Strategies II: traditional knowledge and sustainable agriculture

Detail

1. Traditional knowledge: the Indian way of living with nature

• Core idea (NCERT): Indians were "a component of the environment and not its controller".

• This means people saw themselves as one part of nature. They did not try to rule over it.

• Traditional practices in these areas were environment-friendly:

• Farming: local seeds, manure, mixed crops.
• Healthcare: herbs and plants.
• Housing: local materials such as mud, bamboo and stone.

• Transport: animal carts and boats, with little fuel.

• Medicinal plant wealth:

• India has about 15,000 medicinal plant species.

• About 8,000 of them are in regular use in Ayurveda, Unani, Tibetan and folk systems.

• Revival through herbal products:

• Herbal cosmetics show that people are going back to traditional knowledge.
• They have few side effects.
• They need no heavy chemical processing, so factories cause less pollution.

2. Protecting traditional knowledge: TKDL and biopiracy

• Biopiracy: a company or person takes traditional knowledge or biological resources, usually from a developing country, and patents them without permission and without sharing benefits.
• Prior art: knowledge that already exists in public. A patent cannot be given for something that is already prior art.
• Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL):
• Set up in 2001 jointly by CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) and the then Department of Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy (now the Ministry of Ayush) [4][5].
• It is a prior-art database. Its main aim is to stop patent offices from wrongly granting patents on Indian traditional knowledge [4].
• Contents: 5,19,978 formulations and techniques have been transcribed [4]:
  • Ayurveda: 1,48,846
  • Unani: 2,65,496
  • Siddha: 89,403
  • Sowa Rigpa: 9,097
  • Yoga: 7,136
• Result: based on TKDL evidence, 283 patent applications have been refused, amended, or withdrawn/abandoned [4].
• Wider access: the Cabinet approved opening TKDL to other users, not only patent offices (2022) [6].

• Global partners: there are TKDL access agreements with patent offices. Examples are INPI France (2022) [7] and INPI Brazil [4].

• Famous biopiracy cases (NCERT):

• Turmeric patent (US): revoked in 1997. India showed that turmeric's use for healing wounds was already old knowledge.
• Neem patent: also revoked.
• These cases showed why a documented database was needed. The result was TKDL (2001).

3. Biocomposting

• Problem (NCERT): chemical fertilisers have been used for five decades. They have:
• damaged fertile land
• contaminated groundwater with chemicals

• raised the need for irrigation, because hard soil holds less water.

• Biocomposting (making compost, a natural manure, from organic waste such as crop leftovers, animal dung and kitchen waste):

• Farmers are going back to compost.
• In some areas, cattle are kept mainly for their dung, which is a free input for compost.

4. Vermicomposting

• Vermicomposting: earthworms eat organic waste and turn it into compost faster than normal composting.
• Two gains:
• Farmers get cheap, rich manure.
• Civic bodies (city corporations and municipalities) have less waste to dispose of.

5. Biopest control

• Problem (NCERT): the Green Revolution used heavy pesticides.
• Pesticides went into food, soil, water bodies and groundwater.

• They even reached milk, meat and fish through the food chain.

• Biopest control: controlling pests with natural methods instead of chemical ones.

• Remedies (NCERT):
• Neem-based pesticides, made from neem seeds and leaves.
• Mixed cropping (growing two or more crops together) and crop rotation (changing the crop in each season). Both break the life cycle of pests.
• Natural predators:
  • snakes eat rats and mice
  • owls and peacocks eat vermin
  • lizards eat insects.
• Farmers must protect these animals so that they can keep doing this work.

6. Integrated Pest Management (IPM)

• IPM: pests are controlled by combining biological, cultural, mechanical and need-based chemical methods. Chemicals are the last option.
• Economic threshold level (ETL): the level of pest numbers at which the cost of the crop damage becomes equal to the cost of control. IPM tries to keep pests below the ETL [8].

• Worked example: spraying costs ₹2,000 per hectare. Pests are causing a loss of ₹1,200 per hectare. The loss is below the ETL, so the farmer should not spray. If the expected loss rises to ₹2,500, the pests are above the ETL and control is worth it.

• IPM gives weight to bio-pesticides and plant-based pesticides such as neem formulations [8].

• Policy history:
• National policy since 1985, when the Union Agriculture Minister made a policy statement [8].

• It was supported again by the National Agriculture Policy (2000) and the National Policy for Farmers (2007) [8].

• Institutions: the Agriculture Ministry set up Central IPM Centres [8][9]:

• Earlier count: 31 centres in 28 states and 1 UT.
• Later count: 35 centres.
• Their work: watch for pests and diseases, produce and release bio-control agents, and train extension officers and farmers.

7. Organic farming (beyond NCERT)

• Organic farming: a whole-farm system. It restores ecological balance and replaces costly chemicals with local organic inputs.

• Yields are lower in the first years while the soil recovers.

• Organic food: grown without synthetic fertilisers, pesticides or hormones. It is usually certified and sells at a price premium (a higher price).

• Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY), 2015:
• Farmers are grouped into clusters of 20 hectares that farm organically together. They share costs and follow the same standards [10].

• Coverage since 2015-16: 14.99 lakh ha in 52,289 clusters, involving 25.30 lakh farmers [11].

  • Another PIB count gives 38,043 clusters covering 8.41 lakh ha, including Large Area Certification [10]. The counts differ by date and method, so always quote the source.

• Sikkim:

• Became the first fully organic state in January 2016.
• PKVY supports 63,000 ha in Sikkim under Large Area Certification (LAC) [10].

• LAC: a whole area that has never used chemicals is certified organic at once, without the usual conversion period.

• Certification and farm economics are covered in the rural-diversification-allied note.

8. Natural farming and ZBNF

• Natural farming: chemical-free farming that uses cow-based inputs made on the farm and natural processes. No inputs are bought from outside.

• How it differs from organic farming: organic farming may use bought organic inputs and needs certification. Natural farming uses only on-farm inputs.

• Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) was developed by Subhash Palekar. It has four pillars:

• Jeevamrutha: a microbial culture made from cow dung, cow urine, jaggery and pulse flour. It adds useful microbes to the soil.
• Beejamrutha: a seed treatment that protects young roots from disease.
• Acchadana: mulching, which means covering the soil with crop residue to keep moisture in.

• Whapasa: soil aeration, so that the soil holds both air and water.

• Scale-up:

• BPKP (Bharatiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati), 2020-21, a sub-scheme under PKVY.
• Andhra Pradesh Community-managed Natural Farming (APCNF).

• National Mission on Natural Farming (NMNF):

  • Approved by the Union Cabinet on 25 November 2024 as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme [2].
  • Outlay: ₹2,481 crore (confirmed; the scaffold's "verify" flag is settled) [2].
  • Centre-state share: 90:10 for hilly and North-Eastern states and 60:40 for other states [2].
  • Worked example: for a ₹100 crore state plan, a normal state gets ₹60 crore from the Centre and pays ₹40 crore itself. A North-Eastern state gets ₹90 crore and pays ₹10 crore.
  • Targets: 1 crore farmers, 7.5 lakh ha, 15,000 clusters and 10,000 Bio-input Resource Centres (BRCs) [2][3].
  • Time frame: up to the end of the 15th Finance Commission period [2].
  • Krishi Sakhis (trained women farm helpers): over 70,000 deployed [3].
  • Progress by July 2025: over 10 lakh farmers enrolled, 1,100 model farms and 806 training institutes engaged [3].

• The debate:

• Yields may fall in the first years.
• A large-scale switch could put food security at risk.
• Costs may not really be "zero", because labour and cattle upkeep still cost money.

9. Resource-conserving practices

• Conservation agriculture has three principles:
• minimum soil disturbance
• permanent soil cover

• crop diversification.

• Zero tillage: seeds are sown directly into unploughed soil, and the previous crop's residue is left in place.

• The Happy Seeder machine sows wheat through the rice stubble, so farmers do not need to burn it. This helps cut air pollution in north India.

• Direct Seeded Rice (DSR): rice seed is sown directly in the field. Seedlings are not raised in a nursery and transplanted.

• It saves water and labour.

• It cuts methane, because fields are not kept flooded for long.

• System of Rice Intensification (SRI) (Madagascar, 1980s):

• Uses young seedlings, wide spacing and intermittent irrigation (the field is watered and dried in turns).

• Needs less water and less seed.

• Regenerative agriculture: restores soil and biodiversity through cover crops, reduced tillage, rotations and managed grazing.

10. Agroforestry, climate-smart agriculture and carbon farming

• Agroforestry: growing trees together with crops or livestock.
• It raises income, improves soil health and stores carbon.

• India's National Agroforestry Policy (2014) was the world's first.

• Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) (an FAO concept) has three aims at once:

• higher productivity
• resilience (the ability to cope with climate shocks)
• lower emissions.

• India's versions are NICRA (National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture, ICAR, 2011) and NMSA (National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture).

• Carbon farming: storing carbon in soil and trees. Farmers can earn carbon credits for it (see Section 11).

Prelims Hooks

• TKDL: set up in 2001 by CSIR and the Department of ISM&H (now Ayush). It is a prior-art database and not a patent-granting body [4][5].
• TKDL holds about 5.2 lakh formulations. Unani has the largest share (2,65,496), not Ayurveda [4].
• The US turmeric patent was revoked in 1997. The neem patent was also revoked, which is a classic biopiracy case.
• IPM has been national policy since 1985. It aims to keep pests below the Economic Threshold Level and does not try to wipe them out completely [8].
• NMNF: Cabinet approval on 25 November 2024, ₹2,481 crore, 1 crore farmers, 7.5 lakh ha, 15,000 clusters [2].
• PKVY (2015) clusters are 20 ha each [10].
• Sikkim became fully organic in January 2016 and covers 63,000 ha under Large Area Certification [10].
• ZBNF pillars: jeevamrutha, beejamrutha, acchadana, whapasa. A common trap is to add "vermicompost" as a pillar.
• SRI started in Madagascar (1980s), not in India or the Philippines.
• Conservation agriculture's three principles: minimum soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop diversification.

Mains Points

• Traditional knowledge as an economic asset:
• TKDL shows that documentation is defence: 283 patent claims were blocked [4].

• TKDL also links to the WIPO debate on protecting traditional knowledge and to benefit-sharing under the Biological Diversity Act.

• Green Revolution externalities:

• Fertiliser and pesticide overuse caused soil damage, falling groundwater and chemicals in the food chain.

• The answer is a mix of IPM, biocomposting and natural farming. These cut input costs, which helps the goal of raising farm income.

• Natural farming trade-off:

• NMNF's scale (1 crore farmers) must be weighed against the risk of yield loss and food security [2].

• A sensible path is to go step by step, cluster by cluster, and to use market support such as certification and price premiums.

• Climate linkage:

• DSR, zero tillage and the Happy Seeder cut methane and stubble burning.
• Agroforestry and carbon farming store carbon.
• Together they support India's NDC and SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), SDG 13 (Climate Action) and SDG 15 (Life on Land).