ORGANIC FARMING
NARC,
Islamabad
CURRENT RESEARCH
Why Organic Agriculture
Pakistan is facing
severe energy crisis and high prices of chemical fertilizers in national market.
The raw material like rock phosphate is depleting at faster rate. The high
priced synthetic fertilizers are beyond the purchasing power of the poor
farmers of the country. This situation is further augmenting. Hence, it is high
time to introduce alternate farming technologies which are cost effective and
sustainable both for productivity and soil fertility.
Chairman, PARC, Dr.
Zafar Altaf established
Directorate of Organic Farming on August 22, 2008 to help the small farmers.
With the blessing of Allah, Directorate of Organic Farming progress leaps and
bounds and introduced/developed lot of innovative technologies like
bio-fertilizers, bio-pesticides and bio-herbicides. Moreover, In view of these
innovations, Chairman, PARC upgraded the Directorate of Organic Farming to
National Institute of Organic Agricultural. The institute is involved in
identifying new production technology and disseminating new knowledge to the
small farmers across the country.
World Organic Agriculture Scenario
Organic Agriculture has rapidly developed worldwide during last few years and is now practiced in approximately 110 countries of the world including Pakistan. The share of agricultural land and farms continue to grow. Furthermore, it can reasonably be assumed that uncertified organic farming is practiced in even more countries. According to latest survey, more than 26 million hectares are currently managed organically by at least 558,449 farms worldwide. Pakistan has also great potential to introduce organic rice as major export commodity in international market like India. India is selling her rice in European market at very high price (three fold higher than conventional) as compared to conventional rice. Although peoples consider that with the introduction of organic farming yield will reduce. Actually, this is not the real case because in Pakistan small land holders are not able to apply heavy doses of fertilizers as well as pesticides. It is expected that 33% of Pakistani farmers are already producing mixed organic. Now it is the need of the time to support such farmers technically and morally to use natural inputs like residues, compost and crop rotation as well as C4 plant, which are useful for land sustainability.
Pakistan Organic Agriculture Scenario
In 2005-2006
total area under organic agriculture was 35000 acres which increased to 150000
acres (approx.) by 2009-2010 as reported by Hunza Organic, Noor Organic, Taj
Food and from others (Muhammad, 2010). The total export value of our organic
rice, cotton, dry fruit and fresh fruit is worth 100 million US Dollars.
Economic Evaluation of Applications of Organic Fertilizers
(Nutrients) and Bio-pesticides
Besides evaluation of efficacy of different organic field inputs levels, economic analyses of using these products are carried out for different crops including vegetables. Overall cost expenditures incurred and total returns obtained from different organic products are subjected to analyze and estimate the net returns per unit area and per unit time while using organic production systems.
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