Natural Farming
Natural farming, also known as organic farming, is a sustainable way of raising crops and MAPs without damaging the ecology. It helps exploit every element available in the cropping area or the farmland. It excludes inputs like fertilizers, pesticides, insecticides and chemicals and includes natural elements present in the locality. The major principles of natural farming are avoidance of Fertilisers, Pesticides and herbicides, Tillage, Weeding and Pruning.
Natural farming eliminates need for external chemical additives to the soil, incorporates minimum water usage, accommodates weeds in symbiosis to the crops and reduces labour and efforts in raising the crop by allowing the plants to grow in their natural way.
Improve Soil
In natural farming, soil character is not altered but improved, fertilizers are replaced by composts made from cow-dung or other household animal faeces, plant remains, vermi-composts or green manure. These ingredients are easily available in the farmland and enriches the organic elements and natural microbial activity in the ecology and acts in symbiosis to the wildlife, livestock and humans together. Soil is always covered by mulch of leaves, plant remains gathered locally or fried crop remains, weeds cut and collected locally from the farm can be used to cover the farm lands. Since the organic content, microbes and earthworms in the soil increases, thus increases the moisture and aeriation of the soil, this drastically reduces the water needs for the plants growing on them.
On the contrary, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides restricts and in some cases, alters the biological activity in soil. Some feed additives and growth regulators ensure retardation of manure. They are potential health hazards due to potential exchange of elements.
Sustainability
Sustainable agriculture systems rely on crop residues, crop rotations, leguminous plants, animal manures, green manures, appropriate mechanical cultivation, off-farm organic wastes and mineral bearing rocks to maximize and maintain soil fertility and productivity. Pests, weeds and diseases are kept in check through natural, cultural and biological controls, e.g. cow urine or neem oil/ Juice of Neem leaves diluted with 10x water can be sprayed on plants to keep away pests. Maintaining Livestock in the farm area ensures continuous supply of dung, urine, while chickens and fowl in the farm feed on weeds and insects. Cows yield fresh milk while chicken and fowl produce eggs and meat required for farmers.
Profitability
Natural farming ensures a shared commitment in profitability, food, livestock and ecological security, safety of animals and humans and social and economic community infrastructure. Diversification and shared accountability ensures risk mitigation against climate, fluctuating agricultural markets and pests. For example, cultivating different types of plants in the same farm at the same time, keeping fruit and timber trees, provides shades to the crops, diversifies income from the same plot of land and reduces risks of crop failures. Similarly crop rotation, stops depleting same kind of natural elements from the soil and adding leguminous plants into crop rotation or mixed farming replenishes the soil.
Natural farming also helps farmers to eliminate middle people and develop new ways of marketing their farm produce to reduce farm-to-plate costs and bring in a new system of collaborative efforts to help each other out and ensure spread of organic plants and herbs.
It has been observed globally natural farming drastically reduces farm expenses and increases crop yield by 15% to 20%*.
Vermi-composts
Vermi-compost is the process of decomposing like animal waste, crop residue, suitable industrial and domestic waste, food waste etc. into nutrition rich manure with the help of earthworms. Earthworms chew into the entire pit slowly and effectively, in their alimentary canal this consumed organic debris is converted into vermi-compost that is very fine, uniformly textured, rich in organic matter and worm castings. Worm castings are essential to maintain microbiological activity in the soil and ensure aeration and fertility. Earthworm castings contain high amounts of nitrogen, magnesium, calcium, phosphorous and potassium, that ensures a neutral pH level of 7 and 5 times more nitrogen, 1 ½ times more calcium and 7 times more potash than found in the best topsoil. Vermi-compost increases the water retention of the soil by 9 times.
Vermi-compost is virtually odour free, minimizes pests and diseases in soil, ensures steady flow of light, water and nutrients and improves quality and shelf life of the produce. Earthworm castings undoubtedly increase the natural porosity, structure, aeration, drainage and moisture holding capacity of the soil. Research has also shown that earthworms ensure excellent tillage of the soil with their natural burrowing action and help maintain and improve permeability of water in the soil as well as retain and improve soil nutrition by holding almost nine times the water it usually does. Several cultures, ancient and modern, use vermi-compost as fertilizer. Vermin-compost is easy to produce – it only needs a ‘bedding’ in a well aerated place with adequate shade and moisture, along with food source.
The African night crawler earthworm, Tiger worms and Asian earthworms are most suitable for vermi-compost production. Earthworms are only vulnerable to ‘Sour Crop’ plant disease caused due to environmental conditions and fall victims to birds and other predators.
Mulching
Mulching is a process of covering the soil to retain moisture, reduce weeds growth, maintain soil health and fertility and enhance aesthetic appeal of the field. A ‘mulch’ is often a combination of organic or inorganic materials that ensures protection to plants in early growth stages.
Mulch is applied to bare soil beds or around existing plants by applying dried plant materials like leaf, Hay, dried plant stalks or covering with a plastic sheet up to 1-2 inch deep. This process retains the moisture and soil heat, prevents soil erosion, improves soil quality and productivity both in commercial and non-commercial uses like gardening, farming etc. Its uses are varied; it is applied in colder seasons around plants to ensure that the soil doesn’t lose its warmth and seeding and transplanting takes place at a faster rate. With progressing seasons, mulch ensures low weed growth and steady growth at steady soil temperature and moisture.
Mulch cause blockage for direct sunlight and rain to reach the soil bed. Mulch adds a layer of complexity in an ecosystem that is already brimming with microbiological activity. Plastic mulch sheets are impermeable and therefore require an additional drip irrigation system to keep the plants hydrated.
Good quality mulch is derived from dried leaves, and hay from rice, wheat or corn crops. Certain corn starch based polyester fibre biodegradable sheets are also popular mulch. Other types of conventional mulches are prepared by using Polypropylene, polyethylene or rubber which are not biodegradable but serve separate purposes. Mulching ensures that the soil stays compact, temperate and yields the best produce quantity and quality wise by exploiting available environmental situation.
Thus nurturing Agroforests for MAPs cultivation will ensure natural mulching of the plants growing in the shades of big trees, through dried leaves, blocking direct sunlight and rain.
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Improve Soil
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Sustainability
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Profitability
Perennial Trees
Bamboo, Fruit bearing, Timber or Oil and Resin producing trees on the farm ensures long term gains for farmers as well as produces adequate shade for plantation or field crops to thrive well. Trees also protects the farm from adverse climates like heavy winds, rain, hail storm and dry spells, by maintaining a stable climate on the farm
- Regulating direct sunlight reaching the underlying crops through the foliage of these big trees. Thus soil moisture is kept intact and wilting of crops is prevented from harsh sunlight and very high atmospheric temperatures.
- Crops are not exposed heavy rains, all rain water percolates through the tree foliage and is distributed evenly through the farm. In-case of heavy rains big trees bear the impact, protecting the crops and the tree roots hold the soil preventing soil drainage from flash rains and floods.
- Bamboo is fast growing tropical plant which forms a which can be grown on river banks to prevent soil erosion. Bamboo groves also helps in breaking the force of running water and hash winds.
- Trees grown along the boundary of the farm helps breaking the force wind and water to the farm, thus preventing soil erosion and protects the plants.
- Growing hedge climbers like Guduchi (Tinospora cordifolia) or cissus (Cissus quadrangularis) doesn’t consume much farm area and can be a good source of household medicine as well as alternate cash crop for the farm.
- Nitrogen Fixing and Repelling Pests. Trees like Moringa (moringa oleifera), Tamarind (Tamarindus indica) have nitrogen fixing roots, which enrich the soil with Nitrogenous compounds, increasing the soil fertility. Leaves from the tree foliage falls on the farm soil providing a thick mulch and slowly decaying into the soil as nitrogen and green manure. Neem (Azadirachta indica)is a natural insect repellent. Neem leaves, bark, fruits are used for making Neem Solution which is used as a pesticide and fungicide for the crops.
Alternate Cropping
Plants of the same family usually compete for the same sources of light, energy and nutrition and therefore shouldn’t be sown together. Sowing same crop on the farm year after year results in fast depletion of soil micro-nutrients. As the nutrients decrease weeds becomes healthier than the primary crops hence farmers have to spend quite some time in weeding the farms. Maintaining alternate rows of crops and doing crop rotation reduces the burden on the soil and the farm resources, ensuring varied returns for the farmers.
- Leguminous Crops:
All Pulses, Alfa-Alfa, Tamarind, Moringa are excellent nitrogen fixers for the farms. Their roots have root nodules, which have special bacteria which converts atmospheric nitrogen into compounds that add to the soil fertility. Pulses, Tamarind and Moringa provide excellent revenue returns, while Alfa-Alfa, Soya-beans are excellent fodder for farm livestocks.
- Growing Medicinal plants
alternate with principal crop, ensures alternate income. Moreover they can grow in close vicinity to the principal crop and prevent weed growth in the farm. MAPs like Ashwagandha, Aleovera, etc grows with minimal requirements of water and nutrients, hence donot over burden and race with the principal crops.
Climbers
Climbers or Creepers grows with the support of the perineal trees or along the farm hedges. Climbers consume very less farm area as they mostly grow on the supports, and provide an alternate income source.
Perennial Spice and Medicinal climbers like Black Pepper, Vanilla, Cissus, Guduchi/ Giloy and huge market demands in domestic and international market. Likewise there are other tropical perineal climbers which can easily planted in farms.
Vegetable and Fruit climbers can be seasonal or perineal, growing them is not only beneficial for domestic consumption but also get good returns from the market. When they die, these plants can be used as Green Manure or added in Coil Composts, enriching the soil organic matter.
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Perennial Trees
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Alternate Cropping
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Climbers
Mimicking Nature
As we learned that replicating nature and natural principles in farming is the easiest farming technique and consumes very minimal or no human effort. MAPs farm or MAPs forest created with Natural principles yields 30-40% more with better quality than traditional monocropping. MAPs preffer growing in the wild all by itself, hence providing an ecosystem which replicates its natural growth always provides ideal results in terms of quality and yields.
Replicating forest setup and farming with natural principles, maintains adequate balance or sunlight, condensation, rain, soil moisture and micronutrients than having a mono-culture setup. MAPs growing in such forests have better pest and disease resistance. Having a variety of plants growing in the same ecosystem breaks the advent of pests and diseases since one plant is surrounded by other plant varieties. Hence MAPs growing by Natural principles yield quality and quantity same like MAPs harvested directly from the wild with very high nutritional values.
Quality Assurance
Cultivating MAPs with natural and permaculture principle ensures that MAPs have grown in a Chemical free setup, hence their quality parameters are at the utmost. These MAPs comply with all domestic and international quality and health standards hence their demands and rates are always as per the Wild Varieties. Hence we have the best quality with minimal efforts.
Conservation
MAPs Permaculture helps conserve the natural flora of the forests, since humans are no longer harvesting from the wild, but cultivating MAPs is a Forest Setup. Now we can have these MAPs for many more generations to come and not push the plant species to extinction, like what has happened with Agarwood.
MAPs forest preserves the Topsoil from eroding out and soil ecosystem is preserved. Having big trees and thick canopy maintains a large moisture pool and attracts periodic rainfalls, which in turn is beneficial for the ecosystem.
Diversify Income
Agroforest or Permaculture setup yields multiple MAPs income from the same land. MAPs act as time capsule releasing certain yield at certain time of the year, hence Foresters have a steady earning all-round the year. Dependency reduces from one species and revenue is diversified.
Local Rural Population staying around forests who are heavily depended on Forests for procuring MAPS and selling it, can now imitate the same forest in the lands or else use the same forest ecosystem for cultivating these MAPs. Thus they would have secured their income for many more years to come and for their coming generations.
Consumers and Patrons
Mimicking Nature
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Quality Assurance
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Conservation
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Diversify Income
