Organic farming benefits farmers in multiple ways and it should become part of the agriculture policy and vision, especially in states prone to drought, said R R Hanchinal, Vice Chancellor of the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Dharwad.
Inaugurating a sensitisation programme on organic farming organised by the Karnataka Vikas Grameena Bank (KVGB) here on Wednesday, Hanchinal said organic farming could bail out farmers by improving soil fertility and the health of the agro-ecosystem, making farming sustainable over longer period. It required less financial inputs, relied on available resources, ensures better environment and improved health conditions.
Certain states like Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Kerala started encouraging organic farming. Karnataka and Maharashtra have provided for Rs 20 crore and Rs 10 crore budgetary allocation respectively for the purpose. Uttaranchal and Mizoram have already declared themselves the ‘fully organic farming states’, Professor Hanchinal said.
For complete organic farming demonstration, UAS, Dharwad has adopted Harugeri and Kamadhenu villages in Dharwad district and also started diploma in organic farming for those who have passed SSLC.
Shortly, the UAS will seek the association of KVGB for effective propagation of organic farming concept, he informed.
Presiding over the programme KVGB chairman K P Muralidharan said experiments on organic farming conducted by several farmers in north Karnataka had proved that it was helpful to preserve the soil fertility, grow quality food and reduce the costs. Hence, organic farming will be one of the important agenda of Bank’s credit policy and the bank would associate its farmers’ clubs with UAS, Dharwad to accomplish this end, he said.