The Hindu Business Line : BARC tech turns urban waste into organic manure

Hyderabad, July 26 Kitchen waste, stale food, split milk, leftovers from hotels and vegetable refuge, which is becoming a huge and mounting burden on urban civic bodies, could no longer be a threat to the urban environment.

In fact, it can be a good source of well-balanced organic manure offering excellent top soil material to the farmers, thanks to a technology developed by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).

If segregated well, this waste could do wonders for the farmers practising organic farming, said Mr Sharad P. Kale of Nuclear Agriculture and Biotechnology Division of BARC.

Seeing the benefits of the Nisargruna, some civic bodies in Maharashtra, Orissa and Gujarat have already installed 18 plants. “We are getting enquiries from several municipalities from across the country, including Bangalore and Hyderabad,” he told Business Line over phone from Mumbai.

Organic food

Mr Kale presented a paper explaining about the benefits of the technology at a national seminar here recently.

While discussing various arguments and counter arguments on the advantages of organic food, he referred to the concerns that organic food could be less safe than non-organic food as the former increased the risk of exposure to biological contaminants and food-borne diseases.

“While applying sufficient manure to meet the soil’s need for one element, an organic farmer will incidentally apply an abundance of another element as the manure is not processed to balance its value as a fertiliser to the soil’s needs,” he pointed out. It, then, was important to maintain a balance between what is taken out of the soil with what is returned to it without relying on outside inputs, while going for organic farming.

Though small now, the campaign in favour of organic farming could grow bigger, demanding more organic nutrients for the fields. Economic feasibility of organic farming too, could be a big challenge.

Scientists at BARC developed the Nisargruna technology that is based on the concept of maintaining elemental balance in the nature.

Asserting that organic manure is an important component of sustainable agriculture, Mr Kale felt that the technology comprises an in-built mechanism to produce biogas that ensured self-sustainability of the project, while ensuring processing of the biodegradable wastes and removing unwanted things.

Slowly, high quality manure settles down at the bottom.

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