Organic Farming – A ray of Hope for Indian Farmers

                                   Nowadays there is lot of buzz for Organic food, benefits of it in our food habits. But do you know what exactly it is? How is is grown? Farmers have a delusion about organic farming as a very complex method, but after attending few seminars I learnt that it’s just a chemical free farming. If it is so then why farmers show resistance towards it. 
                                 

                            To find an answer for it, I went to Chamarajnagara(Near Mysore) to attend a workshop on Zero Budget Spiritual Farming (ZBSF) - by Shubhash Palekarji.  He is the renowned agriculturist and famous for his organic farming methods. I reached the place at 7:00 O’clock morning. The Place was absolute nature beauty. There was BR Hills (Western Ghat Ranges) on west and huge coconut and banana plantation on east. The Workshop begins at 9:00 a.m. with a question for audience that they understood by Zero Budget Natural Farming. 

           

The sole principle of ZBSF is that the farmers don't have to spend even a single rupees to do farming. This way he didn't have to buy any fertilizers or pesticides for crops.  The idea behind this is to make farmers self - sufficient. Small farmers take loan to buy all farm needs with high rate of interest and if crop fails then they falls into debt trap. They will again take loan to clear last loan and these cycle continues and finally farmers have to sell land to settle everything. The only option left for him is to go to city and do labour work. Farmer’s migration is happening at very astonishing rate.Every day 2035 farmers are migrating to cities for laborious work This process has to be changed. Otherwise some disaster is going to come in next 50 years. There will be so much food scarcity that people will have crores of rupees but nothing to eat. Organic Farming Technique by Subhash Palekarji can be of the rescue path for the farmers. It teaches them that farming can be carried out without any investment. There are many philosophy which says that organic farming will not going to fulfil increasing food demand of future. But I personally met many farmers who are able to bring better yield than chemical farming in 2-3 years of time.

                                  But what I personally feel the biggest problem of agriculture in India is the Mentality of People. People consider farming as the lowest grade of occupation. I interviewed an organic farmer and asked him that what is your biggest challenge. “Sahebji, Aap hawai jahaj mein hazaro ruppe karch karke ghumte hai, Cinema ghar mein ₹500  ki tickets lete ho, lakho ruppe ki gadiya chelate ho, per agar Tur Daal ka bhav ₹ 100 se bhad kr ₹ 150 ho jaye toh bolte ho baht mehangai aa gyi”. These just touched my heart. Food which is so much crucial part of our life, still we keep the lowest budget for it. We spent thousands whenever we go to restaurants, but do you realize that how much it reaches to the actual producer.  

   

                           

I plead you to think over it and do something for farmers. Because future is very near when our coming generation will not survive because of food scarcity. If you have seen Interstellar , you can able to relate what I am trying to convey. I am going to work for these farmers and would request every ignited minds to do something to bring change.