Need To Go Organic

World markets are flooding with new and more competent food products. Both durability and shelf life of the products have been increased by a variety of packaging techniques and the techniques required for enhancing the nutrient content. Further, market competitiveness had made the growers and sellers to come out with new and deleterious methods of market procurement. The farming community had been moving continuously for the betterment of their sustainable economies and also been able to cope up with the market fluctuations but only up to a certain extent. The ever increasing demand and a greater supply gap had forced the farming community to grow more with less agrarian ethics and motivated the indiscriminate use of chemicals!

These chemicals not only entered the human and animal food chain but also disrupted and deteriorated the quality of produce and the soil. For the better production and for year round production from the same piece of land, the prevailing governments and the concerned departments had started giving huge subsidies on different chemicals and fertilizers, which however is very beneficial for increasing the overall yield of the crops but ultimately had serious and pathological effects on the soil and the living organisms sustained by the soil.

These chemicals in the food chains had very serious concerns as they lead to a phenomenon called as “bioaccumulation”. Bioaccumulation means the accumulation of very small amount of chemical residues into the biological system once the chemicals are taken in the food items due to the exposure of such food items to chemicals in their growing stage. These chemicals are used in the food crops and food animals in the form of weedicides, pesticides, antibiotics and also the fertilizers and growth promoters which get adsorbed in the concerned system and then enter the human food chain. These chemicals lead to formation of resistance in the human beings and animals which is not desirable. This antibiotic resistance make humans and animals resistance to many antibiotics which is of great use during any infection or diseased condition. Further, these chemicals also interfere in the immunity of the humans and animals and predispose them to various diseases. These chemicals also produce different disease conditions in humans and animals. The ingestion of these chemicals accidently may prove to be fatal and require immediate medical attention. The chemicals which are used for farming also pose a greater threat to environment. All the components of environment i.e. air, water and soil gets polluted with them. The chemicals in the form of aerosols pollute the air and leads to sir pollution. The chemicals precipitate in the soil and cause land pollution and further their seepage in the ground water leads to water pollution. The water bodies when polluted with these chemicals leads to the death of the aquatic life and also check the beneficial microflora of the environment.

All the concerns described above are very fatal to the life on earth and can be checked by the decreased use of production systems and shifting towards organic farming. The organic system of farming will not lonely prevent the above written harmful effects but will also provide a boon to the developing farmers and make them economically stable as they will sell their produce at very premium prices. Organic farming demands the use of locally available fertilizers like manures from cow dung and poultry droppings that too from those animals which are not subjected to chemicals. Further the use of pesticides, insecticides and weedicides are banned for the purpose. The crop and animal production without chemicals and with the use of naturally available resources like farmyard manure, natural herbs and weeds should be advocated. The use of these natural resources will change the farming system to organic.

In my opinion, I feel that the youth can play a very important part in undertaking the said prospects of organic farming. We say that youth is a power on which a nation relies and it is the youth only who brings a positive and a sustainable change in the society. The orthodox and the traditional methods had sustained our lives for so long and stabilized the economy of the nations since ages but now the scenario is changing. We should be concerned about the prevailing health aspects of both humans and animals. The educated youth should be the torch bearers for this change in the society and should start organic farming by wisdom perceived by them and further they should disseminate their own skills to the other traditional farmers for undertaking the organic farming. I hope one day the system will put end to the nuisance of bioaccumulation and antibiotic residues.