A colleague of mine at an US university who was pursuing a PhD in Botany asked me why were there so many research papers in Botany coming from India. Being a non botanist, I had no answer. Upon looking briefly at the papers, a lot of them were coming from small colleges and not the major institutes. We always have done well in getting most out of our land. Our botanists have done well in helping our food production (I wish I could say the same about our govt. and their food distribution - with food rotting in storage and people dying of hunger!).
India always had one of the highest populations in the world. Our rivers including "Mother Ganges" and the fertile land surrounding her have sustained us for eons. Even today if we had better infrastructure for food distribution, no one in India would go hungry or at the very least get two "daal rotis" in a day.
I always took pride in what our botanists had managed to achieve (not withstanding all this hullabaloo about the genetically modified foods). The following article is a very good article on traditional farming In Uttarakhand. Our traditional wisdom is coming to our rescue once more. This is what I mean by our "culture". Isn't it great???
Uttarakhand sowing seeds for a better tomorrow
The way forward to sustainable agriculture lies in sticking to traditional methods,
Baba Mayaram
"The number 12 is only indicative; it does not mean that the cropping and sowing pattern cannot use more varieties. The core idea is the strengthening of the twin pillars of farming and animal husbandry. This implies optimum utilisation of by-products of each to boost the other. For instance, the non-harvested portions of the crop become fodder for animals and the dung from the animals become fertile manure for the farms. By-products of harvested crops could also be used to produce bio-fertiliser this holistic pattern of agriculture has been the base of traditional farming. "
The rest of the article can be read at the following url:
http://dailypioneer.com/255192/Uttarakhand-sowing-seeds-for-a-better-tomorrow.html
No comments:
Post a Comment