“Creating Awareness about Organic Farming”
A field visit at village-Sambhave, Tal-Mulshi, Dist-Pune, [Sunday, Feb 27th, 2011]
The Social Responsibility Cell (SRC) of Sinhgad School of Business Studies, Narhe, Pune, under the guidance of SRC in-charge Dr. Ramanando Khundrakpam made a visit on Sunday, Feb.27th, 2011 at village Sambhave located North west of Pune. The objective of the visit was to create awareness in the farmers about the advantages of organic farming and explain to them the demerits of intensive/chemical farming.
The discussion started with the team telling the villagers the purpose of their visit. The villagers entertained us with great interest. At first, they gave us an idea about the current methods of farming being used. As expected, it was based on chemicals. The main crops of the village are sugarcane and rice. The village started chemical farming 30 years ago. Ever since, the production has increased, but, it has also increased problems for the farmers in the village.
Farmers elaborated on the challenges they are facing, which they believe is due to the usage of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in their farming practices, as follows.
The temparatures of the village and surrounding areas has risen considerably ever since chemical farming started.
On being asked, whether they would like to switch to organic farming the villagers expressed their interest. However, they would require more information on the same. A farmer said that government officials had told them about organic farming but the scheme remained on paper only. The SRC team provided the farmers with information regarding the subject matter and will work on helping farmers to start up organic farming by providing knowledge based information from time to time.
