Compassionate Natural Farming

                                               

                                      By Farmer Samir Bordoloi, Ashoka Fellow & Practicing Farmer 

 

Compassionate Natural Farming:

Compassionate Natural Farming is a way of life based on mimicking nature to grow our food. It has scientific relevance and also based on spirituality to maintain the natural balance of life. This is an art and science based on the principles of diversity and co-existence. Everything is tuned towards the maintenance of the natural soil microbial world through minimal human intervention. The soil is the soul of a farmer. The Living Soil is the result of the beautiful microbial action and the symbiotic relation of the overground and the underground world of living entities. The soil undisturbed can support strong plant system which is diverse and capable of even thriving in stress conditions. This is how the forest grows. The birds, the bees, the earthworms, the ants, the grazing and the wild animals and the humans have specific roles to balance this natural process of living on this beautiful planet. The birds and animals disperse seeds, the wind and water also disperse seeds to naturally grow the forest. The dry leaves shred over the green grasses and the earthworms raises the soil over it through castings and the animal litter over it to co-create the beautiful humus. Thus, the top black and friable soil is formed in the wild which establishes wild edible or non-edible trees over it which survives for hundreds of years with limited amount of water and mitigates all the stress they encounter. But when it grows naturally, it is a diverse forest with different plant types and different heights. This is the first basis of Natural Farming where we intend to grow our food maintaining this diversity.

Soil is the Farmer’s Soul:

To maintain this diversity and the co-existence principles of life, the first thing we have to do is to build up the microbial population of our soil. This will help us to meet the balance between the ask for a huge quantity of food to feed an ever-growing population and maintaining the natural balance. The cultivable lands are under tremendous pressure in this business of feeding the world. This is resulting in a soil type void of microbial action owing to heavy tillage followed by monocropping. This type of monocropping and the advent of the nutrient-hungry and thirsty hybrid seeds and the modified seeds is leading to a deficient soil. As soil is the soul of the farmer, if the soil dies the farmer also dies. In tis race of feeding a big population, we are losing on our soil quality, natural balance and farming population. Migration of young people from farming to other profession is a big challenge our country is facing today. This is creating more pressure on the remaining food production zones and agriculture has become highly input dependent and costly for the farmers and the country as a whole. The shift is hard but the only way out is to rebuild the beautiful microbial world under our feet.

Compassionate Natural Farming is the way forward:

Natural farming practices based on the principles of building the soil health with resources available with the farmers, using desi seeds (local seeds), diversity without the science of elimination in a multi-storied cropping pattern of native plants, and with minimum or no-tillage is the way forward to develop the economy of permanence and a happy life. In India, natural farming practices has been based on the following four pillars of success:

1.      Jeevamrut

2.      Beejamrut

3.      Acchadana or Mulching

4.      Wapasa

·        The first principle is based on rebuilding the microbial network of the soil by application of home-made extract based on the desi cow dung, urine, gram flour and jaggery. Here the farmer, utilizes the numerous amounts of beneficial microbes present in the desi cow dung, multiplies it in water by adding cow urine, gram flour and jaggery to spread over his cultivable land.

·        The second principle is based on how the farmers use desi seeds and heirloom seeds, conserve them and cultivate them through a beautiful way of seed treatment using desi cow dung, cow urine, and top soil. This is to provide a beneficial microbial coating to the seeds.

·        The third principle is based on how we keep the exposed ground of our farms covered by mulching. This covering is not again with a plastic but with compost and other resources like dry leaves available with the farmers. There is a perception that the root zone needs water but actually the root zone needs a prolonged moist situation. This principle helps in maintaining the water holding capacity of the soil and also checks the evaporation. In natural farming the moisture is maintained by live mulch and also maintaining a multistoried cropping pattern of different crops to check evaporation and create a farm micro-climate. This also aims at maintaining the aeration of the soil, rain water holding capacity of the soil and controlling the undesired plant growth naturally. This also aims at minimizing tillage and if needed ploughing with desi plough than a heavy tractor. This also prevents too much raise in the soil to be cool as temperature above 36 degree starts releasing carbon from the soil. It also emphasizes on selection of companion crops.

·        The fourth principle called wapasa is based on maintaining the moist soil. When the soil is 50% moist and 50% aerable which is the friable condition of the soil achieved naturally is called wapasa. Water stagnation near the root zone is prevented in wapasa but a needed moist condition is created. This is also signified by the return of the desi earthworms to our soil with its natural castings.

 

Preparation of Jeevamrut:

Resources required:

Slno	Resources	Quantity
1	Local cow dung (Lakhimi cow of Assam)	10 kg
2	Local Cow Urine ( Lakhimi cow of Assam)	05 litres
3	Jaggery	02 kgs
4	Gram Flour (Besan)	02 kgs
5	Water	200 litres
6	Top soil from the base of a tree	1 kg

 How to prepare:

1. ·        Take a plastic drum with 200 litres water.
2. ·        Mix 10 kgs of cow dung and stir clockwise for 2 minutes.
3. ·        Mix 05 litres of cow urine and stir clockwise for 2 minutes.
4. ·        Mix 02 kgs of jaggery and mix it for 2 minutes clockwise.
5. ·        Mix 02 kgs of gram flour and mix for 2 minutes clockwise.
6. ·        Mix 1 kg of top soil and mix it clock wise.
7. ·        Now stir fast the whole mixture for 20 minutes in clockwise direction.
8. ·        Keep it covered with a jute bag for 48 hours.
9. ·        Every day remove the cover, and stir clockwise for 2 minutes. Use a bamboo stick for stirring.
10. ·        Use the Jeevamrut upto 7 days of preparation. Keep it covered with jute bag to prevent flies and mosquitos.
11. ·        After 7 days throw the remaining jeevamrut on the ground a prepare afresh.

• In crops of 60 to 90 days duration, apply jeevamrut in 21 days interval. Apply 20 litres of Jeevamrut in 200 litres of water to cover one acre of land. 3-time application.
• In crops of 90 to 120 days apply 4 times. In crops of 120-135 days duration, apply 5 times. Above 135 days of crop duration, apply 6 times in 21 days intervals.

Beejamrut Preparation:

Resources required:

Slno	Resources	Quantity
1	Lakhimi cow dung	5 kgs
2	Lakhimi cow urine	5 litres
3	Agricultural lime	250 grams
4	Water	20 litres
5	Top soil	One handful

 

How to prepare:

1. ·        Tie 5 kgs of cow dung in a cloth and dip it in 20 litres water for one night.
2. ·        Mix 250 grams of lime in 1 litre water and keep it overnight.
3. ·        Next morning squeeze the cow dung tied in cloth 3 times in the water and remove it. Mix the lime water into the 20 litres water, add cow urine and top soil mix and keep it for 24 hours. Stir it clockwise while mixing and keep covered with a jute bag.
4. ·        Spread the seeds on a sheet or a bamboo mat and sprinkle the jeevamrut over the seeds.

The germination percentage of seeds treated with beejamrut have been found better. It also saves the seed from harmful soil microbes. The remaining part of the beejamrut can be also used for seedling root-dip treatment while transplanting.

 Compassionate Natural Farming in Assam and the Northeast India lead by SPREAD NE:

In Assam and the Northeast India, already many natural farming systems exist in our age-old traditional systems of baris (the homestead gardens) and also the sporadic small forests in the villages. Many areas are naturally organic and we should follow the conservation agriculture with regenerative agriculture which are basis of the natural farming practices. Diversity with multistoried cropping pattern of all local herbs, fruits, and vegetables with some wild species of trees are the existing natural farming in the form of our baris. Bari-unnayan through natural farming practices and creation of homestead and community food forest is the main mantra practiced successfully by a local non-profit organization called SPREAD NE under the leadership of Farmer Samir Bordoloi. The organization has created many ways of natural farming based on local resources very specific to the state and the region and trained more than 1500 youths as Green Commandos and reaching about 7000 farmers through their action. They have created a Food Forest and a Farm Learning Centre at Rupnagar, Sonapur to convince the world about climate-friendly compassionate natural farming ways of life. They have also worked out economically viable models of developing low volume and high value wellness food products combined with agrotourism to enhance the income of the small, marginal and tribal farmers of the region.

Learning and working on the above-mentioned natural farming practices, farmer Samir Bordoloi and his team of Green Commandos developed some very natural ways of farming which the farmers of the state and the region can easily absorb and perform. In many places it was difficult for them to find resources like jaggery and besan.Hence, the group found many natural inputs to substitute those items with those easily available with the farmers. The soil of Assam and the region excluding the monocropping area actually needs very less care due to little disturbances made. So here, SPREAD NE works on conservation of the local food wisdom, cultivation of the local crops as homestead and community food forests, consumption of the local food for nutrition from the baris and then commercialization of the surplus as low volume and high value wellness food products.

In addition to the above natural farming practices like the jeevamrut, beejamrut , acchadana and wapasa, SPREAD NE has developed local ways to develop those homestead and community food forests. One very important extract to enhance the soil microbial population with very effective results is the SPREAD NE Mycomix. This emphasizes on increasing the mycorrhizal network in the soil to maintain the amazing wood wide web. The region has a rich biodiversity of bamboo and bamboo is used in many aspects. The waste bamboos are collected and made into bamboo biochar in a very easy procedure to attract mycorrhizae to come inside the pore spaces of the bamboo charcoal.

How to prepare SPREAD NE Mycomix:

The first step is to produce the bamboo biochar which can be learnt by subscribing the You Tube channel Farmer Samir Bordoloi.

After producing the bamboo bio char at home, we need the following resources available at home to make the mycomix.

Sl no.	Resources	Quantity
1	Bamboo Bio Char	500 grams
2	Lakhimi cow dung	1 kg
3	Lakhimi cow urine	1 litre
4	Soil from abandoned termite hill soil	250 grams
5	Top soil collected from base of a big tree	1 kg
6	Liquid starch collected while cooking local rice (Bhator Marh)	1 litre
7	Ripen banana	5 pieces
7	Water	50 litres

 

1. ·        First add 500 grams of bamboo bio char into the 50 litres water in a plastic drum.
2. ·        Now add 1 kg of fresh Lakhimi cow dung.
3. ·        Add 1 litre of Lakhimi cow urine.
4. ·        Add 250 grams of Abandoned Termite hill soil to add proteins like gram flour. It has more protein content than besan.
5. ·        Add 1 kg top soil and then add the 1 litre of the liquid rice starch and the meshed ripen banana.
6. ·        Stir clockwise for 20 -30 minutes. Cover the mouth of the container with a jute bag and store in shade for 24 hours.
7. ·        After 24 hours mix these 50 litres mix with 150 litres of water and apply on your soil. You can sprinkle with a bunch of paddy straw over existing crops.

·        Apply during land preparation, next at 21 days interval and next at the flowering stage.

 {Apart from the Mycomix, SPREAD NE has developed more than 20 techniques of compassionate natural farming to create food forest. A documentary has been made on few techniques in assamese for the benefit of the farmers of the state of Assam}

These are practiced by farmers successfully in multilocational trials in different parts of the state.