Thursday, March 6, 2014

DESI COW-PROTECTION - BACK TO SQUARE ONE !!!



(1)The perception that modern scientific agriculture is the panacea to combat the hunger of millions is a chimera and (2) we have failed to protect and multiply our desi livestock. Thus we are back to square one !!!!

Gandhiji had been eloquent in his speech and writings regarding cow-protection. Many moderns dismissed it as another fad of Gandhiji. But two articles in today's (06/03/2014) Sci-Tech Page of The Hindu, impress upon us the FOLLY of modern agricultural practices employing large scale use of manufactured chemicals like fertilizers and pesticides. One article reveals that overuse of phosphorous have adversely affected the health of land and water in Kerala.http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-sci-tech-and-agri/science-of-the-soil-to-help-sons-of-the-soil/article5755125.ece

In contrast to this ,the experience of a farmer from Chitoor Dist of AP , who had solely depended on DESI Cow-dung and urine, to boost his output are explained. Desi cow-dung and urine are the common ingredients of his manure and pesticide. Since cost of the inputs are very minimal, it benefits both the farmer and the end-user. For the consumer in the present circumstances, the benefits are two-fold, lower cost and poison free food-item.

"Cow-worship means to me worship of innocence. For me the cow is the personification of innocence. Cow-protection means the protection of the weak and the helpless. .......Rishis of old are said to have performed penance for the sake of the cow. Let us follow the footsteps of the rishis, and ourselves do penance, so that we may be pure enough to protect the cow and all that the doctrine means and implies"-Gandhiji.(p.118, Hindu Dharma). Gandhiji's VISION is truly remarkable.

The tall claims of modern scientific agriculture is thus contested. Further the above two articles, reinforce my premise that human intellect is waning, and this stands in stark opposition to the modern view !!!!
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/bio-inputs-give-better-yield-for-brinjal-growers-in-chittoor-ap/article5753743.ece


The complete articles (two nos)  are given below :-

(1) FARMER'S NOTEBOOK
Bio inputs give better yield for brinjal growers in Chittoor, AP

M. J. PRABU
  

There is a general view that agriculture is not a remunerative profession. But for those who continue to do farming, there seems to be no choice. Either they leave the fields fallow or sell the lands for quick money.

“Reasons for being unremunerative are many like high cost of inputs, inability to break even in profit, marketing etc. But in spite of all these problems there are people like Mr. P. Muniratnam Naidu in Kasturikandriga village, Tirupati Rural Mandal, Chittoor district for whom agriculture is lucrative.

New house
Mr. Muniratnam owns about two acres and in the last two years he has been able to construct a new pucca house from the income he got from his land by growing brinjals (common variety available in the market).

“This is considered big news among many farmers in the region. In fact, after getting to know Muniratnam’s details, several farmers started getting into brinjal cultivation. Today an entire street in Muniratnam’s locality is named as Brinjal Street,” says Dr. K. Gangadharam, General Secretary, Welfare Organisation For Rural Development (Word) an NGO in Tirupathi in Chittoor.

Commendable work
Word has spread among farmers in the district on the need to promote the cause of organic and sustainable agriculture.

“The crop was initially grown in 60 cents which was later extended to an acre. In the remaining one acre, groundnut, onions and some vegetables were grown. The income from brinjal was quite noteworthy for me. I harvested nearly 12 tonnes in three months earning about Rs. 96,000 as gross income while the net income was Rs. 60,000.

Annual income
“In a year I earned Rs. 2,40,000 from brinjal alone. I make my own inputs after getting trained by Word and hardly spent much protecting the crop against the dreaded fruit borer that affects it,” says a smiling Muniratnam.

Presently more than 300 farmers in the region are using the indigenous bio inputs such as jivamrita, agniastra and neem astra, according to Dr. Gangadharam.

“Our organisation has been trained by Mr. Subash Palekar, in zero budget farming and in turn we are teaching our farmers to practise the same,” he says.

Jivamrita is a growth enhancer which is used for almost all crops like paddy, vegetables and flowers.

It is made by adding 10 kg of desi cow dung and 10 litres of urine dissolved in 200 litres of water. To this two kg of jaggery (or four litres of sugarcane juice) and pulse flour each (any pulse) is added and stirred well.

The solution is kept under a shade for a week to ferment well and then allowed to mix with the running irrigation water. For the fruit borer pest farmers have been trained to use agniastra or neemastra.

Agniastra
Agniastra is made by soaking one kg of crushed tobacco leaves in 10 litres of desi cow urine.To this, 500 grams of chilli and garlic pulp (ground into a paste) each and 5kg of crushed neem leaves are added. This is diluted in 100 litres of water and sprayed.

Neemastra is made by mixing five litres of cow urine, two 2kg of dung and five kgs of crushed neem leaves in 100 litres of water and allowed to ferment for 24 hours. Later after filtering it is diluted in water and sprayed on brinjal to control the pests.

Market
Almost all the brinjal growers either market their produce through a weekly organic outlet managed by Word in Tirupathi or also send the produce to Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad markets.

For more information and personal visits interested farmers can contact Mr. P. Muniratnam Naidu at Kasturikandriga village, Tirupati Rural Mandal, Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh, mobile: 09989509877 and Dr. K. Gangadharam, General Secretary, Word, Natural farming school, Chenchuraju Kandriga, Pichatur Mandal, Chittoor : 517 5589: Andhra Pradesh, e-mail: wordngotpt@rediffmail.com, mobile: 09849059573.

(2) Science of the soil to help sons of the soil
Discoveries and analyses of everyday problems and suggestions to handle them, often published in more modest journals are ignored
Way too often, media coverage on science and technology tends to concentrate on topics of current fashion or what some people call as “high-fi” themes — be it the God particle, stem cell biology, or yet another nanomaterial. Articles that appear in “high impact” journals are covered more often while discoveries and analysis of everyday problems and suggestions to handle them, usually published in more modest journals are given the go-by. Two such reports concerned with pressing problems of everyday importance to India appear in the latest issue of Current Science (Volume 106, 10 February 2014, pages 343-345), which need to be highlighted. One of them has to do with the overload of phosphorus in the soils of Kerala and how it affects the health of the land and the waters of the region and what may be done about it. And the other is a report about the discovery of a few bacteria in the coast of Gujarat which can degrade plastic materials such as polythene. And it is a pity that main line media, right here in India, have not found them worthy of coverage and publicity.

The first is a short report (just about 1200 words and two figures) by scientists from the Indian Institute of Spices Research in Calicut, concerning the massive accumulation of phosphorus in the soils of Kerala. The Kerala State Planning Board has taken up the massive (and rather “boring”) task of analyzing the status of acidity in the agricultural field in all the Panchayats of the state. As many as 1,56,801 samples across the state were analysed (a huge exercise in itself) and of these about 91 per cent of the fields were found to be moderate to strongly acidic (pH between 6.5 and 4.5). This is bad because plants grow best by absorbing nutrients from soil whose pH is between 6.5 and 7.5. This is the ideal pH range for plant root growth; when the pH reduces below 6.5, the phosphorus (P) in the soil gets “fixed” by the metals present in the soil (such as aluminum and iron) and no longer available in the soluble form for absorption by the plant roots. And P is vital since it is used not only to make the DNA and RNA of the plant cells but also as the energy currency in the biochemical processes that all living beings use for metabolism (just as we use the rupee in our daily live transactions).

How did this high level of P come about? Through the overuse of fertilizers and manure by the farmers. As the Calicut scientists report, soil in Kerala is already inherently acidic and the overuse of fertilizers and manure only adds to the problem. Not only does much of the P in the soil gets fixed and becomes unavailable for plant growth but even some of the soluble phosphorus is lost through the run-off water from these sites and affects the quality of water in the nearby lakes and water bodies.

The Kerala State Planning Board’s report is thus an important and admirable exercise that calls for action. The Calicut scientists make some relevant suggestions towards this, e. g., skip the applications of high P fertilizers, test the soil periodically and reduce (or avoid) manure that contains high amounts of P. We must express our appreciation to Drs K. M. Nair, P, Rajasekharan, G. Rajasree, P. Suresh Kumar and M. C.Narayanan Kutty of the National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning (of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research), the Kerala State Planning Board, and Drs R. Dinesh, V. Srinivasan, S. Hamza and M. Anandaraj, at the Indian Institute of Spices Research at Calicut for this important and relevant research and analysis. The second report in page 345 of the same issue ofCurrent Science , by the budding science writer Ipsita Herlekar, highlights the discovery by scientists at the Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute, Bhavnagar, Gujarat. These scientists analysed as many as 60 types of bacteria in the Arabian Sea along the coast of Gujarat and found three species from there, namely, K. Palustris M16, B. Pumilus M27, and B. Subtilis H1584 , are able to “eat” polyethylene — the synthetic plastic used in everyday life as bags and films to cover materials, and that the B. Subtilis H158 strain was the best among the three. This calls for further work which might help us find an eco-friendly way to manage this totally out of hand (and totally man-made) menace of plastic waste and pollution.

Let us applaud Drs K. Harshvardhan and B.Jha, the CSMCRI scientists for this discovery and hope they will take this further into the level of practical application, Ipsita for elegantly highlighting this CSMCRI work, and the journal Current Science for publishing these reports which are of “high impact” at the practical and actionable level. Bread and butter science is just important as “blue sky” science.
D. BALASUBRAMANIAN

dbala@lvpei.org

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