Imitate nature’s recycling ways for best results

Standing near the vermicompost pit he has built in his farm, Vasudev Singh, a smallholder farmer in Madanpur village, Deoghar district of Jharkhand looks elatedly at the flock of ducks in the small pond nearby. Walking towards the pond, he points to the fish catch that he will sell in the weekly market. Catching hold of the bottle-gourd creeper climbing up the duck shelter, Singh asks his wife to pluck the long green veggie for the day’s meal.

His three-acre farm has a pond for fish cultivation, a shelter for duck poultry built above the pond and a cattle shelter. He feeds the ducks both produce and wastes from the field, namely grains and fodder. Farm waste also goes into the vermicompost. The ducks feast on earthworms from the vermicompost. Their droppings, in turn, conveniently serve as fish food. Additionally, a bulb glowing above the pond at night attracts insects, which fall into the water and feed the fish. Cattle excreta serves as manure after vermicomposting, while the urine finds use as pesticide. The duck population has grown from two initially to 35 today.

The vermicompost and urine have helped cut the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, thereby raising Singh’s farm income, while the fish and ducks offer extra income as well as nutritious food for the family. “I have stopped migrating for work and earn enough to educate my eight children,” he says.

Singh presents the perfect example of Sustainable Integrated Farming System (SIFS), a concept that advocates combining all farming activities in a profitable and sustainable manner. A farmer owns not just a farm but also other components such as livestock, water body, manure production and so on. “I have utilised the produce or by-product of one component as an ingredient or input for another,” explains Singh.

Agriculture employs 47 per cent of the population, but is starved for innovation. Most farmers continue to rely on Green Revolution methodology.

Until 2011, farmers in Madanpur too followed the Green Revolution techniques of the Seventies. The shift to mono-crop culture, producing a single high-yielding variety, led to a rapid increase in the use of chemical-based fertilisers and pesticides. Input costs increased relentlessly, making agriculture unviable for small farmers. Moreover, they lost sight of forest gathering, livestock rearing and other alternative sources of income.

This situation is common around the country.

SIFS offers an innovative alternative, through diversity in production and interlinking all farming activities. “It merely tries to imitate nature, where waste from one process is the input for another. It tries to utilise varied types of plants, animals, birds, fish and other flora and fauna for production,” says Anshuman Das of WeltHungerHilfe, a German developmental organisation which initiated SIFS in India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

The central government’s Department of Science and Technology piloted the integrated system at 300 farms in 2003. Buoyed by the results, WeltHungerHilfe, with the help of local partners, initiated SIFS for 8,000 small and marginal farming families across India.

As Krishna Kant of Abhivyakti Foundation, one of the local partners, explains: “A micro-level plan is prepared for each village, where common resources are mapped and divided, and requirements such as irrigation facilities are developed. A farm design is also laid out for each household.”

Farmers are trained to create a self-sufficient environment to improve productivity, says Rajesh Jha, from the Centre for World Solidarity. Apart from improving economic conditions, SIFS makes available a variety of food to farming families. A survey in Deoghar showed that farmers now consume 10-12 kinds of food as compared to just 3-4 earlier. Without doubt a health and wealth enhancer for our food providers.

The writer, reporting from Deoghar, Jharkhand, is a fellow with the Charkha Development Communication Network

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