The quality and safety of food always come first. Traditionally grown food is mostly infected by pesticides, nitrates, heavy metals, antibiotic residues, etc, and hence can result in adverse health effects. While seeking safer food, people are turning towards organically grown food. Organic food is produced without chemicals and synthetic pesticides making it healthier and safe to eat.  

Farmers of many countries, including India nowadays are switching to organic farming due to very obvious reasons. As of March 2020, about 27.8 lakh hectares of farmland are under organic cultivation and it is expected to increase manifold with time. States like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra account for most of the organic cultivation in India.

Not only organic farming creates a promising social, environmental, and economic food production system, it uses many advanced techniques too. Here, we will discuss more organic farming and how it can be made more accessible with technology.

Advantages of organic farming

1. It improves the fertility of the soil by using crop residues and cover crops.
2. It results in crops that are highly adaptive to climate changes. This has been possible due to the combination of new techniques and traditional farming skills.
3. It increases the water retention capacity of soil that allows crops to stay for a longer period without water.
4. It doesn’t use pesticides and chemical fertilizers thus reducing water pollution.
5. It helps in retaining the soil’s organic matter.

Organic farming and techniques involved

Organic farming is a great opportunity where nature and technology work together. Organic farming uses 28% to 30% less energy as compared to conventional farming. For organic farming, certain pre-requisites are already set by USDA organic food production act (OFPA, 1990). According to this, organic crops are only acceptable if they are cultivated without the use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers. 

Organic agriculture also helps in reducing greenhouse gases. It also encourages the use of methods like green manure, crop rotation, pest control, compost, and mechanical cultivation. 

Organic farming and technology 

Not just the advanced farming techniques, organic farming can also use advanced digital technologies. Organic farming is fresh farming. Since it doesn’t involve the usage of any kind of pesticides and chemicals, their shelf life is also less. Hence there is a need to export them as quickly as possible. This is where technology comes into play. Organic farm traders can adopt technology in the form of online accounting software to reach out to their potential customers and record their transactions in an organized manner. 

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Please drop a comment below and let us know if you trade in organic agricultural commodities. Don’t forget to like, share and follow this blog for weekly articles.