Traditional farming

Worldwide, poor agricultural practices has reduced soil organic carbon (SOC) in an alarming level. SOC is carbon stored in the soil.  It is part of the soil organic matter (SOM) which  is made up of a complex and varied mixture of materials such as crop residues, humus and animal matters in a various stages of decay.  SOC in a healthy soil should be >10 percent. But in a heavily exploited soil, the SOC level is  <1 percent.  

The poor soil cause the farmers to use excess amount of artificial fertilizers and pesticides. By doing this, farmers try to yield quick results. But, do they know these will give a negative impact on the natural nutrients and potential of the soil? The excess use of pesticides and fertilizers will contaminate and pollute the water and environment. 

Thus, we need a sustainable, environment friendly and socially responsible farming. Traditional farming system that fit into the desired agrosystem, able to produce sufficient high quality food whilst maintaining and enhancing biodiversity and our natural environment. This type of  farming  uses local techniques such as crop rotation, green manure compost and biological pest control. 

Nowadays,  farmers are advised to implement integrated farming with agricultural and horticulture crops, cattle and sheep rearing, poultry and bee keeping and vermin-culture. Dairy farming is pursued with native breeds of cattle, which were disease-resistant and sturdy.

In India,traditional farming uses mixture containing cow dung, cow urine, organic jaggery, humus soil and flour made from assorted grams ( It is said that one cow is sufficient to produce enough manure for 30 acres). This mixture will rejuvenate soil where the micro-nutrients of the soil give an immune system that capable for the crop to protect itself from diseases.  It also gives better nutrient value to the soil to produce bigger and better sizes crops. Furthermore, there is a huge demands for organic products worldwide.

In small household gardens, one can try using traditional farming method by using a smaller quantity of cow dung, cow urine and sugar. The mixture will be :-

1 kg cow dung

5 liters of cow urine

1 kg jaggery/ sugar

additional  

neem leaves

pungan leaves (punggai mara ilai)

Dump cow dung, cow urine and sugar in a drum. Water will be let in into the drums. neem leaves and pungan leaves in gunny bags will be dumped in the drum. This leaves as a value added input to the to the manure produced. After fermentation for 24 hours , the generated manure from the drum would be let to the plants using drip irrigation. The plants or crops grown in these manure and method are surely disease resistant.