Indian Agriculture: Challenges and Opportunities for Organic Farming

Agriculture is the backbone of the Indian economy, employing over 50% of the country's workforce and contributing about 17% to the GDP. It is also a major source of food for the country, with India being one of the world's largest producers of many agricultural products.

However, the Indian agriculture sector is facing a number of challenges, including:

Low productivity: Despite the Green Revolution, agricultural productivity in India is still relatively low compared to other countries. This is due to a number of factors, including poor soil quality, limited irrigation, and lack of access to modern agricultural technologies.

Increasing demand: The demand for agricultural products in India is increasing rapidly, due to the country's growing population and rising incomes. This is putting a strain on the agricultural sector, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to meet the demand for food.

Climate change: Climate change is also posing a threat to Indian agriculture. Rising temperatures and erratic rainfall patterns are making it more difficult to grow crops, and this is likely to have a significant impact on agricultural production in the coming years.

Indian Agriculture: Challenges and Opportunities for Organic Farming

Organic Farming as a Solution

Organic farming is a method of agricultural production that relies on natural processes and materials to maintain soil health and fertility, control pests and diseases, and produce food. Organic farming practices are designed to protect the environment and human health, and they can also help to improve the quality of food.

Organic farming can offer a number of solutions to the challenges facing the Indian agriculture sector:

Improved productivity: Organic farming can help to improve soil health and fertility, which can lead to improved crop yields.

Reduced environmental impact: Organic farming practices help to reduce pollution and protect the environment.

Improved food quality: Organic food is often higher in nutrients and flavor than conventionally grown food.

Opportunities for Organic Farming in India

The Indian agriculture sector is facing a number of challenges, but it also has a number of opportunities. Organic farming is an important opportunity for the Indian agricultural sector, and it can help to address the challenges facing the sector.

Growing domestic market: The growing domestic market for organic food in India provides a major opportunity for the organic farming sector.

Export market: India has the potential to export organic food to other countries, and this is another opportunity for the organic farming sector.

Government support: The government is providing significant support to the organic farming sector, and this is helping to promote growth and innovation.

Organic farming can offer a number of solutions to the challenges facing the Indian agriculture sector. It is an important opportunity for the Indian agricultural sector, and it has the potential to help the country meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Recent Flood in Rivers In North India and Its Impact on Indian Agriculture

Introduction

India is no stranger to flooding. The country experiences monsoon rains every year, and these rains can often lead to flooding in low-lying areas. However, the recent floods in rivers in North India have been particularly severe. The floods have caused widespread damage to property and infrastructure, and have also had a significant impact on Indian agriculture. Recent Flood in Rivers In North India  and Its Impact on Indian Agriculture

Background

Floods are natural disaster that occurs when water overflows its natural boundaries and inundates land. Floods can be caused by several factors, including heavy rains, melting snow, and dam failures. In India, floods are most common during the monsoon season, which runs from June to September.

The monsoon rains are essential for agriculture in India. However, if the rains are too heavy, they can lead to flooding. This flooding can damage crops, wash away topsoil, and disrupt irrigation systems. The impact of flooding on agriculture can be significant and can lead to food shortages and price increases.

Recent floods

The recent floods in rivers in North India were caused by heavy monsoon rains. The rains began in June 2023 and continued for several weeks. The floods affected the states of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, and Delhi.

The extent of the flooding was widespread. In Himachal Pradesh, the Beas River overflowed its banks, and several villages were submerged. In Uttarakhand, the Ganges River and its tributaries also overflowed, causing widespread damage. In Punjab and Haryana, the floods damaged crops and livestock. In Delhi, the Yamuna River overflowed, and several areas of the city were flooded.

Impact on agriculture

The impact of the floods on Indian agriculture has been significant. The floods have damaged crops, washed away topsoil, and disrupted irrigation systems. The damage to crops is estimated to be in the billions of rupees. The loss of topsoil will reduce crop yields in the future. The disruption of irrigation systems will make it difficult to irrigate crops and could lead to crop failures.

The impact of the floods on agriculture is likely to be felt for several years to come. The damage to crops will lead to food shortages, and the loss of topsoil will reduce crop yields. The disruption of irrigation systems will make it difficult to irrigate crops, and could lead to crop failures.

Conclusion

The recent floods in rivers in North India have had a significant impact on Indian agriculture. The damage to crops, the loss of topsoil, and the disruption of irrigation systems will have a lasting impact on the agricultural sector. The government of India is working to provide relief to the affected farmers and is also working to mitigate the impact of future floods.

Recommendations

The government of India should take steps to mitigate the impact of future floods. These steps could include:

• Building dams and levees to control flooding.
• Improving drainage systems to prevent waterlogging.
• Educating farmers about flood-resistant crops.
• Providing financial assistance to farmers who have lost crops due to flooding.

The government should also work to reduce the impact of climate change on flooding. Climate change is leading to more extreme weather events, including heavy rains. This is increasing the risk of flooding in India. The government should take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Conclusion

The recent floods in rivers in North India have had a significant impact on Indian agriculture. The damage to crops, the loss of topsoil, and the disruption of irrigation systems will have a lasting impact on the agricultural sector. The government of India is working to provide relief to the affected farmers and is also working to mitigate the impact of future floods. The government should take steps to reduce the impact of climate change on flooding, and to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

What did Indian farmers loose with scrap of new farmer law ?

Under the pressure of Indian farmers agitations central Indian  Govt scraped the new agriculture produce marketing law in year 2021. With the scrap of these laws farmers lost a new wave of development in Indian agriculture sector. To make the Indian agriculture attractive for new investment it requires a lot changes. Exiting Indian agriculture produce marketing laws were drafted and passed before green revolution and globalization.  Central Indin Govt drafted these agriculture law and passed from Indian parliament for the assistance of Indian farmers in year 2020. These laws were Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.

 

In today’s scenario these existing APMC laws has emerged as barrior between farmers and consumers. Consumers can be end consumers, other state traders, food processing factories, agriculture commodity exporters, and commodity stockiest.  They can’t contact directly with farmers to buy produce. Buyers will require a local market committee registration. Though these boundation are not for farmers. Indian Farmer can sell his produce to anyone and anywhere but anyone can’t buy stock directly from farmers. 

Due to financial limitation and trade complexity farmer can’t deal directly with buyer. Delay of buying process cost to farmers/producer. Due to complexity of existing agriculture produce market laws new investor don’t invest in agriculture. Today farmers need a support for both backward market linkages (buying of farm inputs) and forward market linkages (selling of farm produces).

Today Indian farmer has become Information technology friendly he wants to grab latest agriculture technology and profitable crops but he becomes demoralised due to unavailability of the fast marketing facility. He can’t do the forward contract with specific buyer in advance on defined price. As per law all the agriculture commodities need to be auctioned in market for selling. Organic farming is increasing India. But market in not available for Indian farmers with full capacity. Organic farming can give an advantage to Indian agriculture sector at global agriculture market and trade. 

Even market committee infrastructure is not sufficient for peak season arrival. Farm produce remain in open sometimes it get damaged due to rain. There is no 100 % covered yard. Sometimes unwanted charges are put a farmers end like cleaning charges, weighing charges, mandi labour union charges. Under the table function of market yards are under control of traders and yard labours. 

Farmers must come with fresh idea and discussion. This movement must be started specially by the new generation youth farmers. They should come together and start fresh communication with government. Ask govt to provide solution for independent direct agriculture produce market in the form of new law as per global trade and business requirement. This will also lead to fresh investment in Indian agriculture sector. Indian agriculture needs investment, infrastructure, and innovation.  

Safe agriculture food production is biggest challenge for human.

Invention and Experiment of science is making agriculture economical profitable. That is helpful for farmers and society. It is helping to fight with challenge of shortage of food. Another side of this help is alarming. Science is being misused in agriculture production. Use of agrochemical is increasing beyond the safe level of application. Residual effects of these chemicals are polluting the water, soil, air and environment. Food production is badly effected with these chemicals.

These chemicals are major reason behind chronicle disease and health problems. Chemicals are used in many forms in agriculture such fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, pesticides, growth regulators, growth promoters, nutrients, ripening agents, other plant physiological activities controllers. Overdose and unwanted use of these chemicals are making the agriculture production unsafe for the human consumption. This is the situation which can be controlled with the proper education and awareness among farmers.

Safe Food production is biggest challenge for human.

Vegetables grown near to major urban location are highly contaminated with the hazardous chemicals due to irrigation with polluted water. Green vegetable are consumed fresh kitchen, they are high in demand in urban area. Sewerage water is highly contaminated with heavy metals, industrial chemicals, and poisonous substances. Consumption of these vegetable cause many diseases and directly hurt to liver, kidney, digestive system. Practices of irrigation with polluted water are also polluting the soil and the contamination can’t be treated. Responsible Govt. departments are not monitoring and controlling these practices. It is direct negligence with the health of citizens.

Meat production near urban location is also facing same problems. Animal and birds are reared on high dose of chemicals. Heavy dose of antibiotics and weight gain hormones/medicines are injected to animals and birds. Consumption of the meat produced from these animals and birds are not safe. Diseases are developing susceptibility and resistance to antibiotics due to heavy dose of antibiotics intake with meat. In some cases meat of diseased animal and birds are supplied to out plate, which can transfer the hazardous virus, bacteria and other microorganism. Seafood is also contaminated with many chemicals. Micro plastics particles have entered in the seafood chain. Human is dumping garbage in sea. Sea is supplying the same garbage to human.

Milk and dairy products are also in the same line. They are also not safe even we leave adulteration in dairy product aside. High level of antibiotics, hormones, chemical residuals and aflatoxins are entering in our body with these dairy food products. Diet of dairy cattle is below the safe level. Farmers and feed companies used unsafe feed ingredients for cattle feed production. Non-recommended minerals source are used in cattle feed. 

Food grain is also not safe. They are produced with heavy dose of agrochemicals which is out of acceptable limit of agrochemicals. Nexus of profit making companies and traders is making it more complex. Regulatory bodies are silent on the unsafe production of agriculture food produce. It will be a big challenge which must be addressed before the issue of hunger. Hunger impacts only few individuals but unsafe food production will impact coming generations.

Can traceability of agriculture produce help agriculture and farmers ?

Even after enough production farmers don’t get the fair price of his agriculture produce and agriculture produce don’t get the market & buyer. In industrial production everything is written in record and books are well maintained for regular audit & inspection. Everything is traceable if it is required. In agriculture production things are not recorded and traceable. Lack of traceability leads to many problems. Agriculture sector faces many problems like farmers suicide, bad farm loan, farm loan waiver, over production, food prices inflation, distress selling, throwing the production on road, storage problem, over import of agriculture commodities, black market selling, adulteration etc. 

What is agriculture traceability ? 

It is record keeping and mapping of the process of agriculture production to processing and reaching in hand of end user. Traceability will include the mapping of farm input supplier, farm inputs, farmers, farmers land, primary market of for agriculture commodity selling, secondary market of agriculture product selling, stockist, transporter, warehousing, processor, finish product stockist, whole seller, retailer and other point or steps involved in this process from farmer to consumer. 

Mapping of farm inputs and farm input sellers 

Quality and quantity of agriculture production depends on farm inputs. If the farm inputs are properly mapped then this will help farmers to ensure if they are getting right product of right quality, they are being not cheated, their product is recommended for particular crop. Last year there was case in MP that some product was recommended for Groundnut and farmers used in soybean crop. The crop was damaged. When the farmers raised the issue of crop damage against the company and administration then company gave an excuse that their product was not recommended for Soybean crop and farmers have used applied product for soybean crop. Once the inputs and inputs seller will be mapped then by the end of harvest season, actual production estimate will be calculated. 

Can traceability of agriculture produce help agriculture and farmers ?

It can be also mapped with farm loans so that govt can ensure that subsidized for agriculture purpose is used for right purpose. Insurance company can also estimate the risk and loss with the help of private data. Farm input is the base record which must be mapped and recorded in proper way. Govt can also monitor if seed companies are making huge profit or cheating with farmers. 

Once the farmers buy the product his land his operation should be recorded and mapped. It will ensure the farmer have done right operations, type of insect & disease has attacked. How were they managed and what type of chemicals were used? If will also give an estimate that how much crop is sown area. IF will be helpful in the case of crop damage, risk calculation. It will also ensure that production is coming to local market from the local area, it is not arrived from other state or imported from other country. It will also assist banks and finical institutes if farmer have enough production for making payment or not. Is it leads that farmers are in problem then his loan can be adjusted as per the norms? It will help govt to identify the right beneficiary. This is most crucial step. If govt has to give incentive to farmers for complete mapping, then govt should do it. Farmer is the start point of agriculture food production then it will helpful to keep the whole chain (from production to end consumer) clean. 

Post harvesting mapping 

Once the agriculture production has mapped then production will come in market for trading and processing. These are point of entry of external material and point to wipe out the production. Primary market of agriculture produce is main point for mapping and traceability. After primary market selling agriculture produces normally go to processing industries and these industries are maintaining the record regularly. If will give an idea that what is farmers getting, what is industry investing in processing and what is industry getting from selling of produce. 

Traceability information and labeling 

After the traceability and mapping there must be mandatory discloser of information under a code which can help end consumer that from where his product is coming, at what stage his product is processed and what type of contents/ingredients are used in preparation of his consumable product. This must be available on public website. Govt can trace the location of the produce, Illegal hording, point of adulteration, detail of stock laying at ware house, transport, processing factory and sells points, point of tax default and many more. Traceability can’t be complete solution but it can give relief to agriculture more than 70-80 %. Any extra profit is made from a channel can be shared with original producer of agriculture produce or Farmer.