6 - Organic Manures

Summary

Organic farming requires greater understanding in handling organic manure than conventional chemical farming. Farming is most economical when it uses local resources for nutrient management. Organic farming has been inherited as a tradition but Indians are unaware of its science. However, manuring crops has became an integral part of agriculture along with livestock. Unlike forests and grasslands, which manure themselves, agricultural lands need manuring as the crops exhaust their fertility every year.

Methods of manuring crops have been evolved over centuries in India and China. The Chinese have for ages recognised the importance of urine and dung in the preparation of compost. In India too, the only fertiliser available for growing crops was the FYM from time immemorial, but a lot of dung was wasted as fuel and Indian farmers were not as efficient as the Chinese in using the urine. The Chinese also gave much importance to human excreta as a rich source of nutrients to crops. The Indians had other methods of fertilising the land, through leguminous crops, crop rotation, recycling the tank silt, and so on. The Chinese and Indian peasants paid great attention to the return of all waste to the land and maintained the fertility of the soil for several centuries. It is said that the agriculture of ancient Rome failed because it was unable to maintain the soil in a fertile condition for long periods, as they did not follow such practices. (Howard, 1940).