Organic thread

Organic Universe

It is a universe of its own—an expanding universe that has its own producers and consumers, its entrepreneurs, its markets, its passionate aficionados of scientists and evangelists. It is a universe that is governed by a different set of regulations and plays strictly by the rules, for the most part.

Orange tumbles

A beaming Uday Wath hugs the trunk of his sturdy, disease-free Nagpur orange tree. All around him are trees drooping with the fruit, large and healthy. The tree trunks are singularly free of both telltale gummosis wounds and bluish white bordeaux paste, the chemical meant to prevent them.

Made it

Savvy Soumya Misra

No pesticides

Neem gains honour as India's wonder tree

NOW THAT "neemania" has gripped scientists in the West and neem (Azadirachta indica) is being hailed as the wonder tree that can solve global problems from locust swarms to AIDS, Indian scientists are jumping onto the bandwagon. And, after Western scientists proved neem-based pesticides are safer than synthetic ones such as DDT and can be commercially produced, Indian bureaucrats are pressing manufacturers to get in on the act.

Organic certification and technology

Happy Valley tea estate at an altitude of about 1,980 metres was once “sick and abandoned”. It now supplies organic tea to Harrods in London. For Anjan Medhi, manager of the estate, green manuring is no less of an art compared to tasting the brew. Cow pat pit, a fermented concoction of broken egg shells and basalt salt mixed with cow dung, is a bio-dynamic preparation that acts as a rich source of nutrients besides strengthening tea bushes against pest attacks.

Letters

Know Betel Farmers Of Tamil Nadu

Letters

CARS ON MY PLATE

Nutrient-rich pond

While Baghel has switched to methods advocated by Palekar, Khichi has devised his own methods for the same. He has put up a small dairy near his first pond, where he dumps all the dung and urine. “The dung produces green scum, which feeds the fish in the tank, which in turn keep the water clean,” he said.