Growing Popularity Nepal Organic

[S.Annadana]

Laxmi Karki and Rishi Shah




Organic farming euphe-mistically dubbed ecological agriculture has been embraced currently by many communities and countries. It aims to create integrated, humane, environmentally and economically sustainable agricultural production systems. It counts fully on locally available or farm-derived renewable resources and management of self-regulating interactive processes that offers appropriate and acceptable levels and variety of crops, livestock and human nutrition with protection from pests and diseases to employed people and institutions. The vital role of organic agriculture that comprises basically of farming, processing, distribution and consumption is to sustain the ecosystem and organisms from the tiniest entities in soil to human beings, since the health of soil, plant, animal and man is one and without doubt indivisible.

Historically, organic movement commenced from 1930s as alternative answer to agriculture’s growing dependence on synthetic and artificial fertilizers after super phosphates, nitrates and nitrites were mass fabricated using Haber-Bosch ammonia process during First World War. They were cheap, powerful and easy to transport in bulk. Organic farming excludes the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, plant growth regulators, livestock feed additives and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Organic farmers focus on crop rotation, green manure, compost, cover cropping, mulching, biological pest control and mechanical cultivation to maintain soil productiveness and restrain pests in similar ways that our forefathers had practiced for generations. Boosting up soil health is the firm cornerstone of organic farming thereby maintaining economical sustainability, biological diversity and replenishing soil fertility. Since organic agriculture is very knowledge intensive, capacity building via continuous training of persons who are entrusted with different responsibilities for this programme is essential. Processed dung as seed meal, mineral powders as rock phosphate, greensand and natural potash are applied for suppressing erosion, promoting biodiversity and enhancing soil. Organic pest check that targets animals, insects, fungi, weeds and disease involves numerous techniques like introducing beneficial organisms, careful crop selection and rotation with mechanical row covers and traps. They furnish extra benefits to soil fertilization along with pollination and water conservation.

Responding to upswing in health consciousness aided additionally by standardized certification, optimum prices and government subsidies, organic goods enjoy their high exigency today. Even though organic output remains proportionally puny in context of entire global agricultural harvest, its accelerated growth is stunningly evident principally in Europe. Over sixty countries have regulations on organic farming that is distinguished by formal production standards. Mandatory certification and regulated labeling has currently solidified consumer trust and confidence in organic philosophy. Even though organic farms supposedly indicate lower yields than those from their equivalent counterparts in western countries, they are balanced by their reduced costs for fertilizer and pesticides coupled by lofty profit margins with their exclusive commodity that ensure premium prices.

Organic farming is more profitable in the drier states, due to their superior drought performance. It can confront damage by retaining more top soil and can categorically build up soil organic matter better than with no-till farming. Some governments subsidize organic farming because of increased biodiversity with curbed soil erosion and diminished water contamination that can bring even several supplementary advantages for the society. Organic farming is extensively labor supportive, whereas conventional farming requires comfortably ample capital, energy and manufactured inputs. It renders copious jobs and helps to foster economy and infrastructure. GMOs in food and agriculture are controversially excluded from organic farming. Contentious concern related to pollen from GMOs contaminating organic and heirloom genetics entering organic food supply that could pose health hazards allegedly prevails. Organic farming purveys food that invigorates human health and embellishes our habitat.

Organic business models display hierarchical structure that are linked cleverly to consumers through distribution and effective marketing peculiar to place and product, which vary widely with respect to country, climate, local attitudes, consumer needs and government assistance. Meaningful socio-economic and ecologically sustainable development, especially in developing countries can be achieved by cost effective organic agriculture, which encourages and speeds up efficient management of indigenous resources like seeds, manure and innovative know-how. Due to unprecedented want for organic wares both at home and abroad, organic farmers are exposed to great opportunities for augmenting income and exhibiting their unusually mustered communal organic prowess with passion.

Escalating consumer awareness on merits of healthy food and burgeoning concerns on altering climate have pushed the desire for organic products that bestows farmers chances for their engagement in organic agricultural. Organic food has become popular among health-conscious people, because it contains favorable levels of secondary plant compounds and vitamin-C and boasts of nutritional superiority regarding fatty acids in milk and meat items. Their carbohydrates and minerals contents are similar as in normal daily supplies. Disputatious issues on adequate productivity, irrational expansion of crop land and environment-friendliness linked to organic farming are being seriously discussed and challenged when compared with the soaring yield from regular farming. International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) adheres to the Principles of Organic Agriculture and IFOAM Norms and facilitates national and regional standard-setting and certification bodies accredited by government for evolving and expounding detailed certification standards that are responsive to ambient and inherent conditions.

Demands for organic products have grown rapidly. Approximately thirty-five million hectares are farmed organically worldwide. Australia has thirty-nine percent of the whole organic farmland followed by Europe (23%), Latin America (19%), Asia (9.5%) and North America (7.2%). Africa affirms meagerly three percent. Australia, Argentina, China, USA, Italy, Spain, Germany, Brazil, Uruguay and England possess most organic farmland. The estimated total market value of certified organic merchandise amounted to thirty billion US Dollars in 2006 and their markets were strongest in North America and Europe. From approximately 148 thousand square kilometers (about fifteen million hectares) of Nepalese land that could be divided into mountainous (35%), hilly (42%) and terrain (23%) areas, roughly four million hectares are presumably arable for meaningful agriculture. Out of moderately one million hectare of land distributed over various places, just 665 hectares perhaps useful for organic farming are modestly utilized for promoting organic cereals and vegetables with active association of barely thirty two hundred households. Encouraging annual cumulative revenues of sixty million rupees with tremendous potential for further increment in future for local consumption and foreign export has been earned by this sector. These model organic farming projects have vividly demonstrated their contribution conducive towards peace, prosperity and well-being of rural families of our country consequently uplifting the quality of their children’s and their lives.