ORGANIC AND NATURAL FARMING IN NORTH-WEST INDIA: FARMERS' PERSPECTIVE.

Despite the widely recognised environmental and human health benefits of organic and natural farming, its adoption in north-west India is quite low. Thus to know the status, cultural practices, inputs used, benefits, economic aspects and constraints of organic and natural farming, a geo-tagged survey of organic/natural farmers in five districts of Punjab in north-west India was conducted by Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana. Findings of the survey study revealed that adoption of organic/natural farming accelerated after the year 2005. Wheat (76.32%) and basmati rice (55.26%) were the major crops being grown by the farmers. Organic farmers were using farmyard manure, green manuring and vermicompost for soil health management besides liquid organic manures such as jeevamrit and vermiwash and buttermilk and botanicals viz. neem biopesticides, natural farming concoctions- agniastra and brahmastra for pest and disease management. Manual weeding was the predominant weed management practice adopted by more than 70 per cent of the farmers. It was found from the study that no farmer was practicing complete package of natural farming, but a few had integrated one or more practices of natural farming with organic farming practices. Farmers diverted their path towards organic/natural farming due to human health (32.89%) and environment concerns (39.47%). Lack of marketing facilities (60.53%) and labour-intensive nature of operations (59.21%) were found to be the major constraints in its adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]