Technological interventions in natural farming for upliftment of natural farming in Sonitpur district of Assam, India

Introduction

Assam is naturally blessed with fertile lands and diversified agro climatic conditions. Hence agriculture forms the backbone of socio economy of Assam. The state is mostly organic by default as out of net cultivable area of 4.3 million hectares, about 30.92 lakh hectare area have not seen the use of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides (Das, 2020) [5] . Rice is the staple crop in Assam producing food to more than 25 million people. Main kharif crops are autumn rice, winter rice, maize, pulses, kharif oilseeds, kharif vegetables etc. In rabi season, fields are occupied by summer rice, wheat, gram, rape and mustard, various rabi oilseeds, rabi vegetables, potato etc. Except a few like wheat, onion and potato, rest of the crops are grown under traditional methods of farming using cow dung. On the other hand, it becomes difficult to change the mind of farmers to adopt a fully organic method in the pockets of commercial production due to the risk of yield reduction. So to bring maximum area under organic cultivation where there is little or no use of fertilizers, organic farming movement was promoted in Assam during the 1 st half of 20 th century with implementation of Central Sector Organic Schemes like Paramparagat Krishi Vikash Yojna (PKVY), Rashtriya Krishi Vikash Yojana for Organic Farming (RKVY) and Mission Organic Value Chain Development (MOVCD). But these schemes could not flourished properly due to the reasons like high input cost and lower yield of crops under commercial cultivation. In the mean time, many researchers and scientists are claiming Natural Farming as a good alternative to chemical as well as organic farming that directly or indirectly impacts sustainable development positively (Tripathy and Tauseef, 2018) [16] . Natural farming is a special form of Agriculture that does not require any financial expenditure to purchase chemical fertilizers or organic manure and agrochemicals from outside farm (Palekar, 2021) [4] . With very limited investments, these inputs can be prepared in farm itself with deshi cow dung, urine and plant extracts etc. It is even cited by farmers that labour and production costs has drastically reduced by 14-45% (Chandel et al., 2021) [4] . Thus natural farming though in its preliminary stages, is showing increased positive results and is being adopted by farmers in good faith in Assam also. Sonitpur district comes under North Bank Plain Zone of Assam. It is the second largest district in Asaam with a population of 19,25,975 (as of 2011 cencus). The economy of Sonitpur district is underdeveloped and approximately 80% of the population depends on Agriculture allied (primary sector) activities for their livelihood. Cropping intensity of the district is 185% and fertilizer consumption rate of 40%. Besides the areas where intensive cultivation of vegetables is practicing, rest of the cultivable land of the district is organic by default. So these areas can be easily brought under natural farming system in near future. Due to simplicity, adaptiveness and huge reduction in cost of cultivation, a few farmers of the district are adopting natural farming practices in cropping system mode. So to know the impact of cropping systems of natural farming on crop productivity and soil health, this study was conducted in the farm of Mrs. Dipali Mandal, a lady farmer of Teenmile village of Sonitpur District holding 6 bigha of farm land where she is practicing natural farming since 2019. The objectives of the study was:

• To study the economics of natural farming with traditional farming system. • To study the soil conditions under natural farming system.

Materials and Methods

Study area

Deepali mandal is a marginal farmer of Sonitpur district with land holding of <1 ha (6 bighas) where she is practicing Low Budget Natural Farming (LBNF) since 2019. Earlier some part of the farm was managed by adopting traditional farming system with cowdung and little amount of chemical fertilizers and pesticides for last 15 years. After 2019, by the inspiration of Padam Sree Awardee Sree Subhash Palekar, she decided to adopt LBNF practices to a part of her farm. The crops which were primarily grown at the farm are cabbage, cauliflower, pea, gerbera, tuberose and marigold.

Analytical framework

Soil samples of the farm were collected in May 2022. Five composite soil samples were collected from both plots under natural farming (NF) (3years of conversion plot) and traditional farming (TF) plot which sums up to a total of ten number of composite representative soil samples. The soil samples were collected from 0-15cm depth to assess soil properties viz soil reaction (pH), soil organic carbon (OC), available N, P and K at the Soil Testing Laboratory of KVK, Sonitpur, Napam, Assam. Soil samples were collected from the identified cites, thereafter dried under shade, grounded, mixed thoroughly and passed through 2mm sieve. The processed samples were then kept in plastic bags and used for subsequent laboratory analysis. Soil reaction was determined through glass electrode pH meter method (Jackson, 1973) [10] , soil organic carbon was determined by Walkley and Black method (Jackson, 1973) [10] . Alkaline KMnO 4 method given by Subbiah and Asija (1956) [15] was used for determination of soil available nitrogen while available phosphorus was determined by sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO 3 ) extraction and subsequent colorimetric analysis (Olsen et al. 1954) [13] method. Exchangeable K was determined by extracting the soil samples with neutral normal ammonium acetate solution and thereafter through flame photometer (Barrows and Simpson, 1962) [3] . The enumeration of the total microbes in soil samples was done following "Serial dilution plate technique" using nutrient agar medium for bacterial and potato dextrose agar (PDA) medium for fungi." The population of microbes was examined in various treatments and expressed as CFU/ml. Sterilized test tubes were taken and the first test tube was taken 10 ml of distilled water, and remaining test tubes were with 9 ml distilled water. 1 g of sample was dissolved in a first test tube with distilled water (10 ml) and its dilution factor 10-1. Then, 1 ml of sample was transferred from first tubes (10-1) and second test tubes and its dilution factor is 10-2, similarly samples were transferred to remaining test tubes, and dilution factor obtained as 10-3, 10-4, 10-5, 10-6, 10-7, 10-8, 10-9, and 10-10. From these diluted samples, 1 ml of sample from 10-7, 10-8 was taken and transferred to nutrient agar media and 10-3, 10-4 was taken in PDA plates and incubated 24 hrs for bacterial culture and 72 hrs for fungal culture.

Crop equivalent yield: In Natural Farming system, since many crops are growing in multiple or mixed cropping system, so it is very difficult to compare multiple crops with a single crop. By applying a technique given by Francis (1986), crops equivalent yield can be calculated by using formula:

CEY=C Y +C Y1 .P 1 /P 0 + CY 2 .P 2 /P 1 ……….. Relative Economic Efficiency: Relative Economic Efficiency given by Farrell (1957) [8] was used to calculate the comparative economic gain of the two farming systems, calculated by the following formula:

Formulations/products used as input at farm

After conversion to Natural Farming system, Dipali mandal used to cultivate her crops by using natural formulations prepared at her own farm with the products which are easily available at farm. Earlier she used mostly FYM and very little amount of chemical fertilizers like Urea and DAP along with insecticides and fungicides under traditional method of farming which raised the cost of cultivation and lowering the farm income. The natural formulations and practices used in the farm includes:

• Minimun ploughing with power tiller as initial soil preparation work • Tranches making along with the crop rows for application of mulches, irrigation water and jeevamrit. Natural farming is a desi-cow based farming system and Jeevamrit is the backbone of Natutal farming. Jeevamrit and Ghanjeevamrit besides fulfil the nutritional requirement of crops also enhance manifold multiplication of microbial population, earthworms and natural beneficial bioagents (Debabrata, 2019) [6] . Seed treatment with Beejamrit was done as remedial measure which helps to reduce root and seed born diseases besides speeding the germination process and increase percentage of germination In Natural Farming system, it was observed that there was a natural control of pest and diseases in farm as compared to traditional farming system. But as a precautionary measure, herbal formulations like Dashparni ark (mixing of ten to twelve leaves of plants which cow does not eat with cow urine) and spray of Jeevamrit were practiced in farm. However, incornporation of crop residues, mulching, minimum tillage with power tiller, inter cropping and inclusion of legumes in crop rotation are the other practices followed in the natural farming farm.

Major crop combinations under natural farming vs traditional farming

Crops were grown according to their season following intercropping model and leguminous crop was incorporate with other crops (Table .2) in order to ensure that no piece of land is wasted and utilized properly. Intercropping with leguminous crops is considered as one of the most important components of natural farming as it increases crop productivity and soil fertility through the atmospheric nitrogen fixation. Growing multiple crops in the same unit of land maximizes land use and reduces the chance of crop yield loss (Laishram et al., 2022) [11] . Major crop combination adopted under Natural Farming was Flowervegetable crops. However, in Traditional Farming, as opposed to Natural Farming, solo cropping was practiced.

Results and Discussion

Comparative analysis of crop yield under natural and traditional farming system Under Natural Farming, two or more crops are grown in the same piece of land in multiple/mixed cropping system. So it is very difficult to compare the economic produce of natural farming system with that of traditional farming produce. So to compare the yield, Crop Equivalent Yield (CEY) concept was used for a mixed cropping system (Francis, 1986). In our study, main crop was marigold and other crop yields were calculated as CEY of marigold crop.

Effect of Natural Farming practices on crop yields

Level of crop yields seems to be excellent under NF system. From Table .3 and Table .4, it was observed that the yield in NF system was found to be higher than in TF system and REE varied from 9.32% to 61.96% in all crop combinations with an average of 30.55% during both the seasons. The above results were supported by Tripathi and Tauseef (2018) [16] , which stated that the average of zero budget natural farming (ZBNF) groundnut farmers was 23% higher than their counterparts outside the NF. On average ZBNF, paddy farmers had a 6% higher yield. These increments are the result of sustainable farming practices, which also improve farmers' capacity to adapt to climate change. Also, another study observed an increase in CEY under cerealspulses combination (17.22%). This higher increase can be attributed to the comparative remunerative prices of pulses and symbiotic effect of pulses on cereal crop yield (Chandel et al., 2021) [4] .

Economics of crop grown under NF system

The economics of crop grown under conventional and Natural Farming system is presented in Table3 and Table4. It is evident from the tables that substantial decrease in the cost of growing these crops has occurred with the use of NF technology. It has been observed that the total cost of all the crop combinations in NF systems during the cultivation process was substantially reduced. The percentage reduction in NF cultivation costs over the TF system was 37.58% in present study. It indicates that the NF method lowers the costs of farmers as it uses non-synthetic inputs available locally in contrast to TF capital intensive inputs. Similar findings were reported by Mishra, 2018, which revealed that, after converting into NF, farmers had a decreased cost of cultivation for all the crops and, most significantly, farmers were able to increase their income from natural agricultural practices by increasing the number of crops. The total expenditure in fruit-based cropping sequences showed a marked decline from Rs. 2,40,638 to Rs. 1,31,023 per ha, which indicate that the Subhash Palekar Natural Farming (SPNF)system reduces farmers' direct costs, boosting yields, and promotes the use of locally sourced nonsynthetic inputs, compared to capital intensive conventional farming (CF) (Chandel et al., 2021) [4] .

Impact of NF practices on soil chemical properties

Samples from both plots exhibited a strongly acidic reaction. Soil pH of the samples under natural farming (NF) ranged from 5.0 to 5.3 and samples from traditional farming (TF) ranged from 5.0 to 5.2 (Table.5). Organic carbon values in the NF plots ranged from 0.86 to 0.89 percent with a mean of 0.86%. On the other hand samples from TF plots ranged from 0.56 to 0.58 percent with a mean of 0.57 percent. The samples from NF plots showed a high range of organic carbon content. This could be due to incorporation of organic mulches and uses of jeevamrita in the plots.

Impact on Soil Microbial Population

Notable change in bacterial population was recorded in both the systems. Bacterial population increased from 16 CFU/ml to 45 CFU/ml in NF system, while in TF system, it increased from 12.1 CFU/ml to 18.6 CFU/ml. The percent change in bacterial population was 181.25% in NF system, as compared to 53.72% in TF (Table .6). Similar results were also found in case of fungi population. Fungal population increased from 2 CFU/ml to 4 CFU/ml in NF system, while in TF system, it increased from 1.2 CFU/ml to 1.6 CFU/ml The percent change in fungal population was 100% in NF system, as compared to 33.33% in TF system. These results indicates the efficiency of NF practices in manifold multiplication of microbes in the soil which might have contributed in enhancing the nutritional status of the soil as reflected in the data of organic carbon and macro nutrients described earlier. Devakumar et al., (2018) [7] also recorded higher bacteria and fungi population i.e. 40.33x10 5 CFU/ml and 20.33x10 4 CFU/ml respectively with application of Jeevamrit in soil. Our results are in line with the reported studies and shows the beneficial effects of NF in increasing the microbial population and biodiversity, which are important indicators of soil quality.

Conclusion

On the basis of initial investigation and observations recorded under the study, it appears that Natural Farming may be a promising model in sustainable Agriculture.

Considering the hazards of fertilizers and pesticides, farmers can employ these environmentally beneficial traditional inputs and practices as a production alternative. Application of jeevamrit and ghanajeevamrit in the fields promotes the multiplication of microbes in the field. However, incorporation of green manuring crops, mulching, minimum tillage and crop rotation etc. are other complementary practices which form a composite package for improving soil health under Assam condition.

References

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