Organic farming

Indian Economy glossary

Also called: Organic agriculture · Topic: Environment and Sustainable Development · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 5 "Rural Development"

Meaning

Organic farming is a whole-farm system that restores and keeps the balance of nature on the farm. It replaces costly chemical fertilisers and pesticides with local organic inputs such as compost, manure and natural pest control.

It matters because it tackles the damage left by the Green Revolution: tired soil, chemicals in groundwater and pesticide traces in food. It also gives farmers a chance to earn more, because certified organic food sells at a price premium (a higher price than normal food).

Explanation

How it works: the farm as one system

Whole-farm approach: soil, crops, animals and pests are managed together as one living system. It is not a single-input change.
Organic inputs in place of chemical ones:
Biocomposting: compost (natural manure) made from crop leftovers, animal dung and kitchen waste. In some areas, cattle are kept mainly for their dung.
Vermicomposting: earthworms eat organic waste and turn it into compost faster than normal composting.
Biopest control (controlling pests by natural methods):
Neem-based pesticides, made from neem seeds and leaves.
Mixed cropping (two or more crops grown together) and crop rotation (a different crop each season). Both break the life cycle of pests.
Natural predators: snakes eat rats and mice, owls and peacocks eat vermin, and lizards eat insects.

Why yields dip first and then recover

Conversion period: a farm moving away from chemicals goes through a gap before its soil recovers.
Chemical fertilisers are stopped → the soil's natural fertility is still weak → yields are lower in the first years.
Organic matter builds up → the soil holds more water and nutrients → yields improve over time.
The cost side: the farmer stops buying costly chemicals, so input costs fall.
Net effect on income: lower costs, plus a price premium once certified, can make up for the early fall in yield.

Organic farming and organic food

Organic food is grown without synthetic fertilisers, pesticides or hormones.
It is usually certified. Certification means an approved body checks and confirms that the rules were followed.
Certification is the link to the market. Without it, the farmer cannot prove the crop is organic or claim the price premium.

What pushes it up or down

Pushes it up: cluster-based support that shares costs, Large Area Certification, consumer demand for chemical-free food, and rising fertiliser costs.
Holds it back: early yield loss, food-security worries, the cost and paperwork of certification, and weak markets for organic produce.

In India

Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY), 2015: this is the main scheme for organic farming.
Farmers are grouped into clusters of 20 hectares that farm organically together. They share costs and follow the same standards [2].
Coverage since 2015-16: 14.99 lakh ha in 52,289 clusters, with 25.30 lakh farmers [3].
Another PIB count gives 38,043 clusters covering 8.41 lakh ha, including Large Area Certification [2]. The two counts differ because they were made on different dates and in different ways, so always name the source.
Sikkim, the model state:
It became the first fully organic state in January 2016 [2].
PKVY supports 63,000 ha in Sikkim under Large Area Certification (LAC) [2].
LAC means a whole area that has never used chemicals is certified organic at once, without the usual conversion period.
Link to natural farming: BPKP (Bharatiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati), 2020-21, was started as a sub-scheme under PKVY. It shows how the organic scheme became the base for the push towards natural farming.
NCERT roots: Class 11 Rural Development presents biocomposting, vermicomposting and biopest control as the answer to five decades of chemical fertiliser use and the heavy pesticide use of the Green Revolution.

Don't confuse with

Natural farming / ZBNF: organic farming may use organic inputs bought from outside and needs certification. Natural farming uses only cow-based inputs made on the farm and buys nothing from outside. Its four pillars are jeevamrutha, beejamrutha, acchadana and whapasa.
Integrated Pest Management (IPM): IPM still allows need-based chemical pesticides as the last option, to keep pests below the Economic Threshold Level (the pest level at which crop damage costs as much as controlling it). Organic farming uses no synthetic chemicals at all.
Conservation agriculture: its three principles are minimum soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop diversification. It is about how the soil is handled, and it does not by itself ban chemical inputs.
Organic food: this is the product, which is certified and sells at a premium. Organic farming is the production system behind it.

Prelims Hooks

PKVY was launched in 2015, and its clusters are 20 ha each [2].
Sikkim became India's first fully organic state in January 2016. It has 63,000 ha under Large Area Certification [2].
Large Area Certification skips the conversion period. It applies only to areas that have never used chemicals.
PKVY coverage since 2015-16: 14.99 lakh ha, 52,289 clusters, 25.30 lakh farmers [3].
Trap: "Organic farming needs certification, but natural farming uses only on-farm inputs." This statement is correct. Do not treat the two as the same thing.
BPKP (2020-21), the natural farming sub-scheme, sits under PKVY. It is not a separate standalone scheme.

Mains Points

Fixing Green Revolution externalities:
Heavy fertiliser and pesticide use damaged soil, polluted groundwater and put chemicals into milk, meat and fish.
Organic farming cuts these costs and lowers input bills, which supports the goal of raising farm income. It links to SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and SDG 15 (Life on Land).
Yield and food security trade-off:
Yields fall in the first years, so a sudden switch across the country could put food security at risk.
A sensible path is to go step by step, cluster by cluster, as PKVY does. Start with rainfed and hilly areas where little chemical has been used (the Sikkim–LAC model), and protect farmers' income with certification and price premiums.
Market and data gaps:
Farmers get the premium only if certification is cheap and there are buyers.
Official coverage counts do not match (14.99 lakh ha [3] against 8.41 lakh ha [2]). This shows the need for one standard way to track the scheme before money is scaled up.

Related concepts

Strategies II: traditional knowledge and sustainable agriculture

Sources

1Class 11, Ch 5 "Rural Development" (primary)
2PKVY: Nurturing Organic Farming in India, PIBpib.gov.in · tier 1
3Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana, PIBpib.gov.in · tier 1