Broadly speaking, there are three main types of farming that is traditional or conventional farming, modern farming and natural farming.
The traditional farming means to adopt the traditional ways of farming. In Konkan most of the farmers do the farming in a traditional way. This style is the style with which our fathers and forefathers were cultivating the farms.
The second style or methodology is modern farming, In this type, the farmer uses modern and developed varieties of crops or fruit plants, uses modern chemical fertilizers, also uses harmful and very poisonous pesticides, and modern methods of irrigation, etc.
The third style is natural farming. The natural farming the use of any type of chemicals is completely banned. Even the fertilizers used are either vermin-compost or cow dung compost. Also if it all pesticide or insecticide is needed, then the pesticide or insecticide prepared from natural sources like neem, chili, buttermilk, etc. are used to control the pest or diseases.
Now, first of all one should keep in his mind that, whatever you are going to produce from your own farm or horticultural plantation, you and your family are the first, who are going to consume that. So it should be 100% free of chemicals and insecticides or pesticides. Secondly, you should also keep in mind that, though we want to earn something from our farmhouse, but our main motive is not to generate huge profit. So we should concentrate more on quality of the yield and not the quantity of the yield. So never go for extra efforts or use of chemicals to increase the yield.
Now, while cultivation, it is better to adopt something from every style and generate our new style or methodology of cultivation. Ex. We can adopt few techniques like reaping; weed cleaning, from the traditional farming. Then we can adopt the new and developed varieties of plants and crops for plantation, as per modern farming. We can also adopt the use of newly developed methods like drip irrigation, from Modern farming. But we will strictly avoid use of any chemical fertilizer or pesticide or insecticide. Also from natural farming techniques, we can adopt the use of natural fertilizers and insecticides or pesticides, etc.
But the best technology I had observed is Poison free farming technique which is developed and promoted by Padmshree Subhash Palekarji. In this technique he even do not use any fertilizer like compost also. Besides there are many adoptable aspects involved in this technique which he had suggested. Let us first have a brief idea about Poison free Farming by Subhash Palekarji.
Poison Free Natural Farming by Subhash Palekar
The concept is based on avoiding the use of any chemical substance for pest control or as fertilizer in farm and adopts some easy, useful techniques for better growth. Also the another very important aspect of the concept is based on the fact that, do not interfere much with the life of plants. Every living being is given the capacity to fight tolive by nature itself. So every plant knows how to survive and how to grow. You are there just to remove hurdles, if any, and plant is self sufficient to take care of itself. Also the concept says that if you observe the jungle, nobody cares for the trees in the jungle. But jungles are always green and they grow, fruit, on themselves. So, what you have to do is to develop a jungle in your farm, bu just take care that the jungle will be of the useful or desired trees, bushes, creepers. This will utilize maximum sunlight which otherwise will reach on the earth’s surface and get wasted. Hence architecture of farm is very important, and one has to design it carefully.
For more information and details you must visit Wadikond, where you can know about this more and also can observe the practical implementation of this idea.
Then after planting the plants, the concept emphasizes on four parameters, which has to be utilized and should taken care of.
a) Beejamrut: Beejamrut is basically a culture of microorganisms, which should be prepared on your farm only as per the formula developed by Subhash Palekarji, and then to be applied on seeds or on the roots of seedlings, which you are going to use for plantation. This is more important for the agriculture, as for that you have to plant seeds at least once in a year, But for Horticulture it is not that important.
b) Jeevamrut: Jeevamrut is also a culture of useful microorganisms, which help plants to grow. One should prepare Jeevamrut at farm itself and then should supply it to every plant in specific proportion and also after specific duration. Jeevamrut eliminates the need of any other fertilizer. It is enough to take care of plant’s growth.
c) AAchadan: Acchadan is Marathi word which means to cover. The farmer should always keep the farm land or at least the part of the farm land near plants completely covered by natural cover, like dry grass, or other plantation, etc. This will take care of two things, First it will reduce the temperature of land near plants and second is that it will convert this cover of dry grass, etc. into ‘humas’. Humas is a type of decomposed agricultural waste, which is enriched in minerals, enzymes and microorganisms which are very useful for plant survival and growth. Also humans absorbs and retains lot of amount of moisture, which the plant gets automatically.
d) Wafsa: As per Subhash Palekarji, the plant never needs the water in its liquid form. What plant utilizes water vapors to receive the minerals, etc. from soil. So, one should irrigate the plant in such a way that, most of the times the land near the plant should be just moist. All the additional water, is not required by the plant and is shear wastage.
The concept also, explains in detail about how, when and where and how much water should be given, how to prepare natural pesticides or insecticides, and when, and where and for what to use them, which type of species or varieties of horticulture one should plant, and many more.
Please note that Subhash Palekarji, had written more than 5000 pages, on this subject and this is just a brief introduction, which I am giving here.
If you really want to know more, and see the actual implementation and results of this concept, I request you to just do visit Wadikond, where you can see all this, with your own eyes. We are always ready, rather eager to welcome at Wadikond.