“More Crop Per Drop”

The Thought

What comes to your mind when you hear this word Agriculture? What good do we actually know of the problems, the struggles, the hurdles that everyone who is working for providing food on your table for all these years and many more to come, face on a day to day basis?  Are natural resources, the seeds, the quality and the market abundantly available to the farmer? Or for that matter do we ever have an abundance of any resources keeping in mind the ever growing population and ever rising demands of almost everything?  What if I tell you that there is a way to achieve the best quality, highly organic crops in lesser everything…… for example lesser land, lesser manpower, lesser water, no fertilizers, no soil and mind you that every crop that is being grown is getting the exact nutrients, the water and the environment  it needs and the possibilities are endless from crops being anything ranging from food crops to beautiful flowers.

The Soilless Cultivation Concept – The Poly-House Culture

The key is to minimalize the intake and maximize the outcome hence, the crops are not just grown but engineered. The advantages are

➢      Possible to cultivate in wastelands-barren land

➢      Possible to cultivate in media after easy process of disinfection

➢      pH control

➢      Uniform irrigation through Drip irrigation

➢      Round year production

➢      Water distribution system and return drain gutter to reuse the drainage water and nutrients.

➢      Off season crops cultivation ex. Tomatoes, Cucumber, Capsicum, Ginger etc.

➢      Ideal for exotic and traditional vegetables

➢      No need to use machinery cultivation and soil tillage operations

➢      No weed problems

➢      Use of coco peat (soilless culture) and sea grass as nutrients for growing crops to prevent them from root borne pathogens.

➢      No use of Chemical fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides hence no water and soil pollution

➢      Short period and high yield

and many more

          

It is a modern technology in which a structure is raised made up of galvanized pipes and plastic sheets used in a proper proportion. This 200 Microns of plastic is used to cover the structure and is used for making the bed for the crops.

           Our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi visited the Danziger “Dan” flower farm in Israel to gain first hand information about the latest innovations and advancements in floriculture.

“New fast –growing Israeli Chrysanthemum flower named in honour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and will be called “MODI”.

 Danziger flower farm developed into a company of 200 employees from a small family business, growing and selling cut flowers.

Today, the farm produces young plants and cuttings for the local market and for more than 60 countries all over the world.

The visit to the farm highlights that one of Israel’s key interests in closer cooperation with India is its expertise in agricultural technology

Farmers committing suicide across India for years now, and studies of rural distress reveal the deeply rooted, tenacious causes, such as lack of irrigation, fragmentation of land, unsuitability of seeds and inadequate sources of credit.

This disparity was sharpest in western Vidarbha, where the farmer was entirely at the mercy of the weather, bankruptcy, crop failure, the market, and the state’s indifferences.

This blog is just to create awareness so that people can be self sustained in growing crops by this innovative technique. Our government is also releasing subsidy upto 50% to 70% in different states for helping people in such type of agriculture. Some farmers of U.P. Maharashtra, M.P. and Rajasthan have already started it. We must grow our kitchen garden of few vegetables like fenugreek, coriander, cucumber, capsicum and spinach in earthen pots or plastic pots using coco peat. This will prevent Bio-magnification or accumulation of harmful substances through food chains in humans and other organisms.

            G. D. Goenka Public School Greater NOIDA also works on the same line in their  Environment Club Activity with great vision and hope to create a better present and the best future for our coming generations.       

                                                                                    

By Daya Chaturvedi