Organic works magic for Punjab again

While problems for farmers in Punjab, the foodgrains bowl of the country, have been mounting manifold, be it suicides or cancer, response of the state government has been ungenrous. Instead it is Kheti Virasat Mission, an NGO, that has been giving hope and reprieve to the distraught farmers, particularly in the Malwa region.

Umendra Dutt, who has been running the Mission for the last more than five years in Punjab, says “there is significant scientific evidence available today which shows beyond doubt that the soil, water and air of Punjab have been grossly polluted with highly poisonous/ toxic substances. The state is sitting on a volcano of environmental health crisis, which is affecting not only human beings but all other living species.”

“Use of highly poisonous agro-chemicals (pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilisers); discharge of untreated or partially treated industrial waste into natural water bodies and coal-based power plants have been causing devastation in the state”.

While trying to motivate farmers to get back to organic farming, he said, over 3,000 farmers had changed their way to farming. “They don’t take loans and depend largely on manure from the cattle herd for their produce”, he added.

“We are confronting the entire political class with some hard questions related to destruction of ecology, contamination of food chain and high prevalence of environmental toxins in Punjab”, said Dutt.

“Farmers under the mission use jeevaamrita (a cow urine based microbial preparation) to revive microbial activity in soil. With the application of jeevaamrita and ghan jeevaamrita (a solid form of jeevaamrita), the soil is gradually becoming rich in the humus, yield has increased and other life forms are coming back in the fields”, says Charanjeet Singh Punni, a farmer from Chaina village and a natural farming trainer.