The push for going organic is real, especially for farmers. As a consumer, organic products make sense to me. After all, I don’t want to ingest a vegetable, fruit, or whatever else that has been doused in pesticides and other potentially harmful chemicals. It seems like almost everything causes cancer these days so eliminating a couple more sources is completely fine with me.
Going organic isn’t that easy for farmers, though. It makes the entire process more difficult in terms of keeping harmful bugs away from their crops. These pesticides that can be harmful to humans really do serve a purpose, and that purpose is to maximize the yield each farmer gets from their harvest.
If they don’t use the pesticides, they have to worry about, well, pests. If you’ve ever wondered why organic fruits and veggies cost so much more at the grocery store, it’s because they take more work to grow.
That means we need a solution to do two things. One, we have to help farmers when it comes to growing organic crops, which take more work and time, and two, we have to eliminate the amount of pesticides and chemicals each farmer uses.
The Indian State of Goa has come out with a plan that provides solutions to both these problems. Sikkim, located in the Himalayan mountains along Nepal and China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, announced that it had become India’s first independently certified organic state earlier this year. Following suit, Goa wants to do the same.
Using a state-assisted program called Organic Imputs for Farmers, the state plans to get rid of the damaging chemicals commonly used in industrial farming.
“This is the first step we have taken in the direction of organic farming in the state. Hopefully, more and more farmers should adopt the practice of organic farming after availing this scheme,” explains Director of Agriculture, Ulhas Pai Kakode.
Under the program, which is supported by the state, farmers having 10,000 to 20,000 hectares of land can receive up to 50 percent assistance for agreeing to only use organic imputs. This means organic fertilizers like vermi-compost, mushroom waste, neem cake, and bio-fertilizers such as rhizobium, azotobacter, azospirillium, and more. These organic materials will be discounted to farmers in order to help with the transition to a completely organic operation, thus avoiding the harmful dangers that typical pesticides and chemicals create. Even smaller-scale farmers can take advantage of the discounted rates in order to keep their farms operational.
Not only does this plan restore organic food to famers and families who rely on it, but the soil itself will benefit from the change as it receives the non-chemical based nutrients it desperately needs.
The immune systems of the plants will also benefit from the change to organic materials over chemical additives. John Kemp, who is known for being an Amish farmer saw the impact of going completely organic for himself. Not only was he able to rid his crops of fungus and pests that chemicals couldn’t treat, but he also realized that a plant’s health is based entirely on the soil. When a plant is rooted in organic, healthy soil, the plant’s immune system thrives.
When it comes to growing crops, farmers all over the world are reverting to more traditional methods that were used long before industrialization and the age of chemically stimulated materials. Not everything should be chemically modified; sometimes the natural way is just better.
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