Letters

Farming back to the past

Some time back I had received a few complimentary issues of your magazine. Under the Grassroots section you had published a series of articles on organic farming. These gave me valuable insights into the innovative ways of recycling waste back to the agricultural field, the association of plant species and on the methods of maintaining soil health.

I have been crossbreeding cattle in my backyard. Earlier, I used to flush the stall washing into the local sewer, but after reading the articles in your magazine, I have started routing the waste water through my garden, and I am now using that to irrigate my potted plants. Now I get a luxuriant growth and a good harvest of bananas. This success has prompted me to venture into organic farming on a larger scale, keeping dairy farming as the nucleus of the system. This system is so to say outdated when compared with the modern chemical-based farming systems, but I strongly believe that we have to gradually revert back to the old farming practice of religiously returning recyclable waste back to the agricultural fields. That alone can ensure sustainable agricultural development.

Indiscriminate use of pesticides have driven away the natural predators of plant pests, which in turn have built up resistance to the chemicals. This makes things very difficult for organic farming in the preliminary stages. In Down to Earth, we read a lot about the innovative ways of controlling them practiced in different parts of the country. Hence, communication is the need of the hour, whether through the various media or individually, to exchange information on such issues.

I would like to request your readers to help me in this quest for innovative methods to cross the initial hurdles facing organic farming. ...

Good reading

We enjoyed reading the article 'Till Joys'. It has captured the empowermnent dimension and the efforts of the women to achieve this. As you mentioned, though our programme addressing women-related issues may look similar to those of Santidan, we are attempting to create an alternative financial system and business support mechanisms for the economic development of the poor on a sustainable basis....

Wasted efforts

Sometime back, I had watched on Doordarshan's UGC programme, 2 separate itmes which interested me greatly. One was a machine capabale of turning agricultural and farm waste into compressed fuel pellets; and the other was a gassifier which was able to convert biomass into energy for cooking, or for conversions into electricity. Both these items were reportedly designed and made by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi.

In Down to Earth too, I had come across a write-up about a small, mobile biogas plant, supposedly put together by a diary cooperative in the Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu. I had written for details to the address given, since I was interested in trying one out and then, if found suitable, to introduce this low-cost utility item in Goa. I am sorry to note that no response came from the address. I then asked a friend to check it out. He also did not find any such mobile gas plant and said that the cooperative did not have any information on it. The trail went cold. Then I wrote to iit Delhi, seeking information on the gassifier and pelletmaker. Again, there was silence.

It is an undeniable fact that far too much energy-producing resources given gratis by nature are being wasted, and we are chasing the mega hydro-electric or atomic power projects and placing the earth in greater danger of damage and destruction. This can be stopped only by our going in for cheaper, safer and simpler technologies, like the cheap solar heating devices, micro-generators which generate electricity from wind and water.

It would be useful if your magazine could commence a special column in which such innovations from individuals or institutions can be regularly published. Besides opening up information transfer from the laboratories to the people, this column could also give an opening to amateur scientific innovators to reach out to the people....

Callous unconcern

We were shocked to read the press reports regarding the denotification of protected forest lands in Udaipur.

It is amazing how vested interests in mining can be so insensitive to the already alarmingly depleted conditions of our forests. Lending support to such denotifications is indicative of the malafide intentions of these people towards the human and animal population in the region.

The WWF-India, Udaipur division, requests the MEF to save this region from a catastrophe and bring it under the Aravali Notification of the environment ministry (May 7, 1992), like Alwar and Gurgaon....

Letters Letters