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Results
of analyses of the soil samples from Krushi Tirth, Bajwada,
indicate a challenge for agriculture scientists
Background:
·
This farm
is in village Bajwada, district Dewas, Madhya Pradesh; owned
by Malpaani Trust and managed by Mr Dipak Suchde, CEO of the
trust (deepaksuchde@gmail.com).
As I understand, Mr Suchde is also an important member of
‘Prayog Parivar’ – a non-institutional network of knowledge
communication initiated by Prof. Shripad A. Dabholkar. The
network involves several practicing farmers. More information
on the network should be available at
www.prayogpariwar.net.
A book “Plenty for All” written by Prof. Dabholkar, published
in 1998 (Mehta Publishing House, 1216, Sadashiv Peth, Pune;
mehpubl@vsnl.com)
tells us of a different
outlook to farming and should be read by all students
of agriculture.
·
I know the
group from April 2005 when I participated in a workshop by the
group, organized to commemorate first death anniversary of
Prof. Dabholkar. Surprisingly, quite a few farmers associated
with the group were awarded by some states/organizations for
harvesting highest yields for different crops, including
sugarcane and grapes. Some of their views/concepts (in the
book and/or on the website) may appear unscientific, but the
fact that their farmers were harvesting high yields forced me
to spend more time/interest in this direction.
·
The group
has developed several innovative protocols of crop production.
The most fascinating for a microbiologist like me was ‘the
method of composting’ which they called process of making
‘Masala Matti’ – Mr Dipak Suchde now calls it “Amrit Matti”.
Some
samples of this compost had up to 100 million plant-growth
promoting bacteria (siderophore producers) in every gram of
the compost - highest ever measured in any compost in our lab.
·
Mr Suchde
believes that about 10 Gunta (one hectare = 2.42 acres, one
acre = 40 Gunta) land is enough for not only feeding a family
of four, but also providing other items of livelihood through
selling the excess produce.
·
Visit to
crops at the Yusuf Meherally Centre (YMC) Tara, Panvel
district of Maharashtra, where Mr Suchde used to work when I
met him first, was an eye opener. The small area of 10 Gunta
had over 100 crop species (mix of annuals like Papaya and
perennials) and reminded me of several publications of Miguel
A. Altieri (Professor of Entomology, University of Florida,
215 Mulford Hall Berkeley, California 94720;
agroeco3@nature. berkeley.edu)
where he argues in favor of designing agroecosystems mimicking
the structure and function of natural ecosystems if we have to
have sustainable high yields. Here at the YMC I was witnessing
a working model of what perhaps Altieri was theorizing in his
publications. The Alfisol soil at YMC did not seem fertile and
had lot of pebbles. I was told that the crop was only 3-months
plus. Still there were all signs of high productivity per unit
area. It seemed much was happening in the heaps of “Amrit
Matti” and needed explorations.
·
The key
characteristics of this technology of growing crops, which the
group calls ‘Natueco Farming’, were (a) plants growing on
small ‘heaps of Amrit Matti’ covered with mulch, (b) the heaps
were always kept moist (watering with rose cans at the rate of
1000L water per day per 10 Gunta), (c) spacing was wide, (d)
not only the heaps, even the rest of the area was covered with
grass mulch, (e) weeds were allowed to grow until flowering
and were seen as a resource (again this reminded me of the
work by Altieri), (f)
need-based sowing and harvesting of crops – overall it
looked a constructed forest.
·
In Sept
2007, I visited at the Krushi Teerth, this time to spend five
days. This was a new place of work for Mr Suchde. I was told
that the Malpani Trust acquired these lands only recently and
the 10-Gunta experiment was started only in June 2007 and thus
the crops I was looking at were only about 3 months old. And
again there were signs of high productivity per unit area as
noted at the YMC. When dug out, most plants (including upland
rice) had abundant roots and were white ie. highly active, as
was true at the YMC. Note: Yield data from the
Krushi Teerth.
On
Studies/Data:
The signs
of high productivity and other factors indicated above made me
to take detailed soil sampling and we analyzed all possible
parameters for which facility was available at ICRISAT.
Results of the analyses along with comments are in the
attached four data tables. The data indicate a system of crop
husbandry that uses locally available natural resource,
knowledge and labor to convert a soil with ‘low’ to ‘high’
available form of crop nutrients.
Overall:
Unfortunately, in the absence of any comparative treatment we
cannot say that the yield with the Natueco Farming was or will
be higher than conventional system of agriculture. But there
were no signs of nutrient deficiency, diseases and
insect-pests worth worrying. The fact that this method does
not need agrochemicals, make it environment and farmers
friendly, another ‘low-cost biological option’ that can help
farmers. The method is worth exploring further and seems to
have surprises for we scientists (plant pathologists,
entomologists, soil fertility experts, agronomists, soil
physics, crop physiologists, environmental economists, and
---?).
OP Rupela, Principal Scientist (Microbiology), ICRISAT,
Patancheru, 502324,
o.rupela@cgiar.org
Note :
items highlighted yellow need confirmation.
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