farming Practices

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), sustainable agriculture is at the heart of the 2030 goal and the first crucial step toward increasing farmers’ income. Farming helps to boost economic activity and provides a source of income for millions of people. As a result, the 2030 Agenda advises that all sectors, particularly agriculture, be tackled from three sustainability perspectives: economic, social, and environmental.

While Indian farmers have traditionally adhered to sustainability principles, modern technology has increased their performance.

Protective farming is a practice that uses a wide range of technology, tools, and strategies to help crops grow in the face of climatic unpredictability, weeds, pests, and other adverse situations. Farmers may produce a wide variety of fruits, flowers, and vegetables all year, which is more advantageous financially since crop covers, shade nets, and bug nets are employed around crops.

Hence, it is more crucial than ever to spread awareness about these practices among farmers.

Fortunately, various agritech startups have emerged from pan India that are helping Indian farmers successfully adopt sustainable farming techniques and empower them with various tools and new-age solutions.

Tapping the Untapped Potential with Agritech

All of agriculture’s constraints hamper productivity and earnings, but India’s farming economy still has a lot of potential. These issues can be addressed by raising farmers’ knowledge about the importance of sustainability.

Market participants can start by finding markets where crop-specific precision farming can be most effectively promoted. There is also ample opportunity to form a multidisciplinary team of agricultural scientists, engineers, producers, and economists to study the overall application of precision agriculture. Such teams can collaborate to undertake pilot studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of protective farming on farmers’ fields. Furthermore, farmers must be educated about the implications of using excessive amounts of agricultural inputs such as irrigation, fertilizers, insecticides, and pesticides.

Overall, new agricultural technologies and financial investors, notably in R&D and government initiatives, can breathe new life into this movement. This will address the issues of small holdings and small farmers, as well as other variables to transform the Indian agricultural landscape.