Friday 7 October 2016

Organic v/s Natural farming

Lot of confusion exists regarding Organic v/s Natural farming. There is also a lot of debate over which is better. There are some extreme views (by people like respected Subhash Palekar ji of Zero Budget Natural Farming - ZBNF - fame) that Organic farming is more harmful than chemical farming! Here is my take on this topic. In my opinion, there is not much difference between the two. I would like to mention the key differences here.

Caveat: I am in the process of converting from chemical farming to organic farming. My knowledge of Natural farming is limited.

- Natural farming is a wonderful method and that is definitely the way to go. But it seems to be a very long term objective. Organic farming can be an intermediate step towards this to keep it financially viable. I am making this claim because my observation with ZBNF is not really "zero-budget" at least in the initial years.
- When we have highly contaminated soil, it takes really long time to condition it to organic. During this period we will get hit financially due to reduced or no yield. Organic farming can salvage this situation to some extent.
- Natural farming advocates no intervention - in terms of tilling, pest control, weed control, etc. This also looks ideal for long term, but will impact in the short term.
- On-ground composting is one of the Natural Farming ways. This is also an ideal scenario, but it becomes difficult to walk around the farm in this condition.
- One of the major issues raised by Natural farmers is getting organic material from outside which is against self-sustainability. Agreed! But given the labor problems around all sectors, how many people can afford to make everything in-house?
- From the market perspective, there is no differentiation (yet) between natural and organic.


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