Aizawl, May 11: Experts have expressed reservations about the Mizoram government’s announcement on using organic manure for all agricultural and horticultural produce in the state. They believe that the government, which made the announcement last week, has set itself an impossible task. Speaking about the government’s ambitious plan, a state agriculture officer said it was foolhardy to use only organic manure in the entire state as it had proved to be a failure in the past.
“Instead of announcing the use of organic manure statewide, the government should have started in a small way by selecting crops, farmers and an area for organic farming first. Our department had introduced this kind of farming nearly 10 years ago with very little result. Even in foreign countries, methods like contour trench farming had proved too expensive and were abandoned by the farmers in just a year or two,” he said.
According to experts, organic farming, though preferable to chemical ones (due to harmful effects in the long run), could not be practised even in developed countries like Europe and North America. It is a specialised field and only a few farmers produce organic products compared to the number of farmers still using chemical fertilisers and pesticides in these countries.
“It is the practice in other states of India as well as in other countries to experiment first with selected crops, area and farmers using the organic farming method. This is what should have been done first,” a state horticulture department employee echoed the views of the agriculture officer.
Agricultural and horticultural experts in the state said though the intention of using only organic manure was good, it would undo all the hard work they had done in imparting knowledge to farmers on the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides for better products and greater production.
Moreover, they said the farmers had just started to appreciate the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides.
They stressed that the main problem would be to control pests. Bio-pesticide, a fledgling field in the state, is still unable to deal with many of the pests that destroy crops. This in itself will defeat the government’s plan of becoming an organic state.
According to the experts, the well-off farmers are now sending for chemical pesticides from outside the state if they are not available here. Farmers are now aware of the need to protect their crops from pests for better quality and quantity of their produce and better returns.
The agriculture department is producing bio-pesticides on a small scale at a single laboratory located on the outskirts of Aizawl and is publicising their use. However, the quantity produced here would prove highly inadequate if all farmers, comprising about 70 per cent of the total adult population of the state, decide to use bio-pesticides.