Organic farming is stated as a method of crop and livestock production that involves much more than choosing not to use pesticides, fertilizers, genetically modified organisms, antibiotics and growth hormones.
Principals of Organic Production
- Protect the environment, reduce pollution prevent soil erosion and soil degradation, enhance biological activity.
- To enhance biological activity in soil
- Maintain soil fertility
- Biological diversity should be maintained.
- Promote health and provide behavioral needs of livestock.
- Make dependence on renewable resources
- Recycle materials and resources
Why Organic Farming
The reason to adopt organic farming is the financial state of farmer by using agricultural chemicals and their concerns for environment. There is also an issue with the amount of energy used in agriculture, because the production process of farm chemicals requires lot of energy that rely of fossil fuels. On other hand organic farming is profitable and reward-able for farmers.
Crop diversity is encouraged by organic farming. Research proved that poly-culture (multiple crops in the same space), has lot of benefits which is often employed in organic farming. The cultivation of a variety of crops and vegetables support and provide a platform to many beneficial insects, soil microorganisms, and other factors which maintain the health of soil.
As the organic farming rely on the natural break down of green manure, animal dung and composting. It added lot of nutrients in the soil. By intensive cultivation of crops on same soil reduce the nutrients in the soil and soil become infertile and the yield decreased gradually.
Organic farming provide method to maintain the health of the soil as crop rotation, inter cropping, growing grasses, adding green manure, microorganisms, using no tillage method, these methods add calcium, phosphorus, nitrogen in the soil and make it fertile.
Weeds caused low yield, now a days these are removing by using different types of synthetic chemicals, but organic farming provides some methods to remove them economically by using biological, cultural, mechanical and physical methods for example inter=cropping, crop rotation, cover cropping, adding some beneficial insects and animals or predators in the crops. Tillage mowing and cutting, flame weed, or thermal weeding and mulching are some beneficial methods.
Number of other insects’ pests which harm the crops are removed by some beneficial methods like crop rotation, encourage predators, using insect traps, sanitation, using physical barriers, using biological pesticide and herbicides.
ADVANTAGES
- It is environment friendly.
- Save energy.
- Lower the cost of production because avoid the use of synthetic chemicals.
- Conservation of soil
- Healthier farm workers.
- Food has good taste and less toxic.
- Less toxic for human and plant health.
DISADVANTAGES
- Organic food is more expensive. Organic products may cost up to 40% more.
- More blemishes on crop
- Smaller yield
- Production costs are higher because farmers need more workers.
- Produce in smaller amount so marketing is not efficient.
- Waxes not use so food may spoil faster.
- Organic farming cannot produce cannot fulfill the world’s food requirement. This can cause
CONCLUSION
Organic farming is best way to get natural and safe food, this method can be adopt by every farmer and it is best alternative of conventional methods which have lot of problems regarding to health and disease but there are some challenges to adopt organic farming, it takes more time and more land moreover production rate is slow and consume more labor, if farmers overcome to these challenges. World can get save and healthy food.
Talha Javed, Shahnawaz and Muhammad Asif
University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan