GO ORGANIC...

Have you ever thought that fresh and healthy fruits and vegetables that you pick daily from the market are actually healthy or not????? The answer is no. They are in most cases deceptive: they may be more toxic within. Not only fruits and vegetables but staple cereals and pulses, meat, milk, eggs, drinking water and processed foods and beverages are contaminated with poisonous residues to various degrees.

                     The population of India is 1.21 billion presently and ensuring food security for such a huge mass is not easy. Moreover, cultivable land is decreasing day by day. This necessitates use of high-yielding farm inputs like seeds, fertilisers, pesticides etc. It is estimated that India loses about 18% of the crop yield due to attack of various pests. So pesticides are an important part of our agricultural economy. The per hectare consumption of pesticide is low in India at 600 grams when compared to world average of 3000 grams. Actually only few of us are aware of this fact that pesticides act as silent killer to us. pesticide residues in food can cause serious health problems like neurotoxicity, carcinogenicity etc. The best alternative to overcome this problems is to consume organic foods.

                     Organic system of farming is to a large extent free of synthetic pesticides. Here, food products are grown according to a very strict set of rules which guarantee that harmful chemicals are not used. Organic farming is good for soil health also as it mostly uses biofertilisers which enhances organic matter content of the soil. Also, it conserves soil by reducing erosion and degradation. So, we should widely promote this system of sustainable and eco-friendly agriculture and encourage farmers to adopt this method on a large scale.

BARKHA

3^rd year